EDWARD LEE

BRIDES OF THE IMPALER

For Wendy Brewer, my infernal angel.

THE RECURRING NIGHTMARE

You’re in a hot grotto of some sort, or perhaps a medieval dungeon. You smell niter and soil and you can see water bleeding through walls of uneven bricks lit by wan firelight. The fire gently crackles…

And the woman raises the cup…

She’s robust, beautiful, and nearly nude. The only clothing she wears is hardly clothing at all but the black and white wimple of a nun. She seems parched, her lambent skin glazed with sweat, and the firelight lays moving squiggles on it, like faint tongues of light. And the cup—

Not a cup, really. It’s cereal bowl–sized but of dull brown clay. You can’t see what’s in it. The woman’s breasts jut as she raises it high, as if in offering. Three gemstones mounted on the bowl sparkle, one black, one green, one red.

Behind her, the firelight on the wall…changes. Soon the bricks are squirming with wavering lines of black, green, and red, slowly writhing, snakelike. When the nun lowers the bowl just below her bare breasts, you see its contents: blood.

The luminous black, green, and red lines behind her begin to churn in a fury and then her eyes go wide and she turns her head to gaze right through the mirage—

Right at you—

—and grins, showing two long, narrow, and very sharp fangs…

Contents

Title Page
Dedication
The Recurring Nightmare
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Praise
Also By Edward Lee
Copyright

PROLOGUE

Romania, Thirty years ago

Fredrick flinched like a sudden chill, and behind his closed eyes he saw a nude woman impaled upside-down through the mouth on a twenty-foot pike…

Sweet Jesus …When he opened his eyes, there was nothing but drab stone walls.

“Are you all right, Professor?”

Fredrick shook out of the vertigo. Just the power of suggestion, he knew. In truth, he had no interest in Romania’s archeological history after 100 or so A.D. “Yes, yes. Just an odd chill…”

Janice Line, his post grad teaching assistant, beamed at the ancient church’s rock walls. “This entire place is so mythic. I can’t believe I’m finally here.” It was with awe that she looked at the great altar. Janice was twentysome-thing, with shining, dark-copper hair and overly enthusiastic eyes. She stood shorter than average and would be described as “plush” rather than overweight. Cutoff demin shorts, work boots, and a T-shirt that read CARTER FOR PRESIDENT; she possessed all the idealism of any proverbial archeology student. Fredrick knew he was over-the-hill now; his assistant’s burgeoning breasts scarcely gave him cause to glance.

“So this is the legendary Nave of Snagov,” he said, looking down with her. A deep, jagged hole had been dug directly at the foot of the ornate stone altar.

“And the even more legendary ‘Table of the Lord,’” added Janice. An excited hush seeped into her voice. “The supposed grave of Vlad Tepes, aka Dracula. But when they originally dug this hole, they didn’t find Dracula’s body, they found—”

“Everyone knows the story, Janice,” Fredrick complained. “They found the skeleton of a dog instead.”

“A headless dog. Just as Dracula himself was said to have been buried headless, after his assassination in 1476.”

Headless …

The word echoed in the airy chancel.

“He was so reviled by the Turks that they bartered for his head and took it to Istanbul. They displayed it in the public square…on the end of a pike.”

“Come on,” Fredrick said almost testily. He took her back outside. Kids …

In spite of the summer heat, a breeze seemed to slice cool air off the water beyond, the treacherously deep Lake Snagov. It was in the middle of this immense lake that the wooded island sat, and in the middle of that loomed the monastery itself, one of the oldest in Romania. The buildings stood curiously—a complex, actually—chapels, rectories, serfs’ quarters, etc., part fortress, part house of God, and, yes, the coincidental final refuge of a fifteenth-century prince named Vladislav Dracula. Fredrick was tired of the morbid legend and even of the truth intermingled with it. His request for permission to excavate had nothing to do with that drivel.

But he could see the gleam in his young assistant’s eyes…

The chapel they’d just exited had been refurbished off and on over centuries and appeared nearly pristine, along with selected other edifices, while others stood in varying degrees of ruin. “I can’t believe the government let me make this survey,” Fredrick voiced his thoughts.

Janice bounced along beside him, passing an old iron forge. “I hope they grant the rest—that would be wonderful. No one’s excavated here to any significance since the earthquake in 1940.” Janice subconsciously touched her elder’s shoulder and squeezed. “With your egghead savvy? I’m sure you’ll be able to talk the commission into authorizing another full dig.”

Fredrick had to laugh. Egghead savvy? “Yes, that or the simple fact that the university has offered to pay the government twenty thousand dollars for the privilege.”

“I’ll bet that’s worth a million here,” she giggled.

Now they traced an inner fortress wall. Could the faint dark stains on it really be blood spilled almost six centuries ago? There were more stains, too, on the bricks beneath their feet.

“These are newer bricks, probably put here in the 1600s,” Janice corrected. “The old ones were considered cursed, so they were dumped in the lake.”

“What on earth for?”

“This is the inner fortress, Professor. In Dracula’s time this entire quadrangle was filled with impaling pikes, probably hundreds of them—”

“I really don’t want to hear any more about that, Janice,” he interrupted.

“—on which the condemned were staked alive. Criminals, Turkish prisoners, and ethnic Germans mostly. Dracula was never content unless every single pike in the square was occupied.”

“Enough,” Fredrick insisted.

“Every morning when he woke up, the first thing he’d do is look down here and revel at all the corpses held aloft by the pikes—” and she turned quickly, pointing upward to a second-story window in one of the old rectories. “From there, Professor. That window right there.”

Fredrick frowned—What a sucker I am—when he looked up at the glassless window. Had the defender of Wallachia and the infamous impaler of thousands really done as Janice claimed?

Am I looking at his ghost right now?

Janice’s tone descended to a studied seriousness. “We’re walking on history, Professor.”

“Yes,” he snapped, “and the history you should be most concerned with is that of the Daco-Roman variety. I shouldn’t have to remind you—we’re here solely to investigate why brooches, jupon clips, and coins from 400 B.C. have been found on these grounds. We’re not here to investigate Vlad Dracula. That’s already been investigated, quite exhaustively.”

“Oh, I know,” she said, “but still…” Her beaming eyes scanned the half ruins once more. “It’s just so…cool.”

Cool. My God …

Janice wandered up stone steps to a rampart; Fredrick, along with his frown, followed her. “What are you coming up here for?”

“I just have to see it.”

“See what? The lake? You already have. It’s just a lake.”

“No, no, Professor. I want to see the other side of the lake.”

Exasperated, he nearly trotted after her. Janice was gazing between two stone merlons, at the dense forest across the water.

“It’s a forest, Janice. Just a forest.”

“Not just any forest,” she intoned. “It’s the Vlasian forest. One of Dracula’s many Forests of the Dead. He impaled ten thousand prisoners, boyars, and Transylvanian Saxons in those woods, just to scare the Turks away. In fact, over the course of his guerrilla campaigns, Dracula impaled over ten times that many, all over southern Romania.”

Had it really been that many? Of his own citizens?

When she turned, she stood starkly silhouetted by the sun, a curvaceous, pitch-black cutout. “And down there. Do you know what that is?”

Fredrick looked back down into the quadrangle. She was pointing to the stream that coursed across the yard. “The monastery’s water supply?” He wanted to yell now. “It’s a stream, Janice. Just a stream.”

“It’s where Dracula may have secreted his most valuable booty as well. While most archival testaments from the 1470s claim that Dracula protected his spoils in iron drums and dumped them in the middle of the lake, several other statements insist that he merely paid peasants to spread that rumor.”

“So the spoils are actually buried in the stream,” Fredrick groaned.

“Yes! Only weeks before his murder, he forced his remaining boyar slaves to dam the stream and dig deep pits. It’s a rumor that’s been passed down for over five centuries. Dracula’s true spoils are most likely buried there, and probably his body as well.” She paused. “His headless body, I mean.”

“If there was even a remote chance of that being true, someone would’ve dredged the stream in short order.”

“Nope,” she said, assured. “No one would dare, for two reasons. One, it would be against church law because any stream that passes through a House of God is considered sacred—it’s holy water.”

Fredrick’s frown was now deepening the creases in his fifty-year-old face. “And the second reason?”

“Because this entire monastic complex is cursed.”

It was Fredrick himself who felt cursed. He didn’t believe in the supernatural; he was a scientist of the art of unlocking the secrets of ancient civilizations. He came from a long line of archaeologists; his brother, in fact, was the dean of archaeology at Harvard. He’d laugh in my face if I told him I was coming here …

The idea was to compel the Romanian Commission of Historic Monuments to grant Fredrick twenty more work visas so that he could bring his best students here to dig. Hopefully they’d be able to identify the age of the sedimentary layers here that held a plethora of ancient coins and tools of Roman design. This would prove a Roman influence in the land several hundred years earlier than anyone had previously thought: a groundbreaking discovery the likes of which all scholars longed for. I could write my own ticket if I proved that, Fredrick knew. It would be the same as a zoologist discovering a new species.

But here? Five to ten feet above my academic gold mine is all this Dracula nonsense …

His younger colleague couldn’t have been more transfixed, but Fredrick guessed he could understand, if only in part. Such supernatural legends never died due to the power of their intrigue. Ghosts, vampires, curses …Fredrick knew it was the same intrigue that caused protohumans to etch such phantoms on their cave walls 100,000 years ago. Obsession with the occult was a part of human nature.

As they went back down, Fredrick caught himself asking, “Who exactly killed Dracula, Janice?”

His question thrilled her. “No one knows for sure but it was either a Saxon assassin hired by one of his many pro-Turkish political rivals, or an actual Turkish spy hiding in the ranks of Dracula’s militia. Either way it was by a contract issued by the Ottoman Empire. They hated Dracula with a passion because of the atrocities he committed against them in battle. Dracula fought many campaigns trying to reclaim parts of the Romanian heartland that the Turks had overtaken after the capture of Constantinople in 1453. Dracula was very much a tit-for-tat kind of guy, and it’s ironic that his infamous art of atrocity was actually taught to him by the Turks themselves.”

“How’s that?”

“Back in those times, enemies would often trade their children to each other, to ensure peace treaties. When Dracula was a child, he spent at least five years in the custody of the Turkish emperor, this to guarantee that Dracula’s father, a powerful Christian warlord, didn’t break the current peace accord he’d signed. Anyway, it was in these Turkish courts that young Dracula watched European prisoners be sawed in half, burned alive, eye-gouged, scalped and skinned, genitally mutilated, boiled in oil, and—last but not least—impaled.” Janice winked at him. “How’s that for a happy childhood?”

Fredrick felt shell-shocked and irked simultaneously. “I guess that’s the long version of the answer to my regrettable question.”

Janice giggled. “You asked. But my point is the irony that Dracula learned his penchant for impaling from the Turks themselves, his sworn enemies. Can you imagine, growing up and looking out your window to see that? What an effect it must’ve had on Dracula’s young mind. Another thing Dracula had to witness were the Turkish guards forcing prisoners to eat each other, often their own family members—”

“Janice!” Fredrick yelled, nauseated now. “I only asked who killed the man!”

“Oh, sorry. I guess I digressed—”

“Yes, I’d say so!”

The young bosomy woman calmed down from her gruesome historical zeal. “Dracula was assassinated in late 1476 somewhere nearby, probably the woods just beyond the lake. He was forty-five. An abbot from this monastery discovered the decapitated body and had it brought here to be buried somewhere in the chapel we just looked at. Exactly where, no one knows. But it was hoped that the property’s sanctity would serve a talismanic effect. Back then they believed that burying an evil person on church grounds was the same as Christ himself wielding the shovel, and personally tamping down the grave dirt.”

Fredrick felt winded by the morbid dissertation. Next time…don’t ask. At the front gate, his colleague spoke with the military driver who’d driven them here from town. He smoked a rank filterless cigarette while sitting in a ’50s-era Russian jeep. As the soldier spoke, his eyes never left Janice’s considerable bosom. How rude, these Communists, Fredrick thought. He’d specifically brought Janice on the survey, however, because she spoke the native language.

“Frebuie sa merg inapoi la comjemata acum,” the soldier said, “dor ma voi intoarce mune la amiajaah.”

“Multumesc joarte mult.”

Only now did the scruffy conscript’s gaze rise from Janice’s chest to her eyes. “Erti sujur ca nu frei sa mergi ar mime?”

“Da, oom ji bine.”

The soldier flicked his cigarette over the bridge abutment. He shook his head with a half smile. “Nimine niciodota nusi petrece nooptea in locul acesta,” he said, then started his jeep and drove away, leaving a trail of blue exhaust.

“What did he say? I mean, when he wasn’t staring at your chest?” Fredrick asked.

Janice grinned coyly. “He wanted us to go back with him. He said ‘No one ever spends the night in this place…’”

It had been Janice who’d practically pleaded to spend the night in the monastery. She played me like a piano, Fredrick thought now, in the upstairs hall of the main rectory. Those big puppy-dog eyes and those big—

“This is so exciting, Professor, I really can’t thank you enough,” she said, still bouncing along more than walking. “I’ll be a sport and let you have the honors.”

“What honors?”

She stopped in the stone hall. “We know that Dracula lived on the monastery grounds many times during his life; in fact, he occupied the area repeatedly, reinforcing its walls and turning it more into a garrison than an abode for monks. But it’s not clear exactly where he stayed—which rooms, that is—save for one instance.” She placed her hand on a doorframe. “This room here, the one we viewed from outside. We know for a fact that the Impaler Lord resided in this room with his Hungarian wife and two sons in the summer of 1475. So, unless you’re scared…you can have this room tonight.”

Ridiculous. “Very funny, Janice. But what’s funnier is that we could’ve stayed at the guest house in town for the equivalent of five dollars but instead we’re staying here. There’s no electricity, the water barely trickles, and the windows have no glass. Tonight we’ll probably get eaten alive by mosquitos.”

“Not bats?”

Fredrick fumed. “Revel in your youth, Janice. It’s full to bursting”—Like your T-shirt, he thought—“with naivety and idealism. If I’d known you were so obsessed with this Dracula nonsense, I probably wouldn’t have brought you along.”

“Of course you would’ve,” she challenged, laughing.

“Really? And why is that?”

“Because I’m the smartest arch student you’ve ever had—”

Well…she’s got me there, he admitted. “—and I speak Romanian. You don’t.”

“Fine, but just to show you that I’m not afraid of this drab, silly monastery, I’ll happily sleep in this room to night.”

“Not just any room,” Janice added just to be dramatically redundant. “Dracula’s room.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon arranging their effects in their respective rooms. There were no beds, of course, so the floor sufficed for their sleeping bags. Fredrick read Archaeology Review by the light of a Coleman lantern. Every so often, he turned to face the window—Dracula’s window, he reminded himself in jest—only to swear he heard a wolf howling across the lake. If anything, though, the stone-walled room couldn’t have been less scary.

“Dinnertime, Romanian style,” Janice announced after barging in. She carried her backpack in one hand and a candle in the other.

“I have Twinkies,” Fredrick offered.

“No, no, we’ll eat authentic to night.” She pulled some cans and jars from the pack and placed them on an old blond-wood table. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Dracula himself ate the very same things in this room in 1475.”

He definitely didn’t eat Twinkies, Fredrick thought. “You got this at the deli in town, I presume.”

“Yep. You’ll like it.” Now she lit another candle and began to open the cans and jars, preparing two paper plates. Fredrick noticed that her shadow on the back wall seemed to shift.

“Canned bread?” he questioned of one item.

“It’s called lokum. It’s kind of like nut bread—all Romanians eat it. In fact all of the dishes here are commonplace staples.” Janice slid Fredrick a plate.

The lokum reminded him of rum cake, and there was also some sort of medley of beans and sliced beets. He took a bite of some manner of meat marinated in chopped olives and found it delicious.

“That’s excellent. Is it beef?”

“Sort of. It’s beef tongue.”

Fredrick slid his plate away and reached for the wine.

She ate a piece of the lokum, mentioning, “Dracula liked to dip his lokum in the blood of enemies he’d executed. And he sometimes mixed the blood with his wine. He claimed it gave him extra strength on the battlefield.”

“Thanks for telling me that, Janice.” Fredrick hastened to change the subject. “With any luck, the commission will give us their answer tomorrow. They’re supposed to be sending someone out—a woman from the district curator’s office. If I could just get twenty more students here—I’m sure we’d make a lot of progress.”

“I guess the only thing going against us is the fact that we’re Americans.”

“Yes…the so-called Ugly Americans. We’re capitalistic pigs as far as they’re concerned.”

“But they’ll take our money just the same,” Janice said confidently.

“Whether they do or they don’t, we have to be very careful what we say.”

She looked wistfully out the window. “Maybe we’re overreacting to all this Cold War stuff, Professor. The folks at the archaeology department seemed pretty cool if you ask me.”

“Cool doesn’t matter, Janice.” Suddenly, Fredrick longed for a Big Mac. “Don’t forget, this is a Communist country and a satellite of the Soviet Union.”

“Yeah, sure, but Snagov isn’t the same. No one comes here, the soldiers don’t even patrol here.” Janice uplit her face with a candle. “Remember, the island and everything on it has been cursed for five hundred years. The villagers won’t even fish in the lake because that’s where Dracula dumped so many corpses.”

Fredrick sighed a useless resignation. When they were done eating, Janice cleaned off the table. “I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted,” she declared. “I’m going to take a bath—or at least try to—and then go to bed.”

“Good idea. And hopefully when you wake up, you’ll forget about all this Dracula business.” But as Janice reached for her backpack, Fredrick noticed a book sticking out of it. He snatched it up.

“Janice! You’re hopeless!”

The book was entitled Dracula: Prince of Many Faces.

“That’s the Holy Bible of Draculean history, Professor. It’s probably the most authoritative text that exists on the subject.”

Fredrick wanted to scream. “We’re not here for this monastery’s relation to Vlad Dracula! We’re here for relics from a millennium earlier!”

“Yeah, yeah,” she dismissed. “I’ll leave the book with you. I can’t think of anything more appropriate than a nonbeliever reading all about Vlad’s atrocities in the very room he slept in so many centuries ago.”

“Good night, Janice!”

She paused at the door, and it was probably deliberate the way she turned at the waist to elucidate her bosom. “Oh, and if you want any more wine, I left the other bottles outside to cool.”

Fredrick frowned. “To cool? Where?”

“In the stream, of course. You know—the stream where Vlad’s real body is probably buried…”

“Go to bed!” Fredrick yelled.

Janice scooted away, an echoic laugh in her wake. Fredrick thumbed his eyes, then got ready for bed himself.

He tried to sleep but found himself totally jinxed now by the residual imagery of Janice’s banter. He caught himself wondering exactly where in the room Dracula had slept. A madman, he thought. A butcher. Had the prince of Wallachia and savior of Transylvania actually murdered anyone in this room as well?

Fredrick slept in snatches, then dragged himself up. Damn it!

He lit a candle to push back some of the darkness. Sleep was impossible under these conditions.

He knew he was nervous about tomorrow, when the Romanian representative would come to tell him about the additional visas. I don’t suppose I’d want any Romanians digging in our historical sites, he considered. Was there really a difference?

He redressed, tamped his pipe, and went downstairs and back outside. There were no night-sounds at all—save for the infrequent wolf-bays. No peepers, no cricket trills. The moonlight made the stagnant night look icy. He lit his pipe and rewalked the inner quadrangle. The fortress walls, twenty feet thick at some points, seemed monolithic now, the twilight cutting the ramparts in stunning black. He knew there were torture chambers on the grounds, below some of the older edifices or their ruined foundations. How many people had died here? he kept wondering. Only silence here now, but in the mid-1400s?

Fredrick knew this fortress yard must’ve run rampant with screams—

The academician’s hand flew to his heart when a shriek wheeled out into the night.

Jesus! He turned and looked up, heart hammering. Candlelight flickered in one of the second-story windows, then a shadow moved.

“Janice!” he bellowed. “Are you—”

The younger woman appeared in the stone window frame, a sheepish smile on her face. She held her hands to her overspilling bare breasts.

“Sorry,” she echoed down. “I hope I didn’t scare you.”

“Well you did scare me! What’s wrong?”

“I got in the bath too fast,” she admitted. “The water’s ice-cold.”

“For pity’s sake!” Fredrick continued to yell. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”

She smiled down. “Thought it was a specter, huh?”

Fredrick scowled.

“I can’t sleep, either,” she said. “Being here is just…too exciting.”

What am I going to do with her? he bemoaned. He relit his pipe and let himself calm down. “Go to bed,” he gruffed.

Her voice floated and she pulled back from the window. “Pleasant dreams…”

I will not let her spook me, he determined. Hadn’t she said something about chilling some wine out here? The stream, he recalled. I guess a few slugs of that would calm me down …

He retraced his steps and found it; he presumed the stream was spring-fed, since its source didn’t appear to extend past the north wall. A long sip of the icy wine quenched him, a strong fruity aftertaste glowing in his mouth. Just don’t get drunk, he warned himself. He took the bottle to a stone bench with cruciform inlays and sat down, but after another sip, he frowned, recalling Janice’s morbid remark at dinner. Vlad Dracula dipped his bread in blood? I doubt it …

The alcohol buzzed him in minutes. Strong stuff.

Or was it?

It occurred to him that the monk’s bench was, almost imperceptibly, moving…

He rubbed his face, then stared up at the rectory.

My God …

It seemed to be moving, ever so slightly.

Either the Romanians make very strong wine or—

The rumbling came next, felt first in his diaphragm, then much more obviously. Tremor, he thought, sitting poised. This area’s known for them—it’ll pass.

The tremor didn’t pass; it magnified, and the rumbling grew to a grinding cacophony. All around him now the moon-tinged fortress began to visibly shake. The bench was vibrating.

“Janice!” he yelled up at the rectory. “Come outside! We’re having an—”

There was a grinding roar. The bench was lifting, and that’s when Fredrick noticed that a fissure was forming just a yard to his right, and nearly half of the inner courtyard was rising out of the ground. He jumped up, about to race to the center of the yard, but—

“Jesus!”

The grinding roar exploded. Another angle of the ground he stood on levered upward. Fredrick lost his footing and fell…

Right on his head.

smack!

He was unconscious before the fact could register, as the entire north wall collapsed…

I’m dead, he seemed to think, but if so, how could he think at all? He floated through blocked-out darkness, and at the furthest fringes of his senses he thought he heard the faintest screams, layers of them, wavering like surf, and then another sound, like the noises of a butcher’s mart only on a grand scale. But gradually the sounds receded, to be replaced by something much more resolute:

A hiss.

Like a cracked steam pipe.

It was actually hours later—just before dawn—when Professor Fredrick regained consciousness, to a blazing throb of pain at the side of his skull. He rose to hands and knees, blinking incognizance for full minutes before he realized what happened. An earthquake—a doozy …And what was that hissing?

The rumbling had ceased. He wobbled, getting on his feet, and reached for the small flashlight in his pocket. When he switched it on—

Good Lord …

Steam, indeed, was hissing out of the fissure that all but bisected the quadrangle, the fissure being inches wide. This island must be sitting on a seismic plate …Several of the outer walls were rented, marked by great gaps ragged with stone rubble. But even more amazing…was the stream.

When the plate had lifted—nearly a yard—it cut off the narrow stream’s flow; Fredrick now stood on a ledge, and below it on the other side, the spring now formed a meager pool that spread nearly to the outer walls. His feet splashed when he stepped off the ledge.

Then he stared at what existed at the end of his flashlight beam.

Several feet below what used to be the stream’s bed, several casks jutted. When he reached over and tapped one, his knuckles came away rusted. Iron, he surmised. Each cask bore proportions similar to a five-gallon gasoline can.

Dracula’s booty? something forced him to wonder.

Then the rest of his awareness snapped on.

My God! Janice!

He splashed through more water, then moaned when he noticed half of the rectory had toppled.

Damn it! “Janice!” he shouted. Please don’t be—His flashlight carved slices through the darkness inside the rectory’s vestibule. It appeared that the room he’d intended to sleep in had fallen through the ceiling, for he could see some of his belongings. But Janice had been in a closer room, hadn’t she?

He wended through turned-over furniture and piles of bricks, to the stairwell—

“Oh, no, Janice…” he groaned.

Janice lay half-clothed amid the collapsed stairwell. A great swath of blood stained the bricks. Fredrick knelt to discern what he already knew. There was no pulse to be found at Janice Line’s throat. The avalanche of bricks had left her partially crushed.

“Damn it all to hell,” he muttered.

There was no retrieving any of his gear; what would be the point? And there’ll be no excavations now, he knew. The authorities would surely restrict the entire complex as a hazard perimeter. Fredrick cursed himself for his own selfishness: even as his loyal assistant lay dead at his feet, what he regretted foremost was the fact that he’d never get to find out once and for all just how early Roman influence had infiltrated this macabre country…

Wait—

The rive in the stream…

Those casks …

Through plumes of rising dust, Fredrick jogged back to the upheaved stream—

And stopped cold.

A woman stood in the center of the yard, as if waiting for him.

“Who are you?” Fredrick raised his voice.

She seemed to be wearing a long raincoat of some sort, with a hood. It was still dark. Fredrick rudely shined his light in her face, but she didn’t flinch. It was a youthful, attractive face with Slavic features. Her lips barely moved when she replied in a refined accent, “My name is Mrs. Pallus—”

“You’re the woman from the commission? This site is unsafe. Were you here when the earthquake hit?”

“You are an interloper,” was the only answer she gave. “Take care that your mistakes do not prove your destiny.”

Fredrick stared back at her.

“There is much destiny here,” she said. Her large dark eyes seemed amused at his dismay. Then: “Listen, and look—”

Fredrick did hear something; it was unmistakable: the sound of shovels biting into earth.

The casks! Someone’s digging them out! He trotted past Mrs. Pallus and turned at the corner of the rectory to see the dimly lit scene. Several figures, indeed, were digging around the iron casks.

“You got an excavation team out here that fast?” Fredrick was nonplussed. “How could you possibly know what…”

When he looked back, the woman was gone just as the first streaks of morning light began to tint the horizon. She was gone, yes, but her voice seemed to sift through the air like remnant smoke.

“Consider yourself one of a privileged lot…”

“Where are you!” he shouted, but the protestation was drowned by a sudden rumbling much more violent than before. He noticed the figures at the dig glancing warily over their shoulders as they hastened to dig. Several casks had already been dislodged, while one figure took to prying off their lids. He seemed to inspect the contents with disappointment. All the while the trembling increased.

“You idiots!” Fredrick yelled as bricks and chunks of mortar fell all around him. “Run! We’re having another earthquake!”

But only one of the figures even gave Fredrick a glance. Then the rest of the rectory wall collapsed—

On Fredrick.

One great slab crushed his leg at once. He was half-buried beneath rubble as the earth shook harder around him. The pain stupefied him, and he began to fade in and out of consciousness. But even as the tremor ensued, the mysterious figures continued with their frantic excavation.

“For God’s sake, help me!” Fredrick screamed.

The figures seemed satisfied with one of the casks—not a coffin, just a cask. Two of them put it on a hand truck and wheeled it away.

“Help…”

A third figure approached as the tremors faded along with Fredrick’s sentience. Morning light leaked over the ramparts. The man knelt, touching for a pulse. Fredrick managed to discern that the man was a priest.

In Latin, the priest read Fredrick the last rites, and then walked away.

CHAPTER ONE

New York City, Now

(I)

Cristina Nichols stalled at the ritzy bar’s sign—DEMARNAC’S—and caught herself staring. Three lines composed the sign’s border, the outer line black, then green, then red.

Black, green, red, she thought in a drone.

Just like the dream…

She snapped out of the fugue, then rushed into the bar.

She was nearly fretting when the revolving door emptied her into the hostess area. This city is just…wild …She’d left the clamor of West 67th Street as if fleeing muggers. Now she saw her own reflection in the mirrors behind the front bar and felt dismayed by her appearance. Outside, the vacuum drag from all those cars, trucks, and roaring buses had completely disheveled her butterscotch-blonde hair, making her look as though she’d just gotten out of bed.

What a mess …

New York Power Lunchers filled the brass and wood-stained eatery, their chatty din almost as nerve-racking as the car noise outside. This is NOT my element, she knew. Several uppity patrons seemed to smirk at her slapdash attire: faded jeans a bit too large, old white sneakers, and a baggy T-shirt bearing an incomprehensible print by Mark Rothko. The print was utterly black. She tried to fix her hair, sputtering. Snobs in the big city—my favorite people.

Britt Leibert, her sister, waved from a booth. Cristina edged past crowded tables and servers bearing trays of chocolate martinis and twenty-dollar appetizers.

“Little sister?” Britt complained. “You look like you just got off a Greyhound bus.”

“I probably smell like it, too. I cut through the alley to get here.” Cristina plopped down and feebly pushed more hair out of her face. “I’m really trying hard to like it here but sometimes it’s just so crowded, and all that traffic. The city’s like a labyrinth of cement and glass. The buildings look a mile high.”

Britt shook her head, exasperated. She sipped something chichi that looked like wine in a highball glass. Both women were attractive but thirty-year-old Britt was the one with the refined features; she was the perfect cosmopolite with her wavy brunette hair, jewelry, and salon-pampered nails. Cristina was taller and more bosomed but she always felt ragtag whenever they were together, like an oblivious dorm girl at some liberal arts college. Britt had lived in Manhattan with her fiancé, Jess, for five years now, while Cristina’s beau—co-owner of the same law firm—had commuted for just as long from the suburbs of Stamford, Connecticut, barely twenty miles away. Cristina knew this was a big step for her.

“You’ve only lived here a week,” Britt dismissed. “A month from now, you’ll love this city, and it really is better for your career.”

“My career’s fine.” Cristina leveled her eyes. “Don’t repeat this, but I made more money than Paul last quarter.”

Britt’s brow fluttered, as if surprised. “All the more reason for you to live in the country’s artistic nerve center. Successful artists don’t live in Connecticut, darling. They live here. And we’ll get to see each other all the time now. It’ll be great!”

“I know,” Cristina agreed. In her life of semi-seclusion, Britt was her only confidante. “I am happy about that. The thing about my job—and Paul commuting—is I never had anyone to talk to.”

Britt waved her hand. “Well we’ll be regular Manhattan chatterboxes from now on. But, seriously, when you live in New York City, you have to dress New York City. That stuff you’ve got on now?” She scrinched her nose. “It ain’t gonna cut it.”

“I do look a little bummy.”

“You look like you slept in a cement mixer, Cristina. Look. This weekend I’ll take you clothes shopping. We’ll have a ball!” Britt hesitated for some arcane reason, then leaned over her drink. “Did you really make more than Paul last quarter?”

“Yeah. The new line was a big success and my contract for the next one was huge. I don’t really care about that, though—the money, I mean.”

“After a couple months in this town? You will. And that’s really impressive, too, you know? Paul’s a managing partner of a big-time law firm and you’re out-earning him, which means you’re out-earning Jess, too, because they’re both managing partners. That’s serious moolah, Cristina. And you’re only twenty-nine.”

The compliment seemed jaded. Another thing Cristina didn’t like about New York City mentality was the whole rat-race for money. That’s what it’s all about here. Who’s making what, who drives what, who gets reservations at such and such restaurant and who doesn’t. Cristina just wanted to ply her craft and be happy with Paul.

As appetizers were being placed, Cristina’s gaze drifted back and forth to the window. Throngs of well-dressed businesspeople hurried this way and that; buses roared. Cristina felt a chill.

“Don’t you want a drink?” Britt asked.

“No, thanks. I hate drinking during the day.”

“Then at least have some stuffed squid—” Britt pointed to a plate on which sat a pile of tiny deep-fried squid mantles stuffed with some crabmeat concoction. Cristina just smiled and shook her head.

“It’s going to take you a while to get in the Big Apple’s groove,” Britt laughed. She kept finnicking with the corner of an eye. “Damn. My eyelash is all screwed up. I’ll be right back.” She rose, pointing to another plate. “If you don’t want any squid, try a cuttlefish fritter,” she said, then sauntered to the ladies’ room.

Cristina watched after her. Yeah, she sure fits in all right, she noted of her sister’s poise and attire. Tan leather pants by Dolce & Gabbana, Tod’s heels, and a gorgeous silk Ombre wrap-blouse, the color of a margarita. The thing is I DON’T fit in, and am perfectly happy with that. Cristina’s last line of macabre figurines—Cadaverettes—had been a roaring success on the collector’s market, and the next line promised to be even bigger. It was strange, though, how different she and Britt were, considering the sameness of their upbringings. They called themselves sisters but weren’t really; they’d been raised in the same foster house, and were subject to the same influences during their formative and adolescent years. Yet, Britt was a psychologist for social services and Cristina was—

A creepy-doll designer. It was almost funny, but she did understand that the darkness of their mutual childhoods was probably the guiding force in the careers they later pursued, however different.

Without much forethought, she began to doodle on a napkin, sketching a frolicky caricature of a nun. The nun held a bowl of some sort, and possessed a great comic-bookish grin highlighted by long, thin vampiric fangs.

“So which one is that?” Britt asked, noticing the sketch. She sat back down, inspecting her nails.

“It’s called the Noxious Nun,” Cristina related. “It’s the first figure in the next line. The line is called the Evil Church Creepies collection. First, the nun, then there’ll be a priest, a deaconess, an altar boy, a choir girl, parishioners, of course, and Sunday school teachers. The last figure will be the Putrefactive Pope.”

Britt daintily crunched on a fried squid. “That’s some imagination you have.”

“So you’ve told me. I know, I’m a cliché. Gloomy Insecure Artist.”

“You’re not that insecure,” Britt laughed, chopsticking a slice of seared hamachi. “And don’t worry. No psychology today, I promise.”

Cristina was grateful, at least usually. Given Britt’s profession as a therapist—and their horrendous upbringing—it was too easy for her to psychoanalyze Cristina. But at least Britt was fair enough to psychoanalyze herself at the same time.

“But something is bothering you. I could see it when you walked in.”

Cristina seemed surprised. “Really?”

“And don’t tell me it’s the shock of moving to New York.”

Cristina reflected. “I guess you’re right.” She severed eye contact. “I thought I saw Goldfarb the other day. And he even looked older, like he would now.”

“Where? Here?”

“I was walking near the Julliard School, and there he was—Andre Goldfarb.”

Britt’s eyes turned stern. “You know that’s impossible, right?”

“Oh, yes, yes—don’t worry, I’m not seeing things.”

“Our dear old foster daddy and his wife won’t even be up for parole for another ten years. I monitor that very carefully.”

Cristina nodded, and even felt pretty good about her ability to raise the issue. “It was just weird. He’d be in his mid-fifties now, and this guy I saw was a dead ringer.”

“There’s eight million people here, Cristina. Every now and then you’re going to see someone who looks just like someone else. Last week I saw a woman who looked just like me.”

“Really?”

Britt toned down to a whisper. “Yeah, and it really pissed me off—because her boobs were three times bigger than mine.”

Cristina was amused by her sister’s vanity. Actually, her body looked magnificent, like a runway model’s. But she always complained about her petite breasts.

A moment stretched by, then Cristina had to ask: “You never told Jess the whole story, did you?”

“About the Goldfarbs?” She seemed shocked. “No way—just bits and pieces. I didn’t tell him about the porn thing or the drugs.”

“I told Paul everything,” Cristina admitted.

“And so you should have. Paul’s a lot more real-world than Jess—Jess couldn’t have handled it. I’ll probably never tell him everything, and not because I’m uncomfortable about what happened. He simply wouldn’t know how to deal with it.”

Cristina doodled augmentations over her sketch. “I guess the amazing thing is that we both could.”

“You’re right, and that’s all that matters,” Britt augmented. “We had gross, shitty childhoods but we overcame it all. We’re fine. Lots of girls don’t turn out so well. You wouldn’t believe what’s happened to a lot of the women who come through my office. Stuff that makes our experiences look like patty-cake.” Britt speared another piece of squid. “But you’re still not telling me what’s wrong, and it’s got nothing to do with Goldfarb or his scumbag wife.”

“I’m just tired,” Cristina said, rubbing her eyes. “I haven’t slept well in the last month. Oh, I know it’s part worrying about the new line of figures, and it’s part shock from moving from Stamford to the middle of the Upper West Side.”

Britt cast her an angled glance. “Any other parts?”

“Yeah, one, I guess.” Now she reglanced at the Noxious Nun doodle. “Since Paul first showed me the house over a month ago, I have this recurring nightmare.”

“About what?”

“About this.” Cristina held up the doodle, then shrugged. “It’s just a…bizarre dream.”

“Well, you’re an artist, and you’re obviously using some image from the dream in your work. Catharsis, right? Isn’t that what artists do?”

“I guess. At least that’s what my shrink said.”

“So. You dream about that kooky nun-sketch. That’s it?”

Cristina briefly closed her eyes…and saw the flowing swirls. “The dream’s set before a swirling background of black, green, and red. A naked woman is holding a crude clay bowl, like a halved coconut. And the bowl has three gemstones on it—one black, one green, one red.”

Britt chuckled a sigh. “A naked girl holding a bowl. That’s a nightmare?”

Cristina shared the chuckle. “Don’t even go there, sister. No Freud today. See, in the dream, the woman’s wearing a wimple.”

“A what?”

“A wimple. It’s that thing nuns wear on their heads. Like a white sock with an oval cut out for the face, and a black hatlike thing over it.”

“All right. I’m following you now. Nude nun, in a wimple, holding a coconut.”

“A bowl, really. Like a clay bowl or something. But here’s the nightmare part. In the dream, she shows me the bowl, and it’s got blood in it. Ad then the weird lines of color in the background get more intense, and then—”

Britt seemed bored. “Yeah?”

“Then the nun grins—and she’s got fangs.”

“And that’s why you’re losing sleep? Jeez, Cristina. You ought to have one of my tidal-wave nightmares. I wish I had dreams about nude women.”

“With fangs?”

“Maybe I’d have fangs, too.” Now Britt ate a crab puff. “You know what you’re problem is, sister? You’re just a worrywart. You’re a successful artist, with a successful fiancé who wants you to move into his new house with him. These are very positive things but, yeah, they represent change, and the prospect of change can be stressful. It’s this stress that’s triggering the nutty nightmare, along with your natural-born…worrywartdom.” Britt almost seemed berating now. “You’re not traumatized, you’re not suffering from some delayed reactive disorder, and you’re not having flashbacks from the drugs the Goldfarbs used on us. Neither of us are having any of that crap.”

Cristina squeezed her sister’s hand and smiled. She always felt better after talking to her, even when she didn’t incite the conversation. “You’re a gem, you know that?”

“Actually, I’m a vain label-whore and an absolute bitch when I see someone like that prissy woman over there with a Gianni dress that looks better than mine,” Britt said, and then scowled past Cristina’s shoulder.

Cristina took a quick glance and shook her head. “You’re a gem and a nut.”

“Yeah, and thank God I’m engaged to a New York City attorney who’s head over heels for me. I couldn’t afford to shop at Salvation Army on what social services pays me.”

“But that’s proof of your character, isn’t it?”

Britt gaped. “What, that I’m engaged to a rich lawyer?”

“Well, yeah. On what he makes, you wouldn’t have to work at all, and neither would a lot of women. But you do. You work your butt off for low pay helping the abused and the victimized when you could be sitting in a lounge chair all day sipping Dom Perignon and fanning yourself in a Bill Blass bikini.”

“Since you put it that way…yes! You’re absolutely right!” Britt pushed some plates over to Cristina. “Now would you please eat some of this? If you don’t, I’ll eat it all myself, then I’ll get fat, Jess’ll get sick of me and kick me out for a skinny girl—probably that one over there in the Gianni dress—and then I will have to shop at Salvation Army.”

“All right,” Cristina conceded. “I’ll have some.”

“Good.” Britt got up. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

Britt whispered. “I just have to ask that floozy where she got that dress.”

“You’re not serious!”

“Oh yes I am.” Britt bit her lower lip. “Pretty sick, isn’t it?”

Cristina chuckled, then started on the appetizers.

The bus-roar and heel-tapping clamor of the sidewalk didn’t bother her when she left. Cristina declined a ride home from Britt; she liked to walk, and she wanted to get used to the city. The skyscrapers on either side of the street loomed so high, it seemed impossible for them to have even been built. Lunch hour was winding down, and the street was even getting a bit more sane.

“Hot dog, miss?” a gruff voice asked aside.

She looked to see a rugged street vendor in a Yankees hat and a Jets shirt. “Cheese, mustard, mayo?”

“Mayo?” Cristina exclaimed. “On hot dogs?”

“Don’t knock it, toots.” He had a chewed-down cigar between his teeth as he presumed to sell food. “It’s New York deli mayo, from Artie’s.”

“Maybe next time…”

“You sure? Only two bucks. They’re Sabrett’s—the genuine New York dog.”

“Actually, I’m full of cuttlefish, but thanks just the same,” she said, and then slipped away.

What a pain in the …

She eyed the divergent crowd, which seemed to beat along the sidewalks like blood in arteries. It was the ultimate cross-culture here: every nationality mixed with every economic status, all pulsing together in tandem. Maybe I could get used to this, she considered. Or did the sudden tolerance stem more from feeling better after her talk with Britt?

She slowed by a comic/novelty shop, noticing several of her competitor’s products in the window. Living Dead Dolls, Gurl-Goyles, Fantasmic Fishies. But no Cadaverettes! she fumed. She edged into the store, at once hesitant. I’ve got to stand up for my product, she knew, but she also knew she was 100 percent nonassertive. When her well-done burger came to the table medium, she never sent it back. Passivity was as much a part of her as her blonde hair.

All comic shops seemed to possess the same musty smell, and usually only a quarter of the floor space existed for comic books and graphic novels. Novelties comprised the rest: toys, action figures and figurines, T-shirts, etc. Cristina checked the shelves and found no trace of Cadaverettes there, either.

Bastards!

A long line congregated at the checkout. One man in a pricey suit waited to buy an armload of some comic called Hell Tramp, while an obese girl with multiple facial piercings sputtered as she held a copy of something called Mr. Torso Part VII. A man with spiked blond hair and a leather vest hypertensively manned the register. He looked like Billy Idol’s grandfather.

“Excuse me, sir,” Cristina peeped over the line. “I have a question if it’s not too much inconvenience…”

The blond man sneered at her. “I’m a little busy here, if ya couldn’t tell. Got no time for chitchat.”

Cristina felt stultified. “Well…I’ve noticed that you carry Living Dead Dolls and Gurl-Goyles but no Cadaverettes. Do you not like Cadaverettes?”

The man shook his head as he frantically rang the next customer. “I like ’em fine, honey!” he snapped. “Reason we ain’t got ’em is ’cos they sell out faster than I can put ’em on the shelves! Now gimme a break! I’m busy!”

Cristina stood wavering. What should I do? “Well…excuse me again, sorry, but would it be possible, do you think, if you could maybe reorder them?”

His glare struck her like an arrow in the face. “I’m busy! Have some fuckin’ courtesy! Come back later, will ya?”

Cristina shivered but managed to mutter, “This isn’t a very nice store,” and then hurried away.

“Hey, bonehead,” the suited man addressed the spiked clerk. “That was Cristina Nichols. She created Cadaverettes.”

Alarm. “Hey—uh, I mean, Ms. Nichols?” the cashier pleaded after her. “Sorry! Don’t leave! Can I book you for a signing?”

Cristina slipped back onto the street. Why can’t people just be nice? Everyone seemed so manic here, so type A. But ultimately she left satisfied. They hadn’t neglected her line at all; they’d simply sold it out, which was terrific. It means I’m still selling.

An alley tangented the corner of 67th and Dessorio Avenue. “Never cut through alleys, Cristina,” Paul had emphasized the first day. “Never. This is New York, not Petticoat Junction. You can never be too careful.” Cristina was touched by the tenor of his concern, but she saw no harm. The alley was only fifty or so yards long, and she could see it was clear save for a few garbage cans.

Which was why she jumped, when a scratchy voice drifted toward her from one side.

“Hey, lady?”

Cristina had only proceeded fifty feet. A homeless girl in pink sweatpants, a men’s white T-shirt, and mismatched flip-flops stood right behind her.

Where did she come from? Cristina thought.

Scrubby tendrils of hair hung over her face like black spaghetti. Some ghost of youth struggled beneath wasted features. These homeless people always look so much older than they really are. But at least Cristina didn’t feel threatened now.

“Can I have, like, two dollars so I can buy a hot dog from the guy you didn’t buy one from?”

Cristina couldn’t calculate how the girl could’ve witnessed her encounter with the vendor. “I think so…” She reached in her pocket.

The girl sniffled and rubbed her nose. “And like maybe another one or two dollars so I can buy a soda?”

“Sure.” Cristina gave the girl a twenty-dollar bill. “You can use the rest to go to the shelter on Henry Street. I read they added a lot of beds.”

“Oh, I ain’t homeless.”

“That’s good. Where do you live?”

“Here.” The girl twitched. “We even have a TV. It doesn’t work but we watch it anyway.”

Cristina could think of nothing to say.

“And-and, like, I saw on the TV today that you were cutting your throat but then you blinked and it wasn’t your own throat you were cutting, it was the man’s.”

She’s probably delusional from drugs, Cristina realized. And that’s what she’s going to buy with the money I just gave her …

Then she winced when she saw scars on the girl’s wrist.

The girl giggled, staring at the alley’s brick wall. “That sounds kooky, doesn’t it, but that’s what I saw on the TV when the nun turned it on. Thanks for the money, and don’t worry, I ain’t gonna buy any rock with it. I’m gonna get some hot dogs.’ Bye.” Then the girl oddly shuffled backward several steps, turned, and headed out of the alley.

But Cristina hadn’t yet surfaced from her mute stare. The nun? “Hey, wait! What did you say about a nun?”

“Maybe I’ll get mustard on mine instead of cheese—er, no, I’m gonna get one with cheese, or maybe…a bunch!”

The girl flip-flopped away as if off balance and left the alley.

The nun, Cristina’s mind clicked. She said something about a nun …

How bizarre.

She retraced her steps back out the alley and peeped around. How do you like that? She wasn’t lying …She watched the homeless girl buy a bunch of hot dogs from the vendor. Then, still twitchy and off balance, she flopped off in the opposite direction.

The poor thing’s crazy. Mostly gibberish she was talking, Cristina considered. Just a coincidence.

But where had she actually come from?

An out of business Banana Republic was what sat on the corner, its rear wall forming one side of the alley. The place had finally been bought out by developers a few weeks ago, Paul had told her, and it wouldn’t be long before contractors either leveled it or refurbished the structure for condos. Cristina walked back slowly, checking. There was a locked metal door and a locked garage on the loading bay but that was all.

Wait …

She stooped.

Between two garbage cans, street level, was a hole in the wall, not even the diameter of an old vinyl record album. Could she have …But, no. It would be hard even for the slightest person to squeeze their shoulders through such an aperture. And—whew!

Cristina backed away from the uric stench that gusted out.

Nobody could live in there …

When she headed home, she didn’t notice the three objects lying near the hole.

Magic markers: one black, one green, and one red.

CHAPTER TWO

(I)

Forty-year-old Paul Nasher looked out his office window from the twentieth floor of the Mahoney Building. He stared through his smile down at Beekman Street and watched the orderly chaos of Financial District traffic. God, I’m lucky, he realized. Paul and his best friend, Jess Franklin, owned the firm outright now. They were among the most exclusive real estate lawyers in the city.

Yeah, we own this place, he mused. And now I own the house. It was the next step he’d succeeded in—the next step in cementing his life with Cristina.

Though Paul didn’t have the build for a high-powered attorney—he was stocky, broad-shouldered like a power-lifter—he had the brains and the inclination. Real estate law came innately to him; he could “feel” the future pulse of the market, and due to this he made just as much money during the downs as the ups, the annex house he’d bought being a prime example. He didn’t feel that he’d exploited the diocese at all—Not with a million in cash, I didn’t—but it was just another of those circumstances that had landed in his jurisprudential lap. I have the Midas touch. I wonder why …

He sat down at the desk, wearing a gratified smile along with his charcoal-gray Z Zegna suit. What he wore at any given time cost more than the average person made in a week, or in a year if one counted his Lange & Sohne Fly-back watch. It was all part of what he worked for, and he didn’t take it for granted. What he wore was an extension of his sense of communication.

He communicated very well. His attire went hand in hand with his business acumen: it spoke the language of a winner.

Now if I could only get Cristina to marry me …

The door clicked open and in walked his partner. Jess Franklin, though he dressed just as well as Paul and, if anything, had more cosmopolitan taste, looked more accountant than attorney, a little mussed with the unruly brown hair and pointy goatee that seemed perpetually in need of a trim. Paul winced when Jess lit a Marlboro.

“You should get a haircut and quit smoking. That shit’s not cool in our business. It’s kind of…redneck.”

“Hey, I am a redneck,” Jess countered, “and damn proud of it. I’m the ground-pounder here, remember? You’re the Face—”

“It’s good you know your calling,” Paul laughed.

“—in spite of the clear and present fact that I order better in a restaurant than you.”

“Amen. And go ahead, tap the ashes on my floor. Good for the carpet, right? Isn’t that what they say in the trailer park?”

“Carpet tiles, man,” Jess prodded.

Paul found it difficult not to guffaw. “It must kill you that whenever you drop a grand for lunch at the Four Seasons, you can’t smoke.”

“Tell me about it. What ever happened to America? Oh, and I let Ann go early. She said she had a date.”

“Who’s the lucky girl?”

Jess and Paul cracked laughs. Then Paul glanced at his Lange & Sohne. “Let’s have a drink at Harry’s. We don’t have anything else going today, do we?”

“Mind like a steel trap, Paul. I’ve got that pile of summary judgment briefs to FedEx for the Mayr land-deal, and you’ve got that call coming in.”

Paul straightened in his leather chair. “What call?”

“Do you ever look at your scheduler? You got a call at one from Panzram and Cartlon.” Jess looked at his own watch, a Breitling Chromatic. “Five minutes.”

“Ann never told me.”

“Yes, she did. Yesterday. You weren’t paying attention because you were too busy trying to see if she wasn’t wearing pan ties beneath that little Cavalli skirt.”

Paul smirked. “You’re out of your—”

“She wasn’t, by the way. And you know who Panzram and Carlton are, don’t you?”

Paul looked fuddled. “I’ve heard of them, sure. East Side ambulance chasers, aren’t they?”

Jess chuckled Marlboro smoke. “They’re more than that as far as you’re concerned. Change the air in your head.”

Paul nodded. “I’ll admit, I’m a little distracted lately, with Cristina here and all.”

“Yeah, yeah, great, but we’re attorneys, remember? Good attorneys forget about their squeeze the second they step into the office.” Jess looked disapproving. “After you finagled the diocese to sell you the annex house for five times less than it’s worth, they fired the lawyer they had on retainer—”

“But the monsignor named his price and I paid!” Paul objected, but only half in earnest.

“The monsignor’s eighty, Paul.”

“Fine, but what’s this got to do with Panzram and Cartlon?”

Jess eyed the lengthening ash on his cigarette. “They’re the firm the diocese hired after they shitcanned their regular guy.”

Damn, Paul thought. “The contract’s ironclad—you saw it yourself. If they try to sue me, they’re gonna think a stone quarry fell on their heads.”

“Well, just get ready ’cos—”

The phone rang.

Jess winked. “There they are, and good luck. I’ll meet you at Harry’s Bar when I’m done at FedEx.”

“Right,” Paul said.

“And, Paul?”

Paul glanced up. Jess, ever so meticulously, tapped an inch-long ash on the carpet and winked.

“Redneck.” Paul sighed, waited two more rings, and picked up the phone. “Nasher and Franklin, Paul Nasher speaking.”

“Ah, Mr. Nasher,” issued a crisp, calculated voice. “I’m Vic Winner at Panzram and Carlton. I’ve recently been retained by the diocese to examine some of their legal affairs and I’ve come upon a discrepancy in the sales contract for the old annex house on Sixty-seventh Street.”

“You mean my annex house,” Paul corrected. “And I can’t imagine what discrepancy you’re referring to, because there is none.”

A pause, then, “Really, Mr. Nasher, I’m sure you realize that the price you paid for the property was, shall we say, invidious.”

“The diocesan legal representative wrote the contract, and the monsignor happily signed it. And then he even more happily took my million dollars. In cash.”

A longer pause this time. “Monsignor Romay, as you know, is on in his years, and he was badly advised on the property’s true market value—”

Paul stared at the gold-framed picture of Cristina on his desk. “I’d have to say that if the monsignor was badly advised about anything, it was in replacing his previous attorney with your crew. I know your firm, Mr. Winner, and it’s not exactly topflight. Weren’t you the guys who blew that huge asbestos case in Queens? A lot of innocent people got fucked up for life by those contractors. How could you botch a rainmaker like that?”

“That’s outrageous!” the caller yelled. “You’ve got a lot of gall saying that after what you’ve done!”

“What I’ve done, Mr. Winner?”

“You hoodwinked the Catholic Church! You stole from them! This is actionable and you know it!”

Paul actually chuckled. “The only thing I know, Mr. Winner, is that you and your firm are second-rate. I’m sure the diocese approached much more bankable firms than Panzram and Carlton, and I’m sure they all turned the diocese down. Why? Because a good firm would know in a half a second that my sales contract for the Sixty-seventh Street property is 100 percent legal and binding. You wouldn’t find a judge in a million years who’d hear the case after he looked at that paperwork. So go ahead and sue me, Mr. Winner. It would be my plea sure to bury you in court and embarrass you so bad you’ll never get work again.”

“You’re unmitigated, Mr. Nasher!”

Paul unconsciously wiped at a scuff on his $300 shoe. “Let me put it as politely as I possibly can. If you fuck with me, I’ll fuck you back so hard you’ll be walking like a cowboy for the rest of your chump-change career.”

Paul hung up. My God, I LOVE confrontations like that, he thought. It makes my blood pressure go down …

He stood up, tweaked his Luigi Borrelli silk tie, then smiled down at the picture of Cristina on his desk. None of it means anything without her. Yeah, I’m REALLY lucky, all right.

He called the floor janitor to report that a cigarette ash needed to be cleaned from his carpet.

Some guys got it, and some guys don’t, he thought and left for the bar.

(II)

Twentieth Precinct Homicide on 82nd Street sat stone-silent. Vernon felt awkward; he squirmed in his seat with nothing to do. Has the damn phone even rung in the last hour? They were covering burglary, too, since the administrative shake-up last winter, but there was nothing there, either. All our cold cases are solved, and we’ve only got three ongoing investigations. Twenty-fourth Precinct’s got FIFTY! Howard Vernon was a senior inspector with twenty-five years on the force and more commendations and valor medals than he could remember. Somebody give me something to do!

He spent his time getting fresh coffee and looking at the Byzantine-looking Ukranian cathedral out the window.

“This must be what retirement’s like,” he muttered.

“What’s that, How?” someone asked. “You’re retiring?”

Vernon turned to see. It was Slouch who’d made the remark, a fifteen-year vet in good standing. They called him Slouch because he slouched whenever he sat down. He was hard to make as undercover; he looked like some happy-go-lucky deadbeat who hung out in strip joints and actually thought the girls were attracted to him. His shaggy hair was always half in his face, dicing the permanent lazy shuck-and-jive smile.

“I feel irresponsible,” Vernon said. “We’re getting paid money to do a job, but—”

“But there’s no job to do? Sounds good to me.”

“Nothing ever happens in this precinct,” he grumbled and sat back down. “I spend more time walking to and from the coffee machine than writing up DOR’s.”

“You’re complaining like that’s a bad thing, How,” Slouch pointed out. “It means the crime rate is going down. And don’t forget, the Comm’s office transferred you here as a reward for outstanding service. Don’t complain.”

“Jesus Christ, Slouch, there’s nothing to do. We’re tits on a bull. The Twentieth doesn’t get homicides so the boss has us double-timing on B&E’s and nobody’s even breaking and entering here.”

Slouch stretched back with his feet up on his desk. He smiled big. “Maybe it’s your karma—it makes people peaceful. It drives the bad guys off to the Twenty-fourth.”

Where’s Bed-Sty when you need it?

When Slouch’s phone rang, Vernon glared. “Why your phone and not mine?” he yelled.

Slouch laughed. “Because you’re the head of the unit and I’m the flunky, remember? Lemme do some grunt work for ya.” When Slouch picked up the phone, he said, “Yeah? When? Okay,” and hung up.

“What is it?” Vernon pleaded.

“Treat yourself to a cartwheel, How. Worden’s Hardware Store got busted into last night.”

“I’m on it,” Vernon said, jumping up.

“Sit back down, How. Taylor did the work on it an hour ago. That wasn’t the store calling—it was Vice.”

“What the hell’s Vice got to do with a B&E at a hardware store?”

Slouch paused at the door, grinning. “They got a witness…A hooker.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m picking her up at booking and bringing her in. I hope to God she’s hot. Meanwhile, Taylor’s on the way with the lowdown.”

Slouch loped out, leaving Vernon anxious and frowning. Now he was alone. What could be duller than a hardware store burglary? But he supposed it was better than nothing.

Vernon’s second in charge was Jake Taylor. Good cop. Drank too much. “But only on Sundays,” he once told Vernon. His curly brown hair and fat mustache, plus shabby tweed sports jackets made him look like a reject from the early seventies when every cop in the department was trying to look like Bruce Dern and be “hip.”

When Taylor came in, he said, “Did you hear about the—”

“Worden’s Hardware Store, B&E,” Vernon responded to at least sound like he was a leg up. “Let me guess. A truck-job. They cleaned the place out.”

“Not even close.” Taylor dropped his case notes on Vernon’s desk and sat down. “Somebody ripped off four Sloyd-brand wood-carving knives. Total value of the heist? $39.80.”

Vernon glared. “That’s the dumbest-ass thing I’ve ever heard! Nobody busts into a fuckin’ hardware store and steals four cheap knives! You steal power drills and diamond-tipped saw blades and air compressors!”

“Right, and if you’re looking to fence knifes, you go for Gerbers and the Al Mars and the bowies, the ones that go for two bills a pop.”

Vernon’s anger spilled over into his incredulity. “How’d they break in?”

“Front window, bold as brass. Don’t know what time last night. They knew what they wanted, they went in, got it, and split. We got some prints but—” Taylor shrugged. “You might not wanna waste Tech Service’s time on a forty-dollar heist.”

“Four cheap knives?” Vernon just didn’t get it. “That’s the dumbest-ass thing I ever heard,” he repeated.

Taylor eyed him. “I know you’ve had a few more birthdays than me, How, but is any of this ringing a bell? You said the same exact thing last winter…”

Vernon stared back at his partner. “Worden’s…Yeah. The place near Greenflea, right? Around Seventy-seventh?”

“The cogs are turning.”

Then the memory snapped back. “That’s right. Somebody B&E’d Worden’s last December, and stole…” Ridiculous, he recalled. “They stole a bunch of Christmas tree stands.”

“Yep. Over a dozen of them, and that’s all they ripped off. And do you remember who did it?”

Vernon pointed like a gun. “A bunch of homeless women! Yeah, now I remember. They got them on the security camera, and we even busted one of them a few days later.”

“Exactly. And you said it was the dumbest-ass thing you ever heard for somebody to pinch a bunch of Christmas tree stands. Gotta say I agree with you on that.”

“Don’t tell me it was the same homeless girls,” Vernon ventured.

“Got no idea.”

“But they got a security camera.”

“Yeah, and the guy who closed last night forgot to put a new disc in. But Vice called me on the wire and said they got a witness.”

“Slouch is bringing her up from booking,” Vernon told him and then the door clicked open.

“Well, what have we here?” Taylor trumpeted. “Looks like a thirteen-year-old hooker.”

“She’s twenty-five, no lie,” Slouch said. “Got a legit state ID and a rap sheet for soliciting. She’s also got an associate’s degree from the city college…Sit’cher tush down right there, Shirley Temple,” he told the handcuffed girl. “Inspector Vernon wants to rap with ya.”

Tears smeared the girl/woman’s garish eye makeup. The physique facing Vernon was reed-slim, nearly breastless and hipless, and she looked back at him with huge, watery Little Bo Peep eyes. She dressed like a little girl in Catholic school: knee-high white socks, black tap shoes, plaid knee-skirt, veiling blouse, but the image was made outrageous by the loud, whorey lipstick and eye makeup.

“You’re really twenty-five?” Vernon asked, astonished.

She nodded, sniffling.

Slouch laughed, “Hey, How—we ought to give her back to Vice so they can make her a controlled decoy. Young as she looks, we’d have half the perverts in New York behind bars in two weeks. Oh, and her name’s Cinzia.”

“Cinzia, huh? What’s your gig, Cinzia? Crack, pills, meth?”

“I don’t do drugs,” she peeped.

“Bullshit,” Vernon said stiffly. “Why else would you be doing this?”

She even tried to sit like a little girl, hands in lap. “For the money,” she insisted. “There are guys out there who pay a lot because—”

“Because you look like a little kid,” Vernon smirked, “and that means instead of working a job like the rest of us stiffs, you strut your skinny tush as chicken bait. Honey, believe me, there are better ways to get the things that you need than being a meat-magnet for scumbags who like to fuck kids.”

The expletive jolted her; more tears welled. “I know.”

“You give those freaks a taste, then they’ll go out and rape real kids. You ought to be ashamed.”

“Time Magazine Woman of the Year,” Slouch laughed.

“I’m sorry!” she sobbed. “I know it’s a shitty thing to do but I’ve got to make a living! It’s hard out there. I’m paying nineteen hundred dollars a month to rent four hundred square feet.”

“Welcome to New York,” Vernon said. “Move to Minnesota and take your sob story with you.”

Now she was crying like a genuine child. “I-I can’t go to jail—I can’t stand it—”

“This is her second strike,” Slouch informed.

Taylor jerked her chair around—Good Cop/Bad Cop time. “We’re just a precinct, Cinzia. We’re not like a division in one of the boroughs. There’s nothing we can do to help you stay out of the lezzie-tank. You’ll be the hit of the cell block to all those Big Bertha mamas.” Then he jerked her chair back to face Vernon.

“Maybe, maybe not. Give us a solid crack contact, and we might be able to help you out a little.”

The girl began to blubber. “I don’t have any crack contacts—I told you. I don’t do drugs. Please! I screwed up, I’m sorry. You got no idea what it was like for me when I had to do time.”

“We can all imagine, little girl,” Taylor said.

But she’s not lying about the drugs, Vernon could tell at a glance. The women always sung like canaries after a second or third bust. “Did you agree to a blood test when you got booked?”

“That she did, How,” Slouch offered. “Makes ya wonder.”

Vernon watched her intently, assaying body language and eye movement. “Maybe I can do something for you, Cinzia, but you know how life is. To get something, you have to give something.”

The girl groaned. “Jesus, you gotta be kidding me; you guys are cops.”

“Relax, I’m not talking about sexual somethings—”

“Shucks!” Slouch laughed.

Taylor jerked her chair back. “You give us the make on your johns so we get an assist from Vice—”

The girl groaned.

“And, you give us some info that leads to a bust on the hardware store,” Vernon ganged up. “A little bird says you saw something last night.”

For once, the girl seemed enthused. “Oh, yeah, I saw the whole thing near Seventy-seventh. The hardware store near Greenflea. It was like three in the morning.”

“That’s a bit late for a little girl to be wandering around,” Taylor said, then shoved her chair back toward Vernon.

“Did you see the perpetrators?”

“Yes, four or five of them. They’d broken the front window. Right when I was walking by after a—well, you know. They all jumped out the hole in the window and ran away.”

“Four or five of them? They didn’t happen to be—”

“It’s these nutty homeless chicks I see all the time hanging out around Broadway, near—what is it? Dessorio Avenue?”

Vernon and Taylor traded raised brows.

“But last night they were up around Seventy-seventh busting into the hardware store,” she went on. “The reason I recognized them is I see ’em all the time during the day panhandling on Sixty-eighth.”

“Homeless girls…”

“Yeah, crackheads. They’re pains in the ass. They live place to place to place. You know.”

“No, we don’t know,” Vernon said. “What place? The shelters south of town?”

“No, no, a building gets sold or a restaurant goes under, lots of the bums will squat there until someone comes in to start work on the place and throws ’em out. But they hang around this area. Upper West Side’s a good place to beg for change. You want to see ’em, go down to where that guy sells off-brand hot dogs and says they’re Sabrett’s.”

“That’s half the vendors in New York, honey,” Slouch said.

“It’s the guy who’s always around Dessorio and Sixty-seventh,” she added. “I see them all the time, bumming change around there.”

“Pretty interesting, huh, How? The bum part?” Taylor remarked.

“Just like those girls last December.”

“And they’re real nutty and silly,” the prostitute complained. “Giggling and jabbering. They’re worse than the damn pigeons.”

“Have some compassion, Cinzia,” Vernon told her. “They’re probably all schizophrenic. What’s your excuse for being a non contributor?”

The girl put her head down.

Vernon rubbed his hands together. “What you gotta understand is this is about the cushiest precinct in the city. These girls stole a pissant forty bucks’ worth of knives last night and a bunch of Christmas tree stands last December.”

The girl gave him an odd look.

“That’s right. Christmas tree stands. Not exactly the crime of the century, huh?” Vernon went on. “But because our jobs are so easy here, if we don’t solve this real fast—like in one day—we’ll be the laughingstock of the department. So here’s the deal. If your blood test comes up negative for drugs, and youddd show us where these nutty homeless girls hang out, I’ll call the magistrate and have him drop your charges, if you agree to do some informant work for the Vice unit. That way, you stay out of jail, and we get something to do that makes us look like we’re earning our pay for a change.”

“All right,” the girl said.

Vernon uncuffed her. “And clean that silly makeup off your face. It makes you look asinine.”

“Thanks…”

“You’re going to go with Detective Taylor now and show him where these girls congregate.”

“I’m almost off-shift,” Taylor complained.

“Such are the hardships of public service.” Vernon cracked a smile.

“Hey, Jake, make sure you got your vest on,” Slouch sniped. “These nutty homeless chicks are tough customers.”

“You’re going with him,” Vernon said.

Slouch glared. “Why?”

“To pick up some hot dogs from that street vendor. I’ll be able to tell if they’re really Sabrett’s. False advertising’s a crime, too, you know.”

Slouch wasn’t happy. “And what are you doing, Inspector?”

“I’m going home,” Vernon said. “I’m off-shift.”

CHAPTER THREE

(I)

“It’s Brazilian rosewood,” Paul said with pride. The dining table shined with such luster it nearly seemed possessed of some dark inner light.

“I’ll bet it cost a fortune,” Cristina said.

“Sure, but we’re successful, remember?”

“You’ve really done a spectacular job,” she complimented, still dazzled by the visual impact of the foyer and dining room. “And look at these banisters!”

“That’s knurled mahogany, honey.” He ran his hand around the wood’s corkscrew configuration at the end. “It’s one piece of wood, believe it or not. They steam the wood so they can shape it to match the curvature of the stairs.”

Cristina looked up the steps, marveling at the plush, black-red carpet. “These are the most beautiful stairs I’ve ever seen in a home, Paul.”

“Yeah? And now it’s our home.”

When she turned, she was jolted by the stunning reflection of the stairwell’s banister in a great circular mirror hanging in a quaint niche.

Paul’s tie hung loosened, his jacket off, as he sipped a small scotch. Cristina could tell how excited he was to finally be unveiling the house to her. He did all this for me, she knew. And it’s beautiful.

“Unfortunately, for now,” he added, “these are the stairs to nowhere.”

Cristina agreed with the tactic. “There’s no reason to fix the whole place up right away.”

“I’m going to do it a floor at a time, and I don’t even have a timetable. This floor is more than we need anyway.” He took her hand. “Now it’s time for you to see the rest.”

Each room waylaid her. Cristina wasn’t much of a materialist but even she had to admit how much she loved what he’d done. She tended to like new things that looked old, and this nailed the sentiment. The barrel-vaulted ceiling in the living room lent a neoclassical air with its arched transoms and mosaic wainscoting. A fireplace as high as she stood graced one wall, faux logs burning gently. Tuscan pilasters formed a colonnade across the foyer—highlighting the pointed, double-paneled entry door—the end of which was dedicated to a mirrored wet bar.

“You want a drink for the rest of the tour?” he asked, freshening his own.

“No! I’m too excited!”

Dark hardwood floor segments alternated with shining slate the color of jade. Another room functioned as a lanai leading to a tiny but meticulous garden arranged on the balcony. I’ll be able to brainstorm out here! Next came the den, which Paul informed was actually the “sitting room”: cupolas full of bookshelves, a simple silver chandelier, and darkly upholstered armchairs—the feel of an exclusive club. Furniture, sconces, and shelving all resonated old-world craftsmanship, which continued along a butter-cream wall of arch-topped windows and exotic maroon drapes. In the kitchen, peacock-green African marble topped an expansive island counter.

“Get ready,” he said. “Here’s the master suite…”

More maroon and gold tones accentuated the cozy room where they’d be sleeping. A great, veiled poster bed, more dark old-world furniture, and angled into the corner was the bathroom and vanity, complete with a spa appointed by more decorative columns. Cristina felt winded, taking it all in.

“The interior decorator called it neo-Baroque,” he said.

“I love it,” she whispered.

When she snuck a peek at him, she could tell that he loved it too, but what he loved more was her approval. What kind of guy would do all of this just to make a woman happy? she had to ask herself. He cares more about what I think than anything else. It made her feel more special than she’d ever felt.

“I knew you’d like the style. The guest room’s similar but I didn’t do much to your work room, which is right in here,” he said and opened two more double-paneled doors.

He obviously had the windows expanded to provide more light, and kept the style pretty basic.

“I know how artists are about their work space,” he went on. “You’ll want to tune it up your own way.”

He was quite right about the “work space” thing; creative types had their own eccentricities regarding the work environment. They went back to the bedroom. “It’ll be perfect,” she said and hugged him. A tear slipped from her eye. “You did all this for me—”

“Well, you moved here for me,” he said, tightening his embrace.

“It’s for both of us.” The sudden surge of excitement left her feeling hot, even prickly. What’s this all about? she tested herself. Her nipples pressed against his chest seemed to spark.

When was the last time she’d felt such a sensation?

She tried to distract herself. “You must’ve spent so much redoing these rooms,” she said, but kept hugging him. Suddenly the feel of his chest pressing her breasts began to spread.

“Honey, you probably could’ve swung it on what you made last year. Remember, we’re both successful now, not just me.”

“I know, but—”

But what? Why did she feel so pleasantly strange now?

His hot words blew against her ear. “You have no idea how happy I am that you like the place.”

Her hand slipped around the back of his neck and pulled. The kiss was so sudden and desperate she couldn’t figure it. She slipped her tongue in his mouth and pressed against him even harder.

“Yeah, I guess you really like the place,” he remarked when the kiss broke.

“No, I love it, and I love you…”

He took her hand. “Come on, you haven’t seen the game room yet. I’ve got a fifty-inch plasma that lowers out of the ceiling, and twelve speakers hidden in the walls. All that classical stuff you listen to? Wait’ll you hear it on this system.”

But his words sounded far away. Instead of following him out, she was backing away until her hands came away from his.

“Paul…”

He turned, eyes narrowed. “Don’t you want to see—”

Cristina kept back-stepping, then slid her rump up on the vanity’s marble top.

“Honey?”

Her voice suddenly sounded parched. “Come here…”

She reached out to him as he approached, then wrapped her legs around him, to seize his groin against hers. It was almost rough the way she grabbed his collar and pulled him down again to kiss her, this time more ravenously. It was a wild heat, like steam, that seemed to spiral inside of her, from her breasts, to her belly, to her sex. She could tell Paul didn’t know what to make of this but she didn’t even give him time to contemplate; she kept her mouth locked to his, nearly whining.

“Paul, I’m so sorry,” she managed to pant, then frantically undid the top buttons of her blouse.

“Sorry for what?”

“You know.” And then, frustrated, she yanked her blouse out of her jeans, and pushed one of his hands up against her skin.

He was so taken aback, he chuckled.

“Baby, I don’t know. You’re kind of throwing me for a loop but…I like it.”

She locked her ankles behind his back, vising him harder. She felt in a low frenzy when she blurted, “I’m sorry I haven’t been very sexual for a while. I haven’t considered your needs at all.”

“Honey, that’s not true—”

“Yes, it is!” she panted. “I’ve been nervous about the new line and about moving and being in New York and—”

“Cristina! I haven’t exactly been Mr. Stud for a while myself, not with all that’s been going on at the office with Jess…”

She kept trying to sort her thoughts against the rising gust of lust. “For most of the last year you probably thought I lost my sex drive, that I wasn’t attracted to you, but I need you to know that I am. I’ve always been so hot for you I can’t stand it—I just don’t show it a lot—”

His hands slid up her blouse even as he weighed his own perplexion. “Cris—”

“I want us to do it right here,” she breathed. Finally she tore open the rest of her blouse and flipped her bra up over her breasts so his hands could find them. “Right now…I need you in me right now …” And as she made the unbidden plea, she cupped his crotch and rubbed, then ran her hand against her own crotch. She could feel her own heat building beneath the denim, and suddenly she thought she’d scream if she didn’t have her pants off.

“Baby, you’re really a trip today.”

She unsnapped her waist button, pulled his hands off her breasts and put them on her waist. “Take these off.” She kicked her shoes across the room, then lifted her butt up to help him.

She didn’t even think about it while he was pulling her jeans off her legs: she caressed her own breasts and moaned out loud…

They both flinched at a loud, even pounding on the door. Her eyes darted to his.

“Don’t answer it—”

He paused, then continued peeling her jeans off.

More knocking, louder, and also the doorbell.

“Damn it!” Paul looked crestfallen. “It’s the movers with more of our stuff.”

“Shit!”

“Baby, believe me, there’s nothing I’d like better than to keep going here but if I don’t get that, they’ll probably leave…”

Cristina crumpled back against the vanity wall. “I know.” And then she laughed, looking at herself. “That’s what I call getting caught with my pants down…”

Paul stood her on her feet and pulled her jeans back up. “We’ll pick up where we left off once they leave.” Then he laughed at her buttonless blouse. “Maybe you better get something else on.”

“Yeah. What would the movers think?”

“Come out whenever you’re ready. I’ll let them in now,” he said, straightening himself up. “I think they’ve got my office stuff and law books, and most of your work stuff. That’s pretty much all that’s left.”

She kissed him one more time, hard, as the doorbell rang again. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Paul smiled, wiped his brow, and left.

Jeez, what’s getting into me? she thought. I feel absolutely slutty—I practically raped him! She supposed everyone was subject to their moods, but this was uncanny. It must mean that all my worries about moving here are over—just like Britt said earlier. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so sexually charged. And it’s still there, she realized, that lusty heat still spiraling. She took a moment to splash her face with cool water from the sink, catching her breath. The temptation was so great, she actually cosseted herself again through the jeans, then contemplated searching for her vibrator. But most of the moving boxes were still unpacked. It would take me forever to find it, she thought, and then winced when she realized how outrageous the idea was in the first place. The movers would probably walk in… I’m sure Paul would love that. “That’s some girlfriend you got there, buddy.” Instead she simmered herself down and put on a different blouse.

But, still, her ponderings continued. Maybe this is the NEW me, she hoped. She’d always felt that her sexual self had been shortchanged, stifled by her past and buried further by her introversion as an artist. It made her feel awful at times, because she knew that her own romantic moods were so few and far between that Paul must be left so unsatisfied as to wonder if their relationship was even right. But he’s hung in there for three years now, she reminded herself. I hope I feel like this every day, so I can really make it up to him …

She hoped she wasn’t still flushed when she finally ventured to the foyer. Blank-faced movers nodded to her as they hand-carted in more boxes. When none of them were looking, Paul silently mouthed I love you to her.

Just you wait, she mouthed back, then mockingly cleared her throat and said, “Is it okay for me to look around the upper floors? I mean, is it safe?”

“Oh, sure, everything’s up to code if that’s what you mean.” He seemed to turn toward the bar, then thought better of it, which pleased Cristina. She wouldn’t exactly say that he drank too much, but she felt much better when he refrained. “Third and fourth floors aren’t even Sheetrocked yet, but the second floor is, and it’s all wired. Go ahead and check it out if you want. You might get some ideas about how we should refurbish the rest.”

“Okay,” she said and skipped up the dark-scarlet carpet. From the landing she could see unfinished doors standing open, filling the hall with fading daylight. She browsed around each empty room amid the scent of newly cut Sheetrock, but instead of thinking about redecorating she found her mind locked on her new line. Evil Church Creepies, she mused. The Noxious Nun …

Would she have the same dream to night?

It didn’t matter how bizarre the dream might be, nor how disturbed she was by it. I used it to my creative advantage, she knew. Now I just need it to sell—BETTER than Cadaverettes. Bruno von Blanc, the owner of the development company, assured her that Evil Church Creepies would outsell everything else on the market. “Your creative visions are right on the pulse of the marketplace, Cristina,” he’d insisted. “You thought we were taking a chance on Cadaverettes, remember? You thought they’d been branded as derivative. But I knew before we even signed you up that they were exactly what the market had been waiting for. Everything else is derivative, Cristina. Cadaverettes are the only original figurines coming out now, because they mix the old with the new. And Evil Church Creepies isn’t just an extension of that; it’s a new avenue. The preorders alone will be through the roof.”

Cristina hoped so, and it had nothing to do with the money. If anything, she still couldn’t relate to that part of it. She’d made a phenomenal amount off the last line, yet most of it was stuck in the bank, somehow defying her awareness of it. She merely needed her creations to perpetuate, to be enjoyed by others—preferably lots of others.

Semi-immortality, she thought, and wandered into more rooms.

The front room. What looked immediately back at her from the great bow window was another window: a great wheel-window of stained glass, accented by intricate traceries. The church across the street, she recalled. So far she’d scarcely noticed it but now, from this higher vantage point, it appeared quite grandiose, almost a mini Notre Dame, with buttresses, pointed iron crockets, even a belfry. It looked drab, though, unused. Cristina understood that the house in which she and Paul now lived was originally some sort of an annex building for the same church.

Staring at it now reminded her that she hadn’t been to church in over ten years.

She left the room in a rush, electing not to confront the subtle guilt.

Oh, wow. Now this is something …She’d drifted into the rearmost room, as wall-patched and unfinished as the others, but found herself spellbound. High lancet windows made the room appear galleryish, and let in radiant blocks of late-afternoon light. This room is it, she knew at once, and in her mind she already envisioned how it would be painted, carpeted, and arranged. I doubt that Paul will be hurt that I like this room better than the studio. It was the feel of the room, even in its denuded state, that instantly appealed to her artist’s perceptions. The view looking down wasn’t much—just the boring alley—but it was the way the windows let in all that light that made her fall in love with the room.

My new studio, she thought.

It was exciting just to think about, but after some undefinable moments, her thoughts had drifted elsewhere and she wasn’t sure why. Suddenly she felt flushed again, prickly with desire. God …A warm, delicious flash broke her out in gooseflesh as she imagined Paul’s hands on her skin, sculpting the contours of her body. Her eyes closed by themselves as further images poured into her head. She stood boldly naked before him, in this same room, before this same window, her nudity displayed to the sun as he knelt at her feet and—

It’s been so long since he’s done THAT, her thoughts slurred. But even longer since she’d done much of anything for him. That all changes tonight, she felt certain.

The fantasy doubled then. She closed her eyes harder to see it more clearly, and to feel it. Paul was on his knees, his mouth tending to her sex. The sensations rushed. Soon she’d actually opened her blouse for real, to let the sun pour on her breasts as her own hands caressed them…Yes, if she only had the vibrator; that would really send her off. One hand eventually opened her jeans and slipped down. The hand was now Paul’s mouth, working the delicate flesh to a hot, pulsing craze. Did she moan out loud? Her belly sucked in and her thighs quivered as her first climax in over a month broke and nearly brought her to the floor. Her fingers teased out the last sensations as her upper teeth crimped her lip…

I can’t believe I just did that …She let her breath come back, let the tensions lift off from her muscles; then she opened her eyes.

Oh my—

She brought her hand to her mouth to keep from shrieking in embarrassment. Her heart seemed to swell twice its size—

Because when she’d opened her eyes, her head had been bowed down toward the window, and a woman was standing there on the alley street looking right back up at her.

Grinning.

Cristina stepped back in the corner, shivering. She re-buttoned her blouse so fast she’d lined it up wrong. This is so embarrassing! What if I see that woman again?

But—

Something occurred to her. Cristina was fairly certain she’d seen the woman before, on the street. One of the homeless waifs that loitered around 67th Street and vicinity, panhandling.

But she had to be sure.

She inched forward along the wall. As the edge slowly crossed her line of sight, she inched even more slowly, peeping down. Eventually the entire alley street came into view and there, for just a second, she thought she could make out the woman’s features: holey jeans, barefoot, a baggy, stained T-shirt full of holes and hair hanging down like an oily mop. The woman—or girl—was walking away and a second later was out of the window frame completely.

Yeah, one of those homeless girls. Thank God. Who could she tell? And had she even been able to seen Cristina’s face clearly enough to recognize her later?

I doubt it …

She sighed out the rest of the shock and buttoned her blouse up right this time. But something compelled her to take one last look at the girl as she was walking away.

Ever so careful, Cristina took off a window latch and angled the window open enough for her to stick her head out.

The girl wasn’t to be seen.

Must’ve been walking really fast to be on the street by now …But before Cristina pulled her head back in, she stopped to squint.

Wait …

A figure stood at the end of the alley but it certainly wasn’t the same girl. In fact, the figure looked almost like a nun.

(II)

They were whittling.

scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch …

The sound filled the dirty, brick-walled room like rats skittering—a sound they were well accustomed to. Empty cans had been heaped to the farthest corner—the garbage corner, where they sometimes went to the bathroom, too, and old empty boxes for makeshift walls. A dead Sylvania television sat askew in another corner; they watched it a lot, and sometimes even saw things. There were four of them tonight; others came and went but it was mostly just these four: Francy, Sandrine, Scab, and Stutty. Shoplifted candles burned to give them light. It was Stutty who’d just crawled in through the hole that was almost too small for them to squeeze into.

“I just saw the lady in the house,” she said, “and she was playin’ with herself.”

“She was not,” Francy scowled.

“She was too! In a window upstairs, and she saw me-saw me-saw me-saw—”

“Be quiet!” Francy yelled. Most of Francy’s teeth were missing, and her pink glasses always slid down her nose. Her breasts sagged in an orange halter she stole from a store, and she wore baggy men’s jeans and flip-flops. “We’re working, we’re whittling. You could be helping, Stutty, but we can’t find the fourth knife we stole last night.”

Stutty’s obsessive-compulsive mind stalled. Knife? She sat down in a corner on a plastic storage bin that read BANANA REPUBLIC. She put her feet up on the old kerosene heater they found in the garbage last year that still worked, and watched the other three continue whittling. Stutty wished she could whittle too because it looked like fun. Stutty’s breasts itched beneath the stained white T-shirt that said THE DAMNED on it, and it had a blue picture of a woman with a crown of thorns; she’d taken it off of a dead crackhead in the Meatpacking District. The color of her hair was indeterminate due to dirt and head oil, but it didn’t really matter what color it was. She rarely wore shoes, often leaving black footprints.

The knife? she thought again, then said, “Oh, I know where it is!” and she pulled it out of her back pocket. It was a simple whittling knife.

“So you took it,” Sandrine said, smirking in her stained, pink sweatpants, and white T-shirt. Her black-spaghetti hair hung over most of her face. “Is that…blood on it?”

All the girls looked. Stutty turned the knife and touched the smudged blade. “Oh, yeah! I got money—I got five dollars-five dollars-five—”

“Be quiet!” Francy yelled.

“Stutty got a trick,” Scab said, as if jealous. She was the most quiet of the bunch, and probably the least mentally defected. Her large, dirty breasts swayed in the kind of sleeveless T-shirt that people called a wifebeater, and she wore cutoff army pants. Very short black hair covered her head, but she had lots of bald spots and scabs from some disease or hair blight. She wanted to grow her hair out long like the other girls but it just never grew. “But that was a shitty trick if all you got was five dollars.”

“Why ya think the knife’s got blood on it?” Stutty retorted with a wisp of pride in her voice. “Some fat guy in a little car, said he’d pay twenty but only gave five.”

“Did ya kill him?” Sandrine asked, looking up from her whittling.

“No, but I stuck him right in the bag. Twice.” Stutty laughed. “He had a wedding ring on!”

“Good,” Francy approved. “Let the fucker go home to his wife and explain why he’s got two knife holes in his nut-sack.”

The four girls burst into a round of giggling.

“Oh, and I got some sardines, too,” Stutty added.

The other three looked up with expectation in their eyes as Stutty took the narrow cans out of her pocket and gave them one each.

“King Oscar, I hope,” Scab said, but then she frowned at the can.

“These are anchovies, not sardines!” Francy complained.

Sandrine cranked open her can and first drank the oil out of it. “But anchovies are better, they’re easier to steal, and they’re salty, and I don’t even like sardines ’cos they remind me of my fucked-up childhood.”

“Sardines?” Scab questioned, picking a narrow fillet from the can.

“Because my name’s Sandrine so when I was a kid the other kids called me Sardine.”

“Oh,” someone said.

Stutty’s eyes popped open. “And look at this real expensive eye shadow I stole!” She reached down the front of her pants and withdrew a small jar with a gold lid. “It cost five hundred dollars, the sign said.”

“Huh?” Francy, Sandrine, and Scab said in unison.

“Yeah. It’s the best. I reached around and stole it when the guy wasn’t looking. They had red ones and white ones, too, but I think the black looks better.”

“Gimme that!” Francy said and snatched the little jar. She opened it and smeared some over her eyelids, but then winced. “This stuff stinks! You sure this is eye shadow?”

“Well, yeah, I think-I think-I think-I—”

“Be quiet!”

Scab took the bottle; she could read better than the others.

“Only thing was weird is they had it in a refrigerator,” Stutty remembered.

“Eye shadow?” Sandrine said.

Scab read the tiny words on the lid, chuckling, “Product of the Ukraine. Beluga caviar—”

“You didn’t steal eye shadow, you dick! You stole fish eggs!” Francy grimaced, wiping her eyes. Scab shook her head and threw the $500-per-half-ounce jar against the wall.

Stutty liked to talk, so she kept talking, “Oh-oh-ohoh—”

“Be quiet!” Francy yelled.

“I saw the hooker from last night—in a car,” Stutty finally said.

“Who?”

“You know, that ho who saw us run out of the hardware store last night-last night-last—” But then she pinched her lips shut.

“So what?” Sandrine huffed. “We got away with it, and the New Mother’ll be happy with us.”

But Francy seemed concerned. She picked at a scab on her foot. “You saw her…in a car? Was it…a police car?”

“I think it was. It was unmarked but the two guys in it looked like plainclothes cops, and they were all looking around, like the ho was telling them to.”

Francy smelled like fish eggs now. Her eyes locked on Stutty. “Did they see you?”

“Nope-nope-nope-nope—–”

“Be quiet!”

“They didn’t see me ’cos I hid behind the newsstand.”

“Good.”

“And then I saw the New Mother—”

“You did not!” Sandrine insisted.

“The New Mother only comes out at night,” Scab corrected in a singsong voice.

“I only saw her for a second, in a shadow!” Stutty challenged this affront to her credulity. “She can do that, she told us she could!”

“Sub…cuh-poor,” Francy began, her lips struggling. “Subcor—Shit! I can never pronounce the word!”

“Subcorporeal,” Scab said. “So Stutty really did see her.”

Stutty fumed, “Then don’t call me a liar-a liar-a—”

Francy pointed a finger at her.

Stutty calmed down again, but kept talking. “I saw her right after I saw the hooker with those cops, and right after that, that’s when I saw the woman in the house friggin’ herself in the window.”

“She gave me hot dog money today,” Sandrine said. “She seemed nice.”

“Then where’s the hot dogs?” Francy complained.

“I…ate ’em…”

“Shit-wad!”

Scuffing could be heard. The four girls’ eyes widened in the candlelight as they all turned their heads toward the hole.

“It’s the New Mother,” someone whispered.

“Aw, no it ain’t!” Francy griped. “It’s just Virginia…”

“Hi,” the dirty-elbowed girl peeped when she crawled in and sat up. She had one ear cut off from a crack dealer who didn’t like her, and wore cutoff sweatpants and a Yankees shirt. She switched from crack to smack, depending on availability but more often than not—and like a lot of them—the one component in her existence that was even less available than drugs was money. Her looks were far too gone now to get many tricks. “Ya got any food?”

“Sardines,” Stutty said.

“Anchovies!” Francy yelled. “You think anchovies are sardines and fish eggs are fuckin’ eye shadow!”

Scab and Sandrine laughed.

“I do not-do not-do-do—”

“Be quiet!” Francy yelled so loud her glasses flew off.

“You’re not one of us, Virginia,” Scab said, “so we can’t give you our food—”

—but then they all froze as a shadow like smoke seemed to sift around them. Soon they could see something standing near the candles.

And the voice flowed, Virginia is welcome in our convent, girls. All are welcome, and just as our generous lord shared with honest peasants, we too follow his example. We share with our sisters, don’t we?

Stutty gave Virginia a can of anchovies.

Let my love be upon you, the sweet voice fluttered, hovering. The girls all looked up in awe…

Such a righteous flock …

Then the voice, and the shadow, was gone.

“Give Virginia your knife,” Francy ordered Stutty. “She’s one of us now.”

The girls all looked at each other and smiled, and then—

scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch—

—continued to whittle.

CHAPTER FOUR

(I)

John Rollin absently turned the ring round and round his finger—a fat silver ring with the strangest crest: a dragon strangled by its own tail. He was still doing this when he got out of the cab and looked up. Unbelievable, he thought. The cab drove away.

Just about the worst thing that could possibly…

Inside, the familiar walls of his home seemed alien now. He’d only been gone for six months, his first hiatus in a decade. It had been the best of his life—

—and I come back to this…this calamity.

He didn’t even take his bags to his room; instead, he was upstairs in the front reading room, reaching for the binoculars. It was almost funny. Over forty years of training have led me to this: peeping in windows …

How could they have sold the annex house without consulting Rollin first?

He let his eyes acclimate, made sure the hall light was off so not to be detectable from outside. He carefully swung open the window, and in leaked the distant sounds of the city at night. Car horns, a siren, a late bus roaring by on 67th. One of the street lamps on Dessorio flickered on and off. It seemed to tranquilize his quiet rage.

And his fear.

A scuffing noise came from the street. Footsteps? Rollin raised the binoculars and looked.

Yes. Two girls. They wore ratty clothes and flip-flops. Addicts, he presumed. Or homeless. Often the two were synonymous. The optics of the binoculars seemed to magnify the meager available light to something surreal. He watched the two women shamble away, carrying their shrill chatter with them.

Now the street stood dead.

Rollin lifted the binoculars to the annex house…

Dim yellow lights burned on the first floor (which was actually raised half a floor above the street); the remaining three stories were dark. Close to midnight, Rollin observed. Were they still up at this hour? An attorney had bought the house; that’s all Rollin knew. One very HAPPY lawyer, he thought, considering the price he’d paid. Paul Nasher was the man’s name. But did he have a wife? Children?

Rollin gulped at the consideration. Good God, I hope he doesn’t have children with him in there …

Drapes were left open on the elaborate, pointed windows fronting the house, but the designer blinds hung down, open to slits. The slits provided enough open space for Rollin to effectively continue his voyeurism. He spied an indulgent living room on one side, and an equally overopulent kitchen on the other. He must’ve converted one of the back rooms for the bedroom …Rollin manipulated his slightly elevated vantage point, then—

Ah. There’s something.

The center pane of glass on the fanlight over the front door was keystone-shaped and clear, while the glasswork on either side was multicolored. Rollin found that when he moved over several inches, the binoculars could be zoomed right through that center glass. A door stood open at the end of a hall. The room was dark yet the bathroom door could be seen standing open, some lights on.

Movement in the bathroom urged Rollin to zoom closer.

A glittery shower curtain flung back, and now an attractive blonde woman, wet and naked, could be seen. I’d say that’s definitely NOT Paul Nasher. So he did have a wife or significant other. Rollin struggled with some shame, trying to attain an optimum focus as the woman dried herself with a black towel. When she turned and bent over, Rollin winced at the exotic sight, then—worse—she reversed her pose and stretched upright, displaying a flat stomach and dark blonde pubic area. Rollin closed his eyes and sighed.

He didn’t feel like so much of a pervert when the woman donned a robe, then strode out to the kitchen. He noticed a stunning tamber cabinet topped with crystal against one wall, and then recognized a kitchen nook with flooring made of herringbone Waterfall maple. He only knew this because he’d been to a billionaire’s home once in Barcelona, trying to convince the magnate to contribute to some European orphan charities. Rollin groaned as more of his own material lust cringed. Travertine marble, good Lord! These people have a lot of money …

His thoughts re engaged when a man walked into the kitchen, boldly naked, and came up behind the blonde woman. He caressed her from behind, gave her a smiling start. Pretty girl, Rollin noted when she grinned over her shoulder. The man stood trim but stocky, well-muscled, had short dark hair, clean shaven. Mr. Paul Nasher, attorney-at-law, I presume. He and the woman laughed silently as some cat play ensued. Oh, please, Rollin thought, groaning: Paul Nasher had removed a can of whipped cream from the double-doored refrigerator and was now cornering the woman with it. Nasher mock-muscled her against a dining table, shucked the robe off of her, and began to lay her back as she halfheartedly objected. Rollin frowned when Nasher kneed right up on the table, which probably cost five or ten thousand dollars, and began applying lines of the whipped cream around the woman’s breasts and belly.

I guess I really shouldn’t be looking at this …

He peered more closely at the rest of the floor, then examined the dark windows upstairs. Some moonlight filtered in through a rear window on the second floor, and Rollin noticed stacks of moving boxes. What do they even need a house that big for, especially if it’s just the two of them? But then he frowned at his own oversight. But of course, he’s a LAWYER who deals in REAL ESTATE. To him the house is an investment that will turn into a cash cow …

Then, Rollin aimed the binoculars down toward the basement. Good, he thought. The sidewalk-level basement windows remained securely covered by iron bars…

But tomorrow I’ll have to check the windows in the back …

There was no conscious thought when he roved the glasses back to the dining room table and saw at once that the previous whipped-cream frivolity had now been abandoned in favor of full-blown and rather frenetic sex. Nasher had the woman on her hands and knees on the sumptuous table, he behind her, thrusting. The look on Nasher’s face appeared focused, determined, very much like an attorney in court. How hackneyed, Rollin thought. He makes love like he’s deliberating over a lawsuit. And the woman…

She shined in sweat now, her full breasts rocking beneath her. Her head rocked as the muscles of her lithe physique tensed, highlighting a raw, primal beauty. Rollin knew he shouldn’t be watching, because he knew it was from something primal in him as well. Now the woman’s head arched back, her blonde hair disarrayed as her climax became evident. Rollin actually heard her ecstatic shriek through the windows…

The woman collapsed on the table, a cheek flat against the expensive wood. Her eyes closed and she made a sated grin.

Rollin had a feeling he knew what Nasher was about to proceed with next, and that’s when he pulled the binoculars from his eyes.

But how much of his deeds had been motivated by sin? Forgive me, God, a thought whispered. It was a test—something God was known to do to him quite often, a real-world circumstance that his duties had forced him to see, and then the notion that threatened to be the saddest regret. What he’d been watching on the table was an act he’d never in his life performed himself. He felt better when he recalled the crucial words from his ordination:

Thou art a priest forever …

A moment later, Father John Rollin, the custodian and pastor of St. Amano’s Church, walked out of the room and back down to the chancel, to pray.

Forgive me, God. Sometime’s it’s REALLY DIFFICULT being your servant …

But what would happen now? How much of it was actually true, and how much myth? Those people across the street have no idea what they’ve moved into …

Nor did Rollin have any idea that Paul Nasher and the blonde weren’t the only ones in the house. Instead of allowing his binoculars to drift to the ribald scene on the table, he should’ve looked more attentively at the second-floor windows. There he would’ve seen those two homeless women lurking about in the shadows, as well as a third figure, who looked like a nun…

(II)

Paul felt about as masculine as he ever had when he carried Cristina in his arms and put her to bed. Three times tonight, he thought. Not bad for forty.

Or maybe it was simply her…

The new Cristina, he considered.

Whatever had gotten into her was fine with Paul. She murmured in his arms, made a luxurious stretch when he laid her down on the bed’s black satin sheets.

Her eyes looked up at him, as if beseeching. “Thank you,” she said.

Paul laughed. “For what? Sex?”

“No, silly. Thank you for giving me the time I needed. Most guys would’ve dumped a moody ditz like me by now.”

How odd. He tried to joke back, “Well this lawyer ain’t gonna be dumpin’ nothin’ except maybe some clients who pay lousy retainers.”

Cristina curled atop the sheets, perfect white skin glowing against the luxuriant fabric. “I’ve haven’t felt this good, this complete, since…well, ever. And I know it’s because you convinced me to move here. This environment, plus you, has made me a new person, and I just know it’s the person I’ve always been inside but could never…show.”

This was getting deep, not that he objected. He sat down and stroked her thigh, which felt as satiny as the sheets. “You’ve always made me happy, and I want you to be just as happy. All that’s going to happen now. We have our lives together, and now we both have the careers we’ve wanted more than anything.”

She kept looking at him. “I owe you so much…”

“Quit talking like that. People in love don’t owe each other anything.” Seriousness in the bedroom often duped him; he didn’t know how to respond. “What you owe yourself is a good night’s sleep. You’ve got your meeting with that developer guy coming up.”

“Bruno—”

Paul buffed off some of the seriousness. “Is he as good-looking as me?”

“He’s gayer than Liberace, and, no…”

Paul splayed a hand over her breast. She was so arousing like this. I could probably do it again …He felt the large, warm nipple between his fingers; it seemed to get firmer in seconds.

“And I guess this sounds pretty crude,” she added, “but you’re the best lay of my life.”

“Crude works.”

“And if I wasn’t so tired right now…”

“Ah, I wore you out?” he chuckled.

“No shit.”

“You really know how to pump a forty-year-old’s ego.”

“Crude-ism Number Two. I’ll pump more than your ego tomorrow.” Then she brought a hand to her mouth. “I can’t believe I said that.”

“Believe it. So this is the new crude you, huh? I have no objections…”

“I love you, Paul…”

He kissed her, a kiss that lingered. Give her a break, she’s tired, he told himself, even as his arousal became more apparent. I love you, too, he thought.

She was asleep. He carefully got up and slipped out. A nightcap seems in order …Naked, he walked boldly to the bar and poured a small scotch. The mirror reflected back his nakedness, his broad shoulders and well-defined chest. Nope. Not bad at all.

He browsed around the living room, then the kitchen. Can’t think of a single reason why I shouldn’t be able to walk around my own house buck-naked. The freedom made him feel unrestrained; it made him feel much more human than he generally did at his job. Damn, he thought. There’s one reason not to. He sidestepped to the front window, noticing the blind’s walnut louvers open an inch. Good job, Paul. Give everyone on the street a show.

Before he closed them, he noticed the church across the street. The place looked abandoned.

He kept wandering, sipping his drink. He examined a Pollock print on the stairwell—Eyes in the Heat, it was called. Even the painting’s dozens of eyes seemed to look at him with approval, or even envy. All the cards are starting to come up aces, he realized. Now that I’ve got Cristina out of her shell, I’ve got damn near everything.

An undefined curiosity took him up to the next floor. Blocks of moonlight and street light jagged here and there from the high undraped windows. He stepped into one small room, sniffing those familiar scents of new plaster, carpet, and paint. Then he tensed—

click …

creak …

It sounded like a door opening, then a careful footfall creaking the old wood. Impossible. The house is locked, and I checked the bars on the basement windows myself. It was just a house noise, he resolved but remained mildly perturbed.

Then, very faintly, he heard the oddest words:

“Singele lui traieste…”

What the hell? and then he stalked out of the room and across the hall to where he swore he heard the words.

A woman’s voice…

He was surprised by how fearless he felt, even knowing that he’d heard a voice, but in the next barren room, he relaxed. He could hear a television squawking through the wall. The next building, he knew, was all condos for wealthy retirees. They’re hard of hearing, he reasoned, and keep the volume up. He made a mental note to look into soundproofing down the road.

He froze again when he stepped back into the hall and faced the back room…

Now he did feel a twinge of fear.

The shadow of a figure lay across the bare floor between moving boxes.

Holy shit …

The shadow seemed starkly tapered. A woman wearing a floor-length dress? And the jet-black shadow of the head was just as peculiar: angled upward with triangles of some sort hanging down.

“All right,” he said with a stout voice. “I don’t know how you got in here, but you better leave the way you came, and I mean right now. I’ve already called the police on my cell phone…”

The shadow didn’t move.

What now? Retreat for a weapon, go back downstairs and call the police for real? It seemed the most sensible tactic, but…That’s got to be a woman, he reasoned. His muscles tensed when he tightened his fists. Someone’s in my house so I better take action. Unfaltered by his nakedness, then, he stepped boldly into the room.

The shadow had jagged during his final steps, and disappeared. Immediately, Paul’s eyes darted out the window, and he exhaled long and hard. Idiot, he told himself. He could see the buildings across the alley, and higher up on one of the balconies a woman was watering plants. It had obviously been her shadow that had briefly played into the room.

All right. So much for that.

He chuckled at the afterthought. For a split second, the shadow had reminded him of that of a nun.

He looked about the room, which was cluttered with boxes that the men had brought earlier. Cristina had opted to use this room for her studio instead of the den downstairs. Better light, she’d said. What ever she wants …Her work desks and computers were half set up now. A large drawing table and brace-frame sat in one corner, and on some walnut shelving she’d already arranged the figurines she’d created in the first two releases.

Cadaverettes, he thought with a tight smile and, Plastic Surgery Botchies. Paul had fronted the production cost for the latter, the first line of figurines. It was about thirty grand, no big deal, and once they’d gotten a distributor, the line, however limited, had sold out. That’s some bizarre stuff, all right, he thought, peering at the row of figures. The line’s motif was plastic-surgery disasters, the grim theme clashing with the “cuteness” of the figurines themselves, each about four inches high. They were little troll-like toys that each displayed some outrageous mistake of cosmetic augmentation, and had equally cute/macabre names, like Liposucked Lisa, for instance, a cute little cherubic woman with a smile on her plastic face, naked with her arms out to highlight fleshy grooves up and down her legs, belly, and buttocks—grooves from a botched liposuction job. Botox Bonnie grinned below huge bright eyes, her lips and face lopsided from inept injections. There were others: Rhinoplasty Robin, Grafted Greta, Facelifted Felicia, etc., which all displayed the most outrageous malpractices of each procedure. Implanted Isobel was the most notable entry in the line: another curvaceous nude kewpie with one breast huge and the other empty. Amused, Paul shook his head. How could Cristina even THINK of things like this?

But it had been the Botchies that had gotten Cristina’s foot into the door of the market. After the line had sold out completely, a doll manufacturer by the name of Von Blanc Toys had offered Cristina a contract for her next line, Cadaverettes. Paul perused the second shelf where they all stood, a dozen of them, with names like Incinerated Ilsa, Over-Embalmed Oscar, Eviscerated Evan, Torso’d Trisha, Electrocuted Ellen, and the like. Damn, he thought, squinting. They even look freakier in the moonlight. Paul wasn’t into this cult-market at all, but he was all for supporting Cristina’s creative endeavors. To each his own…or hers. Ultimately he realized that her creation of these macabre toys was an important outlet of release, or, as Cristina’s therapist had put it, “An all-too-crucial creative purgation of the emotional traumas of Cristina’s past.”

Paul knew all about that, and to this day, it made him furious. Those goddamn Goldfarbs …He swigged the rest of his drink. All they got was twenty years. You fuck up kids like they did you sure as shit should get life with no parole. I wish to hell I’d been the prosecutor on that one …

He let it go out of his head. It was all over anyway, and things were good. So why dwell on it? He found himself looking once more at the row of Cadaverettes and eventually was chuckling at the grotesque whimsey. Runover Rhonda, Floater Frank, Crushed Cassandra, Headless Helen…And lots of people BUY these things, Paul realized. But what the hell do I expect her to do? Knit sweaters? She’s found a niche market for these dolls—more power to her. And let’s not forget—she made a SHITLOAD of money on these things last year.

At least that’s how he tried to deal with it. Sometimes he’d get a snicker or two from some opposition attorney—“Hey, Paul, isn’t your girlfriend the one who makes those ridiculous dolls?” or “Man, that’s one morbid fiancée you got there, pal.”

To hell with them, Paul always reasoned.

He was about to leave but caught himself snagged by something.

The shelves…

He didn’t seem to see several of the figures that were most memorable to him. Gutshot Glen, Hypothermia Harriet, and Leprosy Linda.

Hmm, he thought. I guess Cristina hasn’t put those up yet …

CHAPTER FIVE

(I)

Jesus Christ. And yesterday I was complaining that nothing ever happened in this precinct …

Vernon was stupefied by what he stared up at in the Dumpster cove behind the brewing company on 76th and Amsterdam. Alleys in New York tended to reek of urine but this one stank of hops and barley, the combination of which stung his eyes like CS gas. Beat cops were cordoning the perimeter while TSD techs snapped pictures that caused Vernon to wince.

“This is some shit, huh, Inspector?” a tech asked.

Vernon opened his mouth to respond but nothing came out. Instead, someone else said, “This is fuckin’ ghastly…”

And someone else: “Hell of a thing to have to look at at five in the morning.”

You got that right, buddy.

Slouch shuffled up, his hair a mess from the sleep he’d just been jolted from. “You know, How, when you rang my phone a half hour ago, I was really pissed ’cos I thought sure it’d be another namby-pamby call.”

“This look namby-pamby to you?” Vernon asked, still stifled by the visual shock. “Looks like a hardcore psycho job to me.”

Slouch huffed the grimmest laugh. “I hope the M.E. gets here quick and gets the stiff out of here. Can you imagine what the papers are gonna do with this?”

“You don’t have to tell me. Maybe we can hold them off for a few days but eventually…”

Slouch nodded. “We’re gonna look like the Keystone Cops. I can see the headlines already. ‘Woman Impaled in Twentieth Precinct.’”

Vernon got dizzy from the words.

Impaled, he thought.

The victim was a white female of indeterminate age. She’d been stripped naked, and then her body had been mounted upon a two-inch-thick wooden rod—six feet long and sharpened at one end. The rod ran completely through her body, from crotch to mouth, its point terminating at the roof of her mouth. Her clothes formed a small pile where the rod had been planted, and by now they were sodden with the blood that had poured down from the entrance wound. The woman looked starved, the insides of her elbows pocked with scabs. Yellowed eyes remained open in a death stare, the mouth open, too, an eternal gape that displayed the impaling rod’s sharpened point. When a Technical Services photographer snapped a picture from behind, the bright silvery flash stretched the crime’s shadow all the way down the alley.

“One dead junkie,” Slouch commented. “Must’ve been a snitch. Lately the dope gangs have been hanging them upside-down and gutting them, but this…”

“Definitely a new twist,” Vernon said. “Might be that new skag gang—Z-Mob, I think they’re called. Narcotics said their stoolies are scared shitless of them, a hardcore crew. We’ll have to check out those lines on the body. Probably a gang label.”

Slouch hadn’t noticed it initially but now he saw that the dead woman’s body had been crudely adorned with waving lines running down her entire body. The lines alternated in color. “Black, green, and red,” Slouch said. “Looks like magic marker, for Christ’s sake.”

“Not looks like—it is,” one of the techs informed. He held up a sealed plastic baggie that contained one El Marko red magic marker.

Slouch sighed through a smile. “Let’s start praying to every god on the deity list that there’s a decent fingerprint on it.”

“Amen.”

Yeah, Vernon thought, encouraged. It’s got to be a gang label. Every so often they’d mark their turf with the bodies of sniffed-out in formants, just…not this elaborately.

Vernon finally yanked his gaze from the corpse. Amid the photographic flashes, at times he couldn’t see the pole, which made it look as though the woman were hanging in midair.

“Inspector?” one of the evidence men bid. “Back here. Something written on the body.”

Vernon walked around, part queasy, part curious. Across bony shoulder blades, someone had magic-marked: SINGELE LUI TRAIESTE.

“A foreign name?” someone guessed. Someone else: “Probably some new gang-speak. They make up their own words to throw off wiretaps.”

Vernon scribbled the odd words in his notebook. “Well. Looks like we get to do something we haven’t done in a while. Detective work.”

Slouch offered a lazy smile. “Right on.”

Vernon’s eyes played downward, where the rod had been planted in the ground. Asphalt back here. There must be a hole in the asphalt, Vernon considered. “Hey, Sarge,” he asked one of the techs doing the initial workups. “Is it all right if I pull those bloody clothes off the bottom of the rod?”

The tech, ever blank-faced, passed Vernon a plastic evidence glove. He got down on one knee, and very carefully peeled the sodden clothes away.

Vernon stared.

“What the hell is that?” Slouch asked.

The evidence technician paused, then popped a brow. “Looks like a friggin’ Christmas tree stand.”

(II)

You’re in a hot grotto of some sort, or perhaps a medieval dungeon. You smell niter and soil and you can see water bleeding through walls of uneven bricks lit by wan firelight. The fire gently crackles …

And the woman raises the cup …

She’s robust, beautiful, and nearly nude. The only clothing she wears is hardly clothing at all but the black-and-white wimple of a nun. She seems parched, her lambent skin glazed with sweat, and the firelight lays moving squiggles on it, like faint tongues of light. And the cup—

Not a cup, really. It’s cereal-bowl-sized but of dull brown clay. You can’t see what’s in it. The woman’s breasts jut as she raises it high, as if in offering. Three gemstones mounted on the bowl sparkle, one black, one green, one red.

Behind her, the firelight on the wall…changes. Soon the bricks are squirming with wavering lines of black, green, and red, slowly writhing snakelike. When the nun lowers the bowl just below her bare breasts, you see its contents: blood.

At first you think the nun will drink the blood but she never does. She simply holds the bowl low, so that you can look at it, and then she speaks:

“Singele lui traieste…”

The accent-tinged words echo about the chamber while her flawless flesh shines with sweat. She holds the bowl like a prize. Eventually her intonation is replied to, the gruff but fading voice of a man, who says:

“Kanesae…”

The woman nearly swoons. Where did the male voice come from? The woman—this obscene nun—seems to grin aside, to a dark corner where the light barely reaches.

The luminous black, green, and red lines behind her begin to churn in a fury and then her eyes go wide and she turns her head to gaze right through the mirage—

Right at you—

—and grins, showing two long, narrow, and very sharp fangs …

And that’s when you scream and—

—woke up in a lurch, a hand slapped to her chest.

“Damn it!” Cristina wheezed.

Darkness mottled the bedroom, but she could see the light of day leaking in from around the drapes. That painin-the-butt dream again …She gave herself a few moments to catch her breath. In spite of the room’s coolness, she felt slopped with sweat, her pillow and sheets beneath her soaked. Everything’s going so well all of a sudden but then that damn dream keeps coming back …

She was used to it now, at least. The startlement always wore off quickly, leaving her more curious about it than anything.

The nun, she thought. With fangs …

Just another weird dream—everyone had them—but why did this one plague her with such morbid features? Bowls of blood, cryptic lines of light on a dungeon wall, bizarre intonations. Where does it comes from? she wondered and sat up.

Same place THAT came from, she realized next when she noticed her doodle-sketch of the Noxious Nun sitting on the nightstand.

The whimsily grinning fanged nun holding the bowl of blood…

But the glimpse enlivened her now. She couldn’t have been more excited about her next line of figurines. I… can’t…wait …

Just a few days ago she felt terrified by the prospect of living in New York City, yet now, in an eyeblink, she felt the reverse. Everything came together at once—it was almost uncanny. Her relationship, the house, the neighborhood, and her creative endeavors. The only sore spot was the weird dream. Salvador Dali CRAVED weird dreams, he even INVITED them, she reminded herself, because they fueled his artistic visions. I’ll just have to do the same thing.

The resolution made her feel ten times better. She was up in a moment, to drop the sheets and pillowcases in the washer, turn on the coffeepot, and then she hit the shower. Much better, she thought, toweling off. Her smile shined in the wall-length mirror, along with her nakedness. Then she blushed momentarily when she recalled her sexual acrobatics with Paul yesterday.

The best sex of my life …

She dressed quickly in jeans and a T-shirt that replicated an abstract painting by de Kooning. The Tiffany clock on the living room mantel showed her it was past nine—Paul was long gone; he generally was in the office by eight. Now it’s time for me to go to work, too. She skipped upstairs and went directly to her studio. Her main computer she typically left on, and the first thing she did was look at the digital models for the first four characters of the Evil Church Creepies line. They glowed on the screen, revolving in three dimensions: first the Noxious Nun, then the Sickening Sunday School Teacher, the Corrupt Choir Boy, and the Demented Deaconess. They’re beautiful, she praised the images. Now if Bruno’s company can only make the actual dolls look just as good …

Her muse assailed her; next thing she knew two hours had passed as she’d made some initial sketches for upcoming figurines and scanned them into the 3-D program. When her eyes began to hurt, she got up and stretched, recalling her and Paul’s ravening sex-play. It made her wonder about herself. Every aspect of me is changing for the good. Why?

It didn’t matter why. That’s what Britt would say. Her body and spirit were in a compatible place.

I’ve never really had that before, have I?

More satisfaction swept her as she gazed at the shelves on which her first two lines were displayed. But…

Wait a minute …

She was certain she put them all out yesterday after the movers had left, yet three figurines from the Cadaverettes seemed to be missing.

Gutshot Glen, Hypothermia Harriet, Leprosy Linda.

I’m SURE I put them on the shelves yesterday …

Or was she? There were still more boxes to unpack—perhaps the three dolls were in one. Yeah, I guess so, she thought and started searching. The task grew frustrating very quickly, however. She searched for a half hour but couldn’t find them.

From behind a hand touched her shoulder—

Cristina nearly screamed. “Holy—”

“Scared ya, didn’t I?” Britt said.

Cristina gawped. “Yes!”

“Sorry.” Britt gave a light laugh. “I dropped off some papers for Jess at the office, and Paul gave me a key. He asked me to pick up some letters he forgot to mail. Said they’re in the kitchen somewhere.”

Cristina’s pulse was just simmering down. “Don’t sneak up on me like that, Britt. I thought you were a burglar.”

Britt exaggerated her pose in a one-shoulder silk dress and white high heels. “Burglars don’t wear Yves Saint Laurent.”

“Yeah, I guess they don’t!”

Britt chuckled it off, then took to examining the studio. “So this is your workroom, huh?” She frowned out the back window. “Great view—of the alley.”

“The afternoon light’s perfect,” Cristina said, then rummaged through one more box, exasperated.

“Need help unpacking the rest?”

“No, thanks. It’s mostly just supplies left. But I can’t find three of my Cadaverettes.”

“Well tell what’s his name—Bruno—you need more. What’s the big deal?”

I guess she’s right. “I probably just lost them,” she said, before giving up the search. They’re just plastic dolls, and it’s not like anyone could’ve stolen them. “I’ve got coffee on downstairs—Costa Rican.”

“Yum. Let’s go.”

On their way down, Cristina asked, “Why didn’t Paul just call and tell me to mail the letters?”

“He thought you might be working, didn’t want to disturb you. I wish Jess was that considerate.”

Cristina smiled over her shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“Most of the time he’s like a caveman, especially when he wants sex. One time he came into my office at social services and had the gall to ask for a quickie.”

“What did you say?”

“Yes, but that’s beside the point.”

Cristina laughed. She poured coffee, then walked to the other end of the island table. “Here are the letters Paul was talking about. Don’t bother with it—I’ll mail them myself.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m going to go walk around town a little while, then do some more work in the studio.”

Britt’s high heels clipped across the floor as she browsed the kitchen and adjoining rooms. “Paul really did a terrific job with the place.”

“I know,” Cristina said, feeling a pang of negligence. He did everything. “He spent a fortune, but I’m going to pay for the refurbishments upstairs.”

“That’s right. You’re Ms. Money Bags now.”

“Not for long if the new line flops,” Cristina guardedly remarked.

Britt giggled, sipping her coffee. “What is it? Evil Church Crazies?”

“Creepies,” Cristina corrected. “But I’m pretty happy and so is Bruno. The first four dolls will be out in a few days, or so they tell me.”

Britt fingered at an imaginary crease in her dress. “The nun—I forgot. From your dream. Have you had it again?”

A split-second’s pause showed Cristina the furious, churning black, green, and red lines behind the vampiric nun. “Actually, yes. Last night. But the more I think about what my old therapist said, as well as what you’ve said, the better I feel.”

“Catharsis and all that, you mean?”

“Well, yeah, and other things, too. My life in the present separates me from my life in the past.”

They both meandered back upstairs. Cristina had the sudden desire to view the 3-D models again, the same way a painter might look repeatedly at a satisfactory canvas.

“I’m glad you’re finally getting the gist. It can take time,” Britt said, peering over Cristina’s shoulder to the computer screen. “You’re changing from what we call the therapeutic evolvement to a causal evolvement, and you’re using your art to do it. Everybody has their own way, and this is your way. The resurgence of your occupational functionality.”

Cristina nodded, even though Britt’s use of clinical terms amid their private conversations sometimes rubbed her the wrong way. “And what’s the other term you use? My therapist in Connecticut always said the same thing.”

“Oh, I know. The ‘impetus of positive conditioning.’”

“Yes, I think that’s it. It really is true.” Cristina smiled at the revolving images on-screen. “It all happened so fast, but I’ve never felt this good and secure in my life. I owe a lot of it to you.”

“No, you don’t. My job is just to put the function of therapy into relatable terms. The only person you owe anything to for getting you out of your shell is yourself.”

“Sure, but that’s pretty idealistic. I owe a lot to Paul, too.”

Now Britt was looking up at the shelves containing the Botchies and the Cadaverettes. “Honestly, it can’t all be from your dreams.” She chuckled at the cute but morbid dolls. “I don’t know how you come up with these ideas.”

“It doesn’t matter much, though, does it? I think that’s why I’ve become successful. It’s funny how after the Cadaverette line was finished, I couldn’t come up with any ideas for the next line. Then it all fell into place over the course of a day or two.”

“That fast?”

“Creative inspiration, I suppose. But then it all goes back to that impetus thing. That’s why I owe so much to Paul.”

“To Paul,” Britt commented. “I know he’s always been supportive of your work, but he was never really into it, was he?”

“No, it’s not his taste at all—it’s too ‘gothy,’ he says. Paul’s just like Jess; he’s into pop culture—Jessica Simpson, Hollywood thrillers, Jaguars, and Rolexes. My tastes are very underground.”

“But still…You’re a success.”

“Yeah. There’s something for everyone”—Cristina knocked on the wooden table—“which is my good luck. But I think that’s why Paul and I click so well. We each have our own separate spaces that don’t cross over.”

“Having too much in common is worse than not having enough. Believe me, I see that in my job every day. It gives you both middle ground, some of which you share, and some of which you keep to yourselves. It’s actually quite crucial for a long-term relationship.” Britt’s lashy eyes fluttered. “But I still don’t understand how Paul influenced this Creepers line.”

“Creepies,” Cristina corrected. “Evil Church Creepies. Most of all, it was the house, and that old church right across the street. I took one look at those places and—bam—the whole thing came to me.”

Britt still looked confused. “Then how do you owe your latest ideas to him?”

“It was several months ago, when he decided to buy the house. This was before the refurbishment started; we couldn’t even go in ’cos it failed the city safety codes. But he told me what he wanted to do and drove me out here just to see the outside of the place. It doesn’t make sense, really, but that’s when all the new ideas came into my head. Don’t know why, they just did. It wouldn’t have happened if Paul hadn’t urged me to move here with him.”

“All things happen for a reason.”

Cristina spun on her work seat. “And when I was thinking about what the lead-off figure should be—”

“That’s when you decided to use that annoying dream of yours to your advantage.”

“Exactly,” Cristina agreed. It was fascinating how Britt could read her so accurately.

“You created a positive out of a negative. And we both did, in a lot of ways. That’s what led me to the psychology curriculum and a career as a social services counselor.”

The side note didn’t bother Cristina now. She knew what Britt was talking about: the Goldfarbs and the foster house. Cristina sighed. “Yeah, I guess we’re both pretty lucky.”

“You can say that again.” She put a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “And we must never forget it.”

Cristina wiped a tear from her eye, hoping Britt wouldn’t see. A tear of joy, however, not one of despair. When you go through what we went through…the bond lasts forever.

Cristina only half-paid attention to the dimensional notes on her main computer. But what am I REALLY thinking about? She wasn’t sure.

The Goldfarbs? All THAT crap?

“The best way to test the therapeutic gauge,” Britt offered, “is simply by self-examining your own sex life.”

Cristina wasn’t sure if the comment was loaded. Was this just a chat? Or something more, one of her older sister’s ways of checking up on her?

“And since we’re on that subject,” Britt continued.

“We?”

“—how’s yours lately?”

Yep. Checking up again. “If you want to know that truth, very recently it’s been great.”

“Really?” Britt seemed surprised.

“I think it’s all part of that evolvement thing you were talking about,” Cristina said. “I’ve changed more in the past few days than I think I’ve ever changed.”

“Not changed. Evolved. There’s a difference.”

Cristina smiled, but deeper thoughts made her feel something akin to lewd. “Changed, evolved, what ever. But all for the best.”

“Sex, too, huh?”

Cristina felt a blush coming on. “Especially that. I was a…dirty girl last night. And it was great.”

“Not just great but healthy,” Britt added. Now she was looking absently out the back window again, down into the sun-lit alley. “It’s just more proof of our wellness. Reversal of the ‘sexual nadir,’ is how we say it in shrinkspeak. Things are great with me and Jess, too. He’s a little selfish sometimes but—” She tossed a shoulder and laughed. “That’s what vibrators are for. Sometimes I think my rabbits are better than men—”

“Britt!”

“Oh, don’t give me that. Like you don’t have one.” Now Britt was looking back at the shelves of figurines. “I don’t even understand how these are made. You don’t actually sculpt them, do you?”

“No, no.” Cristina was grateful for the turn of subjects. “I sketch each character from various angles, input them into the computer, then a special program turns it into a three-dimensional model. Another program assigns measurements and other attributes. Then the manufacturing contractor makes the mold that the figures are cast from. It’s pretty high-tech these days.” She hit some keys on the keyboard. “Here’s what the first figurine in the next line will look like.”

Britt’s eyes bloomed at the screen. The bright cartoon-ish character revolved slowly, displaying itself. The angular black habit and hood, the white wimple, the blue-white pallor of the face set with the huge, fanged grin. White, black-nailed hands held the bowl of blood.

“The central image from your dream.” Britt shook her head, amused. “The Notorious Nun…”

“Noxious,” Cristina kept correcting. “Pretty vivid and cute, huh?”

“Cute’s not quite the word that comes to mind but I guess it’ll do.”

“Bruno says they’ll sell like hotcakes. I’m supposed to meet with him to night for dinner. He’s going to show me the new packaging.” Britt errantly stroked her sister’s shoulder. “That’s some wacky hobby you have. I guess I’m in the wrong business.”

Cristina looked up. “Say. What do you do for creative catharsis?”

“Have lots of orgasms.”

“You’re impossible!”

“I know, but it is fun.” She glanced at her Lady Rolex. “I better get going. Jess wants me to get the Mercedes detailed. You sure you don’t want me to mail those letters?”

“I’ll take them,” Cristina insisted. “There’s a post office right up Broadway, near the Imax. Besides, I like to walk.”

“Okay.” A quick kiss on the cheek. “See ya soon. Oh, and Paul said you’re having us over for a house warming dinner soon.”

“That’d be great, but I hope he also said that I’m a terrible cook.”

“Shun Lee Palace carryout, sweetie,” Britt scolded with a laugh. “We’re upscale cosmopolites now, which means we never cook. We’ll all get drunk on plum wine in your new hot tub.”

“What ever you say.’ Bye.”

Cristina laughed as Britt sashayed out and down the stairs. She’s a trip, but I don’t know what I’d do without her. Eventually she went back downstairs, whistling, grabbed the letters and left the house.

Birds squawked overhead, high in the bright sky. Buildings loomed on either side of Dessorio Avenue, their windows white with sun. The skinny doorman at the condo building nodded to her. “Hello,” she said back and almost laughed. The man was a cliché in his red coat and gold buttons which, these days, looked ludicrous. Next, she paused to eye the sullen church across the street, noting its gothic aura, its fine gray stone, buttresses, and stained glass.

The church looked abandoned, however. No sign out front offered service times, just a bland brass plaque: ST. AMANO’S. When she finally commenced down the street, she found her eyes flicking back several times, for a last glimpse.

Two security guards, a man and a woman, were chatting in front of the boarded-up Banana Republic, which was actually connected to the annex house. It stood like a multistoried tenement now in its disrepair. Probably turn it into more condos, Cristina knew. The female guard looked Polynesian with her long, shining black hair and glowing dark skin. She grinned wide-eyed at the husky male guard who whispered to her with a hand on her waist. Hanky-panky on the job, Cristina assumed. They broke from their intimate pose when Cristina approached. Don’t mind me.

The mouth of the catty-cornered alley appeared, and without thinking, she entered. I’m never in a hurry…so why do I always take this shortcut? She did take a look first, to make sure the passage was clear. Just the same garbage cans and windowless metal doors cornered with rust. She walked along but then—

A sound flagged her attention from behind. When she turned to look—

What’s he doing there?

A man stood bent over, yanking on the security bars that covered the ground-level basement windows of Cristina and Paul’s house. She wasn’t alarmed, however, because the man’s appearance was plain.

A priest.

This certainly is strange. A priest/burglar? The notion was absurd. The man was portly and had a bald pate with short gray-white hair around the sides. Something seemed radiant about his black pants, shoes, and shirt in the bright sun. Cristina didn’t like to talk to strangers but how could she not make an inquiry? It is our house, after all.

“Excuse me, sir—er, Father.” She backtracked up to him and felt comfortable by the smile he immediately offered. “Can I help you with something? I happen to live in that house.”

The faintest accent adorned his words. “I’m sorry. Forgive my impulse. I’m Father John Rollin. I actually used to be the custodian of this house back when it was an annex for St. Amano’s.”

“The church across the street?”

“Yes. I’m the pastor there as well.” He shook her hand. His blue eyes seemed as bright as his smile. “And you must be Mr. Nasher’s wife.”

“Cristina. But we’re engaged, not married.” She noted the man’s white Roman collar. It was so clean it seemed to dazzle. “Oh, so you know Paul?”

“Actually, no, but I’d love to meet him.” A broad silver ring flashed on his finger. “The reason I’m apprised of his name is because the diocese related it to me yesterday. I’d been on a sabbatical for the past six months but I just returned. I wasn’t even aware that the annex house had been put up for sale much less sold. You must’ve done quite a lot of work inside before moving in. For the last decade it’s gotten a bit run-down.”

“Paul had the building rewired and rewalled, then he refurbished the first floor,” Cristina said. “Over time, we’ll get the rest in order. But—” Her gaze shot down to the iron window bar. “Why were you…”

Father Rollin laughed. “Perhaps it’s doting faith on my part, but in the past, vagabonds have been known to pry these bars out.”

“Really?”

“Yes, just a few times. Even though God promises to protect the faithful, I don’t know that he has time to ward off burglars as well. It was more of an old habit of mine—to check these bars every so often. Slipped my mind that the house belongs to someone else now. But I see your fiancé has replaced the old ones with a much better grade of metal.”

Had he? Cristina looked closer and saw not only bars that could only be steel but also alarm system labels. “Yeah, I guess he did. I hadn’t noticed. I always thought they were just the typical old iron bars you see on a lot of the buildings around here.”

“Like those,” the priest added. He pointed to the adjacent building, which possessed security bars that looked half-rusted-through. “I believe this building is a retirement condo—very pricey.”

“Yeah, that’s what Paul told me.”

Father Rollin chuckled. “If they can afford condos in this area, you’d think they could cough up the loot for some better security bars.”

The priest’s callow choice of words made Cristina smile. “How long have you been the pastor across the street?”

“Decades.” He glanced up the building’s entire rear wall as if unconsciously. “But I don’t have a congregation anymore. They all went to Blessed Sacrament and Holy Trin ity now—for the air-conditioning.”

“Then why…”

“Why am I still the pastor?” Another chuckle. “It’s the diocese’s way of not quite retiring me. You don’t get pink slips in this business. We still use the church for ordinations, baptisms, and diocesan meetings. I guess they think I’m too old now to pound the pulpit, and maybe…too old-school.”

“I’m sure that’s an exaggeration,” Cristina offered.

“I hope so! But they keep me around to look after the place. It’s quite a historical building. The church needs money like anyone else, so they sell off old properties that can no longer be used for clerical purposes, like the annex house, for instance. I’m sure once I give up the goat, they’ll sell St. Amano’s, too. Someone’ll probably turn it into a Starbucks.”

Cristina couldn’t help but be amused by the priest’s flippancy.

“I’ll be on my way now, Cristina,” he said. “It’s been delightful making your acquaintance.”

“Nice meeting you as well, Father.” Isn’t he at least going to Holy Roll me a little? she wondered. “Stop by any evening. I’d love for you to meet Paul.”

Father Rollin maintained the warm smile. “I will. Go with God,” he said, then turned and walked away.

Go with God, she repeated. I’ll try …

By the row of dented garbage cans, she stopped, noticing the ragged hole in the brick wall she’d seen the other day. Several magic markers lay on the stained asphalt along with an empty anchovy can. The closed Banana Republic …Could someone actually be living in there? She recalled the homeless girl who’d asked her for money.

Cristina got down on one knee and looked into the one-foot-diameter hole and then felt assured that no squatters could be within. The hole was blocked off by chunks of broken cement.

On the street she tuned out the city’s noise and motion. Most of the drove of passersby looked stone-faced, preoccupied. People-watching could be fun but then there was always the chance of making accidental eye contact. As much as moving here made her feel less isolated, she still preferred to maintain a sense of tunnel vision while out in public. I just want to have a leisurely walk …She mailed the letters at the main post office off of Broadway, then headed down past Lincoln Square and Dante Park. The West End YMCA loomed, people of all classes coming and going. Several ragtag-looking women left excitedly, hyperactive as children. Their heads were wet, hair hanging in damp strings. Poor people, Cristina presumed. They let them take showers there. One girl in grubby pink sweatpants and sopping wet black hair chased out after them.

That’s the girl I saw in the alley, Cristina realized.

Her cohorts all looked similar as they hustled down the steps. Old, dirty clothes, dim eyes, malnourished.

All at once, it seemed, the gaggle of broken-down women stopped.

And looked directly at Cristina.

She froze in her tracks. Are they really looking…at ME? Now two were whispering, one with large glasses, to another one with jeans and no shoes. Were they giggling?

Cristina didn’t like the feeling she got. Please tell me I’m not being mocked by a bunch of homeless women …She was insecure enough; the notion was the last thing she needed. I’m just overreacting. There was no reason for them to be laughing at her. She felt a little better when the girl in pink sweatpants waved to her. Then they all scampered away.

Strange.

Cristina knew she was imagining it. So what. I’m a little paranoid. All artists are. She tried to laugh it off.

She wandered around, considered maybe lying around Sheep Meadow or Strawberry Field to brainstorm, or maybe throwing a coin for good luck into the Bethesda Fountain. I need to think more on the next figures in the line, she knew. Details, to make them more unique and…creepier …Central Park was a great place to summon her muse. She was about to head that way but ducked into a CVS first. She had some paper in her purse for notes and sketches but had forgotten a pen.

Drugstores here sure are different. She was still getting used to that. Aisles stood higher and more narrow, and there never seemed to be enough employees working the register. She shouldered around till she found the school supplies. But at the end of the aisle…

Them again.

The four homeless girls all congregated at the area where the pens hung. Cristina thought one of them said:

“It’s her again…”

Four sets of eyes widened on her, and four broken-toothed grins. Then one of them grabbed something off the hooks, and they all disappeared around the end. A wave of giggles followed in their wake, which sounded childlike even though some of them might have been middle-aged for all Cristina knew.

This is ridiculous, she thought, her nerves fraying. Were they stalking her? Of course not. Why would they do that?

She shook it off with a frown, grabbed a Scripto fine-point roller, and went to the register.

But before she got there—

“You girls! Hey! Stop!” a man shouted.

A younger man at a register said, “Those bum girls again. Want me to call the cops?”

Cristina only had time to see the four homeless girls bang the front door open and race out of the store. An obese manager ran after them.

A woman in line sputtered, “Someone should do something about all the bums in this town.”

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with ’em,” a hard hat said. “They just don’t wanna work. Would rather steal and beg and take drugs.”

Cristina’s eyes narrowed at the oddity. “What happened?” she asked no one in particular.

A young, lanky clerk said, “They ripped something off. Bums and rummies and crackheads. Stealing stuff. We get ’em all day long.”

“We ought to deport all these bums and criminals and welfare trash,” the hard hat not surprisingly suggested. “Just air-drop ’em all into the middle of friggin’ Africa. Let ’em eat snakes and tree bark. And they sure as hell won’t be shoplifting ’cos there ain’t no stores!”

God, Cristina thought.

The manager came back in, huffing and red-faced. “The dirty buggers got away. Don’t bother with the cops. What’s the point?”

The clerk got back to ringing up customers. “Any idea what they pinched?”

“No. Didn’t see.”

Then a woman in line said, “It looked like one of them had several packs of magic markers in her hand…”

CHAPTER SIX

(I)

“Fleming, Virginia, K.,” Slouch read off the printout when he walked into the morgue in the basement of the Metropolitan Hospital Center. “No Jane Doe here. Thank God for DNA profiles.”

But would there be much difference? Vernon had already detached from the morbid spectacle they’d discovered behind the brewery. It usually only took a second after the initial glance; this time it took all afternoon. I’ve never seen a 64 like this in my whole time as a cop …His eyes scrutinized the thin, humanish form beneath the white sheet. “Fleming, Virginia, K.,” he repeated. “Where’d you get it?”

“Downtown at Evidence Section. When the D.C. heard it was an impalement, he put a rush on.”

“Good. What’s her story? She must have a rap sheet.”

“Longer than my ex-wife’s divorce demands,” Slouch said. He sat down and slouched, looking stark in his drab dark clothes against the room’s clean white tiles. “Thirty-six years old, no registered place of residence since 1995. Pasco County, Florida. Rap sheet goes back to joovie stuff in the mid-eighties. Shoplifting, possession, accessory GTA. Since ’98 she’s been collared on two counts of prostitution, couple possession busts for crack and heroin. All downhill from there. Just more homeless drug flotsam. Fell off the People Radar completely three years ago.”

Flotsam. Vernon felt bad that they had to think in such terms, but there was really no other way. “Her tox screen was positive for opiates but that was no stretch.” Another one bites the dust, he thought. “The prelim’s already done. Her next stop is the autopsy suite.”

“What’s the cause of death?” Slouch asked with a short laugh. “I mean, besides ‘Death by big motherfuckin’ pole sharpened at one end and rammed from snatch to mouth?’”

Vernon huffed a sigh, then turned as the door swooshed open in dead silence. “Officers,” greeted a stunningly attractive blonde in the proverbial white lab coat. “I’m Dr. Anda Burg. I’m the deputy duty M.E.—I’ll be doing the post.”

Vernon frowned when he noticed Slouch’s eyes plastered to the medical examiner’s bosom.

“And to answer your question,” she continued without looking at either of them, “the official C.O.D as of now is multiple organ lacerations and dramatic perforations of viscera, trans-hemothoracic hemorrhage and pericarditis via acumenated wooden object, which entered the body at the vaginal egress and made its exit out the oral cavity. The victim weighed ninety-one pounds and was dehydrated; blood levels indicate low albumin, typical amongst the homeless. STD screen showed positive for HPV, HIV, chlamydia, and secondary syphilis. Radio-immune assay of hair root cells is consistent with that of a typified multiple drug user.”

“That’s what I call an answer,” Slouch chuckled. “A hype and crackwhore who was already at the bottom of the barrel.”

Dr. Burg rolled her eyes as she marked off boxes on a clipboard. “Any idea what this means, Doctor?” Vernon asked and pulled out a lab reading of his own. He paused a moment to wince, when he found himself, like Slouch, eyeing the attractive blonde doctor’s figure. How can a woman that good-looking cut up corpses for a living? He cleared his throat and went on. “We found a magic marker at the crime scene—”

Dr. Burg looked up. “That’s what the lab said had been used to make the lines up and down her body.”

“Right. And there were some prints on it but Latent Section said they were too smeared to run. Then the O.A. lab said there was evidence of”—Vernon donned his glasses to read the sheet—“‘undue accretion of sebaceous eccrine lipids via the dactyl dermal papillae.’ What’s that mean?”

“It means the perpetrator was dirty.”

Vernon stared. “Dirty as in unwashed? Like, say, a street person?”

“Precisely. Dirty hands, in other words. That lab summation means that the print smeared due to an excess of body oils and amino residuum that passed through the fingerprint ridges with sebaceous perspiration. Had the hands been washed more recently, the print probably wouldn’t have smeared.”

“Crime doesn’t pay,” Slouch said, “unless you don’t wash.”

“That seems to be a common denominator lately,” Vernon said. “Street people. Homeless addicts.”

“What’s that, Inspector?” Dr. Burg questioned.

Vernon shrugged but said nothing. Slouch gave him the eye.

Next, Dr. Burg uncovered the corpus like someone yanking a sheet off a piece of furniture.

“Yeah,” Slouch said. “That’s the bottom of the barrel. No wonder her solicitation busts stopped several years ago.”

Vernon grit his teeth when he saw that one of the woman’s ears was gone. “I didn’t notice the missing ear earlier.”

“Missing auricula, with keloid formation. It’s several years old,” Burg noted.

The thin corpse shined pallidly beneath the harsh overhead fluorescents. Webworks of blue veins could be seen beneath parchmentlike skin but over that remained the ghosts of the weavy lines of black, green, and red magic marker.

Burg studied the image. “My techs put her in the Kwell station for cleaning and delousing—she had a lot of lice—but the magic marker didn’t come off all the way.”

“When they say permanent marker, they mean business,” Slouch remarked.

“Some kind of drug-turf thing?” Burg asked Vernon.

“I guess,” he said. “We’re not sure.”

“Never seen anything like it before,” Slouch added. “But then…we’ve never seen an impaled homicide victim before, either.”

Pelvic bones jutted, the belly stretched tight. Vernon detected a rash of small scabs in various areas, common among long-time addicts, not to mention needle marks at the elbows and insides of the thighs. The marks looked like lines of fresh-cracked pepper. Several more track marks traced along the veins around the nipples. Vernon entertained the morbid query: I wonder what they…did with the…pole …

“This one’s off to autopsy now, gentlemen,” the attractive pathologist announced. “You’re more than welcome to attend.”

Slouch laughed. “Thanks for the invite, Doc, but we’ll have to take a rain check. I was planning on a corn dog for lunch. You know, with that stick going down the middle?”

“Shut up, Slouch,” Vernon griped. “Thanks for your time, Doctor.”

Burg began to push the gurney away. “I’ll let you know if I find anything more.”

Slouch couldn’t keep quiet. “You mean anything more than ‘Death by big motherfuckin’ pole sharpened at one end and rammed from snatch to mouth?’”

Dr. Burg made a tolerant smile. “Yes. Have a nice day, gentlemen.” And then she and her dead charge disappeared through two swinging doors.

Vernon and Slouch traded cryptic glances.

“All right, How,” Slouch began. “You and me? We’ve been giving each other that funky-look thing since five this morning, haven’t we?”

Vernon nodded.

“But so far neither of us has said what’s on our mind.”

“No, we haven’t.” Vernon anxiously fingered an unlit cigarette. “So let ’er rip.”

“We’re both thinking the same thing, aren’t we? Last winter a bunch of whacked-out homeless chicks rip off Christmas tree stands from a fuckin’ hardware store and today we find a whacked-out homeless chick impaled on a pole mounted in a fuckin’ Christmas tree stand—”

“Less than twenty-four hours after a bunch of whacked-out homeless chicks rip off whittling knives from the same hardware store,” Vernon tacked on.

Slouch finished, “And the end of the pole looked whittled to a point. Recently. We on the same page?”

“Yeah, but I’m glad you said it first so I don’t feel like the idiot.”

Slouch laughed. “Thanks, boss!”

“It’s got to all be connected, no matter how far-fetched it sounds.”

“Um-hmm. No other angles to go on, so we might as well go on that one.”

Vernon nodded. He rubbed his face, suddenly uneasy beneath the chilly morgue lights. “Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the willies. It reminds me that one day I might be the one on the gurney going through those doors.”

Slouch straggled up, jesting. “And can you believe that brick shit-house M.E.? I could look at her legs all day but…can you imagine being married to her?”

“I’m not following you, Slouch, but that’s pretty much par for the course.”

“No, serious, man. Just try to imagine being the guy who’s getting it on with her and you know that those same hands were pulling livers out of corpses all day long.”

Vernon stared. “Shut up, Slouch.”

“Sure thing.”

They waited for the elevator at the end of the restricted hall, but when it opened a uniformed cop walked out. “You the guys with the impalement 64?”

Vernon showed his badge and ID. “Yeah. Vernon. Twentieth Precinct.”

The cop gave Vernon a manila envelope marked EVIDENCE - CLEARED BY TSD. “The lab wanted me to give this to you.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t know, sir. Something from the crime scene, said they found it inside the victim’s clothes.”

Vernon’s eyes widened. “Were there any—”

“No usable latents. Sorry.”

“Thanks.” Vernon opened the envelope as the cop walked away.

Slouch hovered. “The mystery continues?”

From the envelope Vernon withdrew a plastic bag. Inside the bag was—

Slouch squinted. “The hell’s that? A doll?”

Vernon squinted as well. It was a bizarre figurine of some kind, painted to great detail. About four inches high, plastic: a grinning cherubic little man, naked with blue-white skin and a belly that looked exploded. “Yeah, some kind of novelty doll.”

“Looks pretty oddball to me,” Slouch offered. “Sort of like one of those old Kewpie dolls when we were kids but with…”

“A shotgunned belly, I guess…” Vernon turned the figure over, read the tiny lettering beneath the base. CADAVERETTES #7 - GUTSHOT GLEN.

(II)

“Yes, it was right after Britt left,” Cristina was saying as they sat down at a plush corner booth of Café D’Amato. A card on the table read RESERVED. Paul seated himself after Cristina did. “I was going to mail those letters.”

“The damn AmEx bill. Can’t believe I forgot about it. Lately I’m so busy at the office with Jess, I forget the simple stuff. So, anyway, this priest was doing what?”

“His name’s Father Rollin, and he was looking at those security bars over the basement windows behind the house, in the alley. Said it slipped his mind, since he did it every day when he was the custodian. He’s kind of old.”

“Those window treatments are brand-new and cost a fortune,” Paul pointed out. “There wasn’t anything wrong with them, was there?”

“No, no, but that’s just how I met him. It was kind of strange. He said that when he used to look after the place, sometimes squatters would break in through those windows, and come to think of it, lately I’ve been seeing this group of homeless girls in the area.”

“Welcome to New York,” Paul said. “No way around that. Just be careful walking around. Even in broad daylight. I don’t care if this is the Upper West Side. There’s screwed-up people everywhere.”

A sad refrain but Cristina knew it was true. “Anyway, Father Rollin said he’d come by for coffee sometime. He’d like to meet you. He even knew your name.”

Paul scanned the upscale dining room, nodding to a few people he knew. “I’ll bet he does. Probably shit a brick when they told him I’m the guy who bought the house for a million bucks.” Something about the topic seemed to bother him. He looked at his watch, distracted. “So where is this Bruno fellow?”

“Oh, he’ll be here,” Cristina assured. “He’s a little off-the-wall but you’ll like him. Oh, and thanks for getting the reservation.”

“It pays to know big wheels.” Paul smiled. “You look great, by the way.”

Cristina almost blushed. She’d vowed to take Britt’s advice and start dressing like New York but if anything she felt awkward in the veily black wrap dress and Pierre Hardy sandals. She asked for a soda water when the waitress skimmed by for their drink order.

“And you, sir?”

Paul hesitated. “Uh, just a Sprite.”

He’s trying, Cristina thought. He wasn’t an alcoholic but sometimes he did overimbibe, which often jaded his demeanor. Cristina rarely said anything but she could tell that he knew. She appreciated his effort to cut down.

“Ah, there she is,” a loudish voice boomed as a wide shadow crossed the table. Cristina rose to greet Bruno von Blanc, her toy contractor. He stood large, round, and gregarious, and had a large Burl Ives face. The deep-rust, shawl-collared jacket and yellow Ralph Lauren dress shirt was louder than his voice. “The market’s top secret weapon.”

“Hi, Bruno,” she said after a gushing kiss on the cheek. “This is my fiancé, Paul Nasher.”

The ebullient face turned as the man pumped Paul’s hand. “Great to finally meet you, Paul. I hope you realize that your wife-to-be is a macabre genius.”

“Oh, yeah,” Paul said, trying not to raise a brow at Bruno’s bad hair dye, which did nothing to disguise the fact that he was pushing sixty. The handlebar mustache and Vandyke didn’t help. “I don’t really know much about this novelty figurine business but after seeing Cristina’s royalty statement last quarter I’d say that you guys have really got it going on.”

“It’s all her, Paul, all her.” Bruno slid cumbersomely in next to Cristina. “Miss?” He flagged the waitress. “Grey Goose martini, please.” Then he turned back to Paul. “Honestly, the diversity of Cristina’s Cadaverette line turned the entire market on its ear.”

“He always exaggerates,” Cristina said, antsy by the compliments. But I wonder if that’s really true …

“Nonsense—” Bruno paused, looking around the crowded restaurant in awe. “And how did you ever get a reservation on such short notice?”

“Paul has some influence here,” Cristina giggled.

Paul shrugged. “My firm bailed the restaurant out of a huge sexual harassment claim. Bunch of waitresses made up a pile of BS. You’ve heard the story.”

“Gracious. What’s this world coming to?” Next, Bruno opened a small briefcase right on the linen-covered table. “And now here’s what I want you both to see: the first promo fliers for Evil Church Creepies …” Bruno’s hooded eyes glittered in excitement as he withdrew a stack of glossy fliers and passed one to Cristina and Paul.

“Wow,” Paul said.

Cristina’s voice lowered to a hush. “Bruno, it’s beautiful…”

The flier showed half-sized color photos of the first four figurines above stylized promotional text. A small picture and bio of Cristina occupied the lower corner. The most stunning accommodation of the figures themselves were the weaving black, green, and red lines that composed the background.

“The ad department used your idea about the background,” Bruno went on, “and I think it turned out great.”

“The colors really make everything jump off the page,” Paul said.

“Um-hmm, and that’s exactly what we want.” Bruno appraised the flier with an obvious pride. “Yes, those lines really add dimension.” He looked to Cristina. “Didn’t you say you got the idea from a dream?”

For a split second, the dream flashed across the scape of her mind: the furious, waving lines behind the nude nun showing the fanged grin. Cristina took a breath. “That’s right. And the Noxious Nun herself. It all came to me several months ago when I saw our house.”

“Really?” Paul seemed surprised. “You never told me that.”

“Got the entire idea in one day.”

“The lightning bolt strikes!” Bruno exclaimed. He turned to flag the waitress again. “Miss? This is a special occasion. How about a bottle of Krug, Clos du Mesnil—the 1990 if you have it.”

Paul’s brow rose along with the waitress’s. “Certainly, sir.”

Cristina didn’t quite know how to phrase it. “Paul and I weren’t really planning to drink tonight, Bruno.”

“Nonsense,” the rotund man replied. “This is a celebration, my dear. You see, it’s not just the fliers I’ve brought…”

“Huh?”

Bruno, if a bit too dramatically, reached back into the briefcase and slowly extracted a black, shiny cardboard box, five or six inches high with a cellophane window in front. “Hot off the molds, my dear.”

Cristina’s hand came to her chest. I don’t believe it …

The decorative box contained the Noxious Nun.

She held it in her hand as though it were fragile as eggshells. The clarity of detail was greater than she could’ve ever expected: the delineated white fangs over the grin, the genuine black fabric that comprised the nun’s habit and wimple, the tiny three-gemmed bowl and the way a clear scarlet resin sufficed for blood. Cristina gingerly took the figure out of the box and set it on the table.

“That is one creepy doll,” Paul acknowledged.

Bruno held up a finger. “Creepy and cute—it’s that juxtaposition that makes them so attractive…and marketable.”

Cristina wiped a delighted tear. “I don’t know what to say, Bruno. I would never have thought it could look this good.”

“Don’t thank me. The molds were made to your specifications. And I’m glad we didn’t outsource this one to the Chinese. Our new manufacturer costs a bit more but the added detail makes it worth it. The first run was delivered to the ware house this morning, ahead of schedule.”

Some of the diners at surrounding tables kept eyeing the vivid curio, and when the waitress brought the champagne and ice stand, she said, “Oh, how cute! My daughter collects dolls like that.”

“In that case, miss, have a flier,” Bruno said and handed her one. “This one will be in the store on Friday.”

“How cool! Thank you.”

Bruno poured the champagne into three crystal flutes, then dispensed them. He raised his glass.

“A toast. To Cristina Nichols, and the Noxious Nun!”

“Cheers,” Paul and Cristina said in unison.

Their glasses clinked.

What a wonderful night …

Cristina smiled in the darkness as the foyer clock struck one A.M. She sat up in bed, gazing out the window. Just a rim of moon could be seen edging over the next building. My celebration, she thought. The Noxious Nun sat like a goofy chess piece on the dresser.

At the restaurant they’d all gotten fairly drunk—something Cristina never did—but it was the occasion, not the champagne buzz, that left her elated and scintillant. By the time the cab had dropped her and Paul off, Cristina’s newfound arousal had her in a dither; all she could think about was getting inside and making love to Paul. Paul tended to get cynical when he was drunk but there was none of that to night, and this only made him even more attractive to her. The eve ning’s only regrettable defect was the misfire on Paul’s part; the alcohol had thwarted his ability to perform.

Oh, well, Cristina thought. She looked at him asleep beside her. It was STILL a great night …

She got up, still woozy. If anything the champagne seemed to possess a delayed effect; she felt even drunker now. She giggled as she stumbled once in the dark, then slipped naked out of the room.

Ultimately, her happiness over the fliers and the first figure overrode the aggravation over their failed lovemaking attempt. So what? She’d masturbated after Paul had dozed off, and that seemed to take the edge off.

She padded to the kitchen where only the light over the stove remained on. More light fell into the room when she opened the refrigerator and found herself drinking orange juice right from the bottle. Again, she almost stumbled, nearly dropping the bottle. God! I really AM drunk! She had to concentrate on putting the bottle back inside.

She caught herself next peeking out the wooden blinds of the front window. The church across the street stood like a silent hulk. She wasn’t certain but she thought she saw a light on in an upper window but when she yawned it snapped out. Perhaps it had never been on in the first place.

Drunk as she was, she felt too keyed up to sleep. She wandered the first floor, musing over the soon-to-bereleased line. I can’t wait. The Noxious Nun looks super. The influence of its creation—the inexplicable dream—had now lost all its negative power. Now it was just a novelty toy that would be purchased mostly by goth kids and collectors. She felt tempted to go back in the bedroom to look at it again but didn’t want to risk stumbling and waking Paul.

She walked down the back hall, actually sliding against the wall to brace herself. A side door stood closed, and it occurred to her that she’d never opened that one.

The basement door …

She pushed it open, steadying herself. The basement, she knew, had only been structurally bolstered, not refinished. But I’ve never seen it, she realized. But why now, of all times, would she want to go down?

Pretty stupid, she told herself. You’re drunk, you could fall, but her better judgment sidled away. When she hit the wall switch at the top of the stairs, only a single, unshaded bulb came on, and it didn’t look to be more than forty watts. Yeah, REALLY stupid …

She grabbed the rail and very slowly descended.

At once an unpleasant shiver rippled her skin. The old moldy smell reminded her of the basement at the foster house, where the execrable Andre and Helga Goldfarb had regularly locked her, Britt, and their foster brother after drugging them. Don’t think about it, she warned herself. Remember what Britt said, the past is just junk that can’t hurt me.

The warning sufficed; when she made it to the bottom of the stairs, the basement’s clutter, cobwebs, and wide brick walls made her forget about the reminiscent odor. Pretty big, she detected even in the wan light. She couldn’t find any more switches. The only other light edging the long room came from the sodium lights in the alley, which filtered in through the low windows. The security bars drew black slats across the floor.

But there must be another light somewhere.

She waded deeper through the murk. Old rounded cobblestones formed the floor; she could feel the border of each stone on the bottoms of her feet. They felt warm, almost glossy; however—

She stopped. The rounded squares had changed to something wide and rough. What—

She looked down but could barely see. Damn it. What IS that? She could only make out a perimeter that seemed lighter than the rest of the floor and not composed of stones at all. She steadied herself again, then slowly got down on her knees, though she couldn’t imagine why.

Now, however, she could discern the mysterious perimeter’s dimensions just as her stomach clenched.

An oblong perimeter, about the same size of a coffin lid.

Don’t be ridiculous. Of course, she was overreacting, and all that alcohol in her blood didn’t help. It’s not a grave, for God’s sake. Probably just some patchwork on the floor …

She pressed her palms down and, indeed, found just a plane of rough cement. It seemed cooler than the cobblestones. A pipe probably broke fifty years ago so they dug here to fix it, she speculated.

But…why should she care?

Then she tried to rise but couldn’t.

It must be the champagne, packing its final wallop, but for a stricken moment she had the oddest impression: that it was the cement patch that was drawing her down.

Stupid …

She attempted to rise again but this time got so dizzy, her knees thunked back down hard and she fell over on her side. Oh, God, I can’t believe I’m this crocked …The dizziness distilled; she decided to lay back and rest for a little while. She took deep breaths, hoping to clear her head but then…

Had she been in bed, it would have been the bed that was spinning, but in this case?

It was the floor.

She seemed to be revolving, the queasiness in her belly compounding to outright nausea. With little warning from her metabolism, she quickly turned her head and vomited. She huffed, breaking out into a sweat. I don’t think I’ve been this sick ever. Her vantage point continued to revolve as if she lay on a bearing’d platform; the dizziness thickened. When she pressed her hand out to try to sit up, she felt something against her palm. A stick, maybe, or a pen. Her heart lurched a moment before she passed out, when at the furthest fringe of her vision, she thought she saw a figure standing in the corner.

“Singele lui traieste,” she hears, lying prone and nude and seemingly paralyzed. But she’s not in the basement, she’s in the grotto of her nightmare, the furious backdrop of black, green, and red ribbons weaving back and forth and the sound of water dripping and a dog barking and excited chatter that seems female but not in any language she’s familiar with. In fact, she’s not even familiar with her own name …

Soft hands smooth up and down her glistening skin, drawing sensations that are as erotic as they are inexplicable.

The whispers of other voices seem to halo about her head: “Kanesae …”

Hands cosset her flesh more fervently. Six? Eight? A dozen hands? She senses that they’re the hands of women, judging by the knowing way they touch her. Her muscles flex at the forbidden plea sure being kindled in this dark place. Several of the hands slide around between her legs now, and—

Her back arches; she sighs through gritted teeth.

—a hot, wet mouth finds each nipple.

The impossible light in the room deepens: black, green, and red. Now a desperate tongue licks up the slope of her neck, and she turns her head as the plea sure keeps mounting, and she sees …

What?

A man lying prone on a stone slab?

She’s not sure. The cryptic mouths and hands squirm over her skin like a living gown; she’s so distracted, so tempted to give in even though she knows this is all wrong.

But that’s what she thinks she sees, if only for a moment, in the weird dices of light …

Yes.

A man lying prone on a stone slab. At the top of the slab sits…an object. She thinks first of a dark-glassed vase, then a wine decanter. A mongrel dog with matted fur snuffles bored about the slab …

When one mouth finds her sex, she shrieks and orgasms simultaneously, and then her head whips over to the other side. Her eyes go wide because, now, she sees her.

The nun.

“Kanesae, Kanesae, Kanesae,” a tiny chant rises.

The nun stands naked save for her white wimple and black hood, the perfect breasts jutting as her back bows to raise the bowl. Then she looks down, and grins.

The pair of long thin fangs seems to sparkle.

Then the nun dons her black habit and retreats into the shadows.

“Oise pla’cute,” one voice flutters.

Then another, “Oise pla’cute…”

And one more, “Oise pla’cute…”

“Pleasant dreams,” someone else says beyond her impassioned paralysis. A round of giggles disperse above her, like bats.

And the mouths descend on her again, finding every private place. One climax after the next racks her body until she fears she might die, and then the final voice issues the disquieted words she’s heard before …

“Singele lui traieste.”

(III)

Father Rollin couldn’t sleep; he tossed in his upper bed chamber, sheets entwined about his legs like a serpent. When his eyes came into focus, a shadow seemed to be splayed on the moonlit wall.

A figure? A nun?

He jerked up and nearly yelled as he switched on the light. God Almighty!

Then he shook his head at himself.

The shadow was nothing but that from a piece of cresting on the outside windowsill.

I am not in a good way tonight, the priest admitted.

He pulled on a robe, trudged to an armoire and began to withdraw a bottle of Medoc. I shouldn’t do this, but …He took a long pull of the bitter red Bordeaux, then let out a stifled breath.

He switched the light back off, then lit a candle. Back to this again, he thought, bringing the binoculars to his eyes. The annex house stood sedate, frosted in the phosphoric street light. One of the lights continued to buzz from bright to dim. Down the street, he thought he spied several lanky figures turn into the alley.

He turned the binoculars back to the house, zooming in. A dim light shone between the slats of the kitchen louvers but that was all. Then, higher, his heart tensed a moment when he thought he saw a wan face in a second-story window, but when he zoomed even closer…

No. It must’ve been the curtain …

He put the binoculars down, at least in part disgusted with himself. What was he looking for anyway? And how much of this might really be geared in some deeper and more desperate channel of his psyche? Celibate priest, came the grim admission. Old, atrophied, like fruit turning brown on the vine.

Yes, the image depressed him. But the question remained, like a crow looking down from a wire. Was I really searching for clues? Or was I hoping to see Cristina Nichols’s body in the nude?

“Give me strength…”

He kept it dark; he liked it dark. Perhaps it was because he could see less of himself, and the world and all the life in it. Who knows?

All he could ever think to do was answer his calling.

He considered going downstairs to the main chancel, but more and more he felt alienated in it. No congregation for years. I’m the house sitter for the church, too old and too eccentric for clerical duties. It infuriated him sometimes, for he knew he could still say a spectacular Mass. They don’t WANT me anymore, so they merely KEEP me.

It was all right by him.

He did know that God still wanted him, flaws and all.

He knelt at the small prayer bench in his room, beseeching the meager altar on which sat a simple crucifix given to him in Bucharest by a priest from the Holy Office. Lately, Rollin prayed here more than anywhere else, alone.

Before the crucifix’s olive-wood base, he took up the chain and pendant. He kissed it as he would a Cross.

The emblem stared back at him, medieval in its scary crudity: a dead dragon strangled by its own tail, a great red cross branded on its back.

Rollin stared at the ancient totem for many minutes, while fingering the ring on his hand with the same insignia. Both read below the crest, O QUAM MAGNIFICUM, O DOMNUL.

Then he put the pendant around his neck and began to pray…

“O quam magnificum, o domnul …”

CHAPTER SEVEN

(I)

Sunlight from the windows cut across her eyes like a guillotine blade. Oh my God …When Cristina tried to rise from the basement floor, the flare of her life’s worst headache sent her right back down on her back. She looked around in mental chaos as aching vision showed her the dank, cluttered basement. What did I …

Then she remembered, the twisted memories interlacing with her hangover. The celebration with Bruno last night, her drunkenness, then passing out down here of all places. And the dream…

She remained on her back, nude and shivering. The same dream as always…but with new details …God.

A dead man on a stone slab? A strange decanter of some kind? And those women …Not just the nun this time, but other strange, faceless women.

Cristina gulped when she remembered what the women were doing to her…

Jeez, what would Britt say about that? Latent lesbian tendencies carrying over from the Goldfarb house? It was just a dream—made more odd, no doubt, from all the alcohol she’d drunk.

She recalled the disturbing intonation: Singele lui traieste. But why should it actually disturb her? Just meaningless gibberish from a dream. It couldn’t be another language since she didn’t know any.

An alarm blared in her head. What time is it? And …where’s Paul? She groaned, dragging herself up off the dust-and grit-caked floor. He’ll think I’m really out of my head if he finds out I passed out NUDE in the friggin’ BASEMENT! She was about to head up, but then the floor snagged her vision.

That patchwork, she remembered now.

She peered down. Yes, an oblong patch of new cement set into the stonework of the floor. How odd, but…In the better light she saw…something…

Down on one knee she examined the corner of the patch more closely. It looked like a seal of some kind pressed into the cement. She expected perhaps a date or service information from the contractor who’d done the work but instead…

A dragon?

Or a serpent of some kind, within a circle around which were etched the words: O QUAM MAGNIFICUM, O DOMNUL. Latin, she supposed. It must relate to the house’s previous use by the Catholic Church. But it was the seal itself that bothered her most—the dragon. The crude artwork seemed to depict the dragon as dead, its own tail wrapped around its neck.

Then another, louder, alarm screamed in her head. As she’d been leaning to inspect the cement, her breasts edged into the peripheries of her vision.

Cristina stood up in half-shock and strode straight to the window where the most light was.

What on earth did I do to myself!

It looked as though her breasts and belly had been used as a graffiti canvas. Primitive black, green, and red lines encircled each breast, while more wavy lines of the same colors—the backdrop of her dream—streaked up and down her stomach.

Her own conclusion left her appalled. I was so drunk last night, I DREW on myself?

She did recall her hand landing on something that felt like a fat pen. This has to be magic marker …She went back to the cement but couldn’t find the object.

But the worst consideration slammed home. If Paul sees me like this he’ll want me to go to a shrink! Suddenly her nudity had her feeling utterly vulnerable. And there was nothing down here she could cover herself with. She crept up the stairs, listening, then she peeked out the door when she got to the top.

Oh my God!

She could hear Paul’s voice in the kitchen.

“—unfuckin’ believable, Jess. Yes, yes, I know it’s ten o’clock, and I know we’ve got to fax that arbitration rebuttal out to Massaccesi’s people by noon. I haven’t been this hungover in ages, man…”

What am I going to do? Cristina fretted. She glanced down in more disbelief at her streaked breasts.

“I don’t even know where Cristina is,” Paul was saying. “She was pretty lit last night too; I guess she went out to get orange juice or something. We had sort of a celebration party at D’Amato’s with the guy who makes her dolls. Yeah, the guy named Bruno. I thought he was all hot air until he picked up the check. The fuckin’ guy ordered not one but two bottles of Krug, six bills a pop, plus brandy, plus all kinds of fancy appetizers. Bet he dropped over two grand. Funny thing is, Cristina kept right up with us and, man, she never drinks like that. She must be one hurtin’ puppy right now, wherever she is…”

She had no choice but to take a chance. If Paul was facing the kitchen entry she’d be all right, but if not…

He’ll see me. He’ll see his nut-job girlfriend with magic marker all over her boobs …

She stepped wide into the hall, turned, and zipped right into the laundry room. When she looked, Paul’s back was to her.

At least a trifling relief. She pulled a robe out of the dryer and put it on, wrapping it tight. Then…Here goes.

She shuffled into the kitchen.

Paul stood in his boxers, his hair sticking up. He smiled below bloodshot eyes when he saw her.

“Oh, here she is. Anyway, sorry, Jess. My fuckup. Hold down the fort till I get there.” Then he hung up. He walked over and hugged Cristina, gave her a peck on the cheek. “I hope you’re not as hungover as I am,” he bid.

“I’m sure I am,” she said. Her head pounded with each word, along with the embarrassment of what she’d secretly done to herself. “I hurt all over.”

“God bless Bruno. But he must be going through the same thing so at least we’re not the only ones suffering.” Bewildered, Paul shook his head. “I can’t believe I slept right through the alarm.”

Cristina sheepishly pursed her lips. “And I can’t believe I slept in the basement.”

Paul almost spat out a sip of coffee. “You what?”

She kept the neck of the robe tightly clasped. God, I hope he doesn’t see. “Kid you not. I was so smashed last night, I decided to go in the basement for some crazy reason. And I passed out.”

“That’s some shit-face,” Paul laughed. “I thought you went out to the store.”

“Nope. Your nutty fiancée slept off her drunk on the basement floor. I’m never drinking alcohol again.”

“I just might second that motion. But it was a fun night, with Bruno and celebrating your new figure.”

The Noxious Nun, she thought for no reason at all. “I’d cook you breakfast, honey, but I still feel so lousy—”

“Forget it. I’m over an hour late as it is.” He kissed her again. “I’ve got to jump in the shower, dress, and get my tail to the office. Jess isn’t exactly thrilled. Drink some water to rehydrate yourself and get some more sleep. But, in the bed, not the basement.”

She stroked his cheek, then offered a pained smile. “You look hot in those boxers, you know.”

“Oh, I’m sure. My eyes look like road maps—”

So do my boobs …“I have to go lie down. But have a good day at work. I’ll have my act together when you get home, I promise.”

He winked. “Good. Give me a chance to redeem myself after…you know…”

“I wasn’t much in working order either, honey,” she laughed and went to the bedroom. He didn’t notice. What a stroke of luck. But she still felt asinine. Some girlfriend …She hid under the bedcovers and feigned sleep as Paul showered, dressed, and left. Then she rushed to the bathroom.

The mirror’s crystalline clarity made it even worse. The colored lines encircling her breasts and streaking her stomach seemed even thicker, brighter now. Why on earth did I do this to myself! She jumped into the shower, head still thumping, and scrubbed hard with a washcloth and soap, then moaned aloud when she got back out and re-examined herself. The magic marker had barely faded.

Cristina was nearly in tears when she called Britt…

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Britt exclaimed.

Cristina reluctantly opened her robe, showing the marks. “I don’t know what to do. If Paul sees this…”

Britt sat at the kitchen table, flabbergasted. She wore dark Seven jeans, which fit her like tights, a red faux shearling vest, and clear strap platforms. “And you say rubbing alcohol and Lava soap didn’t work?”

“Didn’t even come close to getting it all off.”

Britt opened a paper bag she’d brought, removed a bottle of nail-polish remover. “I remember someone telling me this once. It should work.”

They went to the bathroom. Cristina blushed as Britt carefully blotted the fluid on her breasts with a cloth, then rubbed.

“You’re in luck. It’s working.”

“You’re a godsend!” Cristina exclaimed.

“And you’re a space cadet. Honestly, Cristina. It’s not like you to get drunk at all, but you must’ve been pie-eyed to do this.”

“I know. I can’t explain it.”

Britt looked up from her rubbing. “Is there something you’re not telling me, little sister?”

“No, I’m not doing drugs, and I’m not hiding an alcohol problem.”

Britt shook her head, reapplying more of the remover. “You better not be. Paul would’ve shit if he saw this. And you hassle him about drinking.”

“Pretty hypocritical, huh?” Cristina admitted. She looked to the mirror with relief when she saw the magic marker was coming off. “And he actually wasn’t bad last night. I was the loose screw.”

“And you passed out in the basement? Did I get that right?”

Cristina nodded, ashamed. “And I had the dream again—”

“The nude nun…”

“Yeah, but it was a lot worse. More detail, and…”

Britt looked up again, reading her. “And what?”

“I don’t know, but more and more I think the dream is some kind of flashback effect from the Goldfarbs.”

Britt stopped rubbing and gave Cristina the eye. “Stop using that as an excuse. The stuff the Goldfarbs drugged us with wasn’t hallucinatory. This has nothing to do with the Goldfarbs. It’s just a bad dream, and it was made worse by your getting crocked out of your gourd!”

Cristina stared at the wall through the recollection. “But…there was other stuff in the dream, and it really bothered me. Other—well—people.”

“Yeah?”

“It was lesbian stuff,” Cristina finally said. “A bunch of women…touching me and…other stuff.”

“And let me guess. It turned you on.”

“Sort of.”

Britt sighed, frustrated. “Cristina, every woman on earth has dreams like that sometimes. It’s just subconscious mishmash. It means nothing. And everybody gets drunk on occasion and passes out.”

“Yeah, but they don’t pass out and draw on themselves with indelible markers. I just don’t understand any of it. It’s starting to scare me.”

“For God’s sake,” Britt said. She was finished. The marks were gone, leaving Cristina’s skin pink from the rubbing. Britt looked her right in the eye. “Listen. I know what you’re getting at—I’m a shrink, remember? A shrink for screwed-up women. You think you’re having some kind of psychological trauma that’s being triggered by the shitty stuff that happened to us in the past. What, you think you’re a latent lesbian because of what goddamn Helga Goldfarb did to us, and made us do to each other? That’s ridiculous; we’ve been through this a million times. You’re overreacting, that’s all—like you always do. Wasn’t it yesterday you told me you felt better than you ever have and that your sex life was off the scales? But now you’re acting like that pensive worrywart that you were in the old days, all because of a recurring dream.”

Cristina thought about it. “I guess you’re right, but—”

“No buts. I am right.” Britt narrowed her eyes in some contemplation. “So where exactly did you draw on yourself? Your studio?”

“No. The basement.”

Britt winced. “So you purposely brought magic markers down to the basement, in the middle of the night, to draw on yourself?”

“Uh…Well, no. I think the magic markers were already down there. The place is full of junk. And I remember touching something that felt like a pen.”

Britt grabbed Cristina’s hand and yanked. “Come on. Show me this ridiculous basement.”

Cristina took her down. They wended around old boxes until they came to the oblong cement patchwork.

“Right there’s where I passed out.” Cristina pointed.

“What the hell is that? It looks newer than the rest.”

“I figured a pipe broke so that’s where they dug; then they patched it. I remember falling down there, and my hand landed on the pen.”

Britt looked around the entire area. “No pens here now. So you picked them up this morning?”

“No.”

Britt’s frown deepened; she kept looking at the cement patch. “Kind of creepy. That’s not…a grave, is it?”

“It can’t be. Paul would’ve known from the deed.”

“Still. It’s creepy. It’s no wonder you had the nightmare down here.” She chuckled darkly. “A nun with fangs, a bowl full of blood.”

“And this time there was a man lying on a slab, too.”

Britt looked again to the oblong patch but said nothing.

“Oh, and there’s an insignia down there, on the corner.”

Britt stooped. “Latin, it looks like and—what is that? A turtle?”

“Looks like a dragon, or a lizard.”

Britt kept shaking her head. “A dragon strangled by its own tail. The hits just keep on comin’, Cristina. Let’s go back up. You must’ve put the magic markers away and don’t remember.”

I don’t think so, Cristina answered in thought. Back upstairs, Britt turned away from the kitchen, to the mirror-backed bar.

“It’s a little early, isn’t it?” Cristina asked.

“After cleaning magic marker off your boobs, then listening to your lesbian nun dream, and then seeing the creepy grave-looking thing in the basement? No. Paul won’t mind if I take a nip of this Louis XIII, will he?”

“I’m sure he won’t.”

Britt grabbed a crystal snifter. “You want some?”

Cristina’s stomach lurched. “After last night? I’ll probably never drink again.”

Britt shrugged and took a sip of the clear liquor.

Cristina wrapped the robe tighter, as if chilled. Something nagged at her psyche, an idea that had only just occurred to her. But how could she voice it without sounding paranoid? I’ve put Britt through enough for one day …

“Okay,” Britt demanded. “What’s wrong now?”

Cristina could never hide a thing from her. “I don’t remember drawing on myself, Britt.”

“You were sloshed.”

“Yeah, but why would I do that, even that drunk? I’m starting to think that maybe I didn’t draw on myself.”

Britt’s eyes snapped to Cristina’s. “Come on. Paul?”

“No. He was asleep upstairs.”

“Cristina, what are you saying?”

“I’m not sure.” She fidgeted. “But maybe…someone else was in the house.”

Britt slumped. “What? A burglar? Paul’s got a Fort Knox– style alarm system in this place. Jess told me.”

Cristina’s thoughts seemed to drip. “Not necessarily a burglar, but…Yesterday I met the priest who used to look after this house—Father Rollin. He told me squatters would sometimes sneak into the house at night.”

Britt looked as though her brandy had soured. “Squatters?”

“Homeless people, addicts.”

“Street crazies, huh? You’re nuts.”

Cristina struggled to voice the rest of her fear. “I keep seeing these homeless women mulling around the area.”

“They mull around every area in the city, Cristina.”

“Yeah, I know, but there’s more. Yesterday I was in a store and I saw some of them, these homeless girls. And one of them shoplifted some stuff. Guess what they shoplifted?”

Britt set the rest of her drink aside, wearied. “What?”

“Magic markers.”

“I’ll say it again. You’re nuts—”

“Why?” Cristina whined back. “It’s pretty uncanny, isn’t it?”

“Homeless women break into your basement just so they can draw on you with magic markers? Listen to yourself!”

“Then how do you explain it?”

“I already have,” Britt snapped. “You got loaded last night and pulled a moronic move. Alcohol does that to people, especially people who don’t have much tolerance. Christ, one time in college I got so hammered on tequila at a sorority party that I threw up on a whole couch full of people—”

“Yuck…”

“In fact, I drank so much that I was still drunk the rest of the next day. You’re probably suffering borderline alcohol poisoning.” Britt stood up, glaring. “Now stop with all this dumb talk—it makes you sound ridiculous. I have to go.”

Cristina wilted. She could tell Britt had reached her limit. I can’t do this to her; I have to be more stable than this. She’s got to listen to women’s problems all day long at her job—and those are women with REAL problems. An extra headache from me is the last thing she needs. Cristina caught Britt at the door, and hugged her. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m just overreacting.”

Britt’s forgiveness was plain when her frown turned to a smile. “You’re a nut, Cristina, but you’re my nut.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you. Sometimes I feel so weak and scared.”

“But each day you’re getting stronger…just like me. You’ve probably still got a bunch of booze in your bloodstream so just sleep the rest of it off, then go for a walk and get some fresh air. You’ll feel a hundred times better tomorrow and you’ll be laughing at yourself. I have to go now, so…just do as I say, all right?”

Cristina nodded. “ ’Bye.”

She looked out the window and saw Britt shaking her head as she got in her car. I really am a pain in the ass.

When Britt raced off in the white Mercedes, a movement caught Cristina’s eye. It was so sudden and slight that at first she didn’t even know where it came from, but then…

Now that Britt’s car was gone, Cristina saw two homeless females sitting beneath one of the windows in the church. It looked like they were sucking the contents from ketchup packets. After a few moments, they got up and began to walk away.

One of them looked right over at the window from which Cristina peered, and smiled.

(II)

“Gemser?” Laura Eastman asked. Her Detex clock swayed like a cumbersome purse when she turned toward her departing coworker. They’d both worked for the security company that had the contract for this closed-down Banana Republic. The twelve-hour shifts were a hassle, and they only let you work three of them per week so you wouldn’t qualify as full-time; that way, the company didn’t have to offer a group health plan. But the work was easy and that suited Laura just fine. Rounds every hour, punch a few key stations, and fill out an hourly report was about it. She liked all the walking (the building was four floors), which kept her lissome physique even more lissome. You got a race horse bod, Gemser had commented once, after which she’d ridden him like a horse. She knew she possessed a stunning kind of beauty, her dark complexion and part-European, part-Polynesian features gave her an exotic air and, somehow, those features coupled with the security uniform made her even more enticing. Just about every male guard in the company had put the make on her—even the married ones. Laura was the kind of girl who liked attention.

But now this.

“Yeah?” George Gemser asked bruskly. He’d been just about to go off-shift, without so much as a good-bye.

“What is wrong with you lately?” she snapped behind the security desk. “You’re acting real shitty to me all of a sudden.”

“Aside from you standing me up the other night, nothing’s wrong,” the large, bearded man informed.

Oh, so that’s it. “For shit’s sake, Gemser. Don’t be such a baby. I told you, I was sick.” But, lo, this was a lie. She hadn’t been sick at all; she’d been detained by a last-minute offer to dinner by an ad exec who drove a Porsche.

“I don’t play those games,” Gemser said. “Some girls like to jerk guys around but I’m not into that.”

“Oh, give me a break!”

“Hey, you do your thing, I’ll do mine. All I’m in this for is to do my job, get my paycheck, and go home. I’m not into all this hot-cold, teasy grab-ass stuff, one minute you want me the next minute you don’t. Not my thing. We see each other every day, we say hello, say good-bye, and that’s it.”

GodDAMN! Laura thought. Usually playing hard to get worked but it was backfiring here. You had to keep them humble, after all, otherwise they shit all over you. “That’s pretty damn harsh, isn’t it? I thought we had a little something going on, you know?”

“No,” Gemser corrected. “All we had ‘going on’ was ‘sport-fucking,’ to use your term.”

Well, it had been her line; meanwhile, Gemser was already heading for the front glass doors.

“Jesus, Gemser!” Laura suddenly shed a few surprise tears. “At least let’s talk!”

“We’ll just be friends,” the sturdy guard said but his eyes were unrelenting in their lack of forgiveness. “It makes it easier ’cos we do have to work together.”

Laura was beginning to do something she never did: yield. “Damn. I’m sorry, okay?” Her eyes fluttered. “I’ve always liked you.”

“Fine. See ya tomorrow.” He turned and walked out.

She ran out after him, ponytail flying. “Hey!”

He turned at the bus stop.

“You know, you can always come in an hour early, I mean, if you want to.” She winked at him.

Gemser offered the slightest smile, then hoppd on the bus.

At least I finally got a smile out of him. Time would tell. If he showed up an hour before her shift was over, then she’d know she still had a hook in. And I’ll make it worth his while, she vowed.

She locked the front doors behind her and officially began her shift.

Most of the first floor was the old display floor, empty save for bare metal garment racks. Much of her shift was spent locked inside, and she had Mace, a Mag-Lite, and a cell phone for emergencies, not that she’d ever had any. Four times a shift she had to make a foot patrol around the building’s exterior, to check the alley out back. A couple times she’d caught some homeless girls loitering back there but they always dispersed when she whipped out her phone. The building had been a department store for decades, then the Banana Republic for several years until a developer bought it. Upper West Side meant low-key—nothing ever happened. Laura got plenty of sleep between rounds.

Upstairs were storerooms and offices; Laura had to make a door-check every hour, and at the beginning of each shift had to enter each room and check its status. Easy but monotonous. She got tired of hearing her own footfalls on the tile flooring. Downstairs, behind the display floor, were more offices and the old loading dock whose door was chained shut. One of the rooms was an employee lounge and the couch was still in it. Laura had had some on-duty fun with Gemser more than once on said couch.

I hope he comes by …

Boxes lined the back wall, all empty. When Laura went to the punch-key, she accidentally bumped a stack, moving them several inches from their place.

Strange …

She pushed the boxes away, revealing a steel door. I’ve been working here all these months and never even knew this door was here. She tried the metal knob but found it locked.

Laura peered at the door. What the hell is behind there?

She strode back to the security desk and retrieved the account manual, flipped back to the site map and blueprints. The map detailing each foot patrol showed no evidence of another door existing in the old lounge, but the blueprints…

How do you like that?

The blueprints showed another room behind that door. BOILER ROOM - INACTIVE, it read.

She noted the discovery on her shift log, then strode back to the room, keys jingling. Must be leftover from the old department store, she supposed.

Laura tried every key on her ring but none of them would open the door.

(III)

“It’s abominable,” the woman told Vernon. Her name was Ms. Lancre, a fortysomething woman in a conservative knee skirt and a blouse that seemed the tiniest bit too tight to comfortably accommodate her bosom. Brown hair back in a bun, which added a severity to her face, or perhaps—Vernon considered—it was the sudden upset of her discovery. This was the first time in his career that Vernon had ever responded to a “church desecration,” which he supposed this was. Her churchly anachronism shattered when her cell phone rang. “Excuse me, gentlemen.”

“Of course,” Vernon said.

Her frumpish flat-soled shoes snapped as she stepped out the pointed doors.

“Is she a nun?” Slouch asked, eyeing her exit.

“I guess she’s just a teacher, or the headmistress or whatever.”

“Some rack, huh?”

“Shut up, Slouch.”

Vernon turned back to the scene, officially a Signal 40 on the code sheet: vandalism. He and Slouch now stood in the middle of the chapel supporting a Catholic girls school called The Sisters of the Heavenly Spring—so perhaps the woman was a nun after all.

“I didn’t even know this place was here,” Slouch mentioned.

“Me, either. I guess that means we’re apathetic cops.” He was looking at the chapel’s modest altar now, whose white cloth had been besmirched by magic marker: wavy streaks running up and down, black, green, and red.

“This is so fucked-up it’s almost funny,” Slouch said of the lines.

“We probably shouldn’t cuss here, but…you’re right.” He walked behind the altar to the tapestry that backed the great crucifix. The perpetrators, in the same marker colors, had crudely scrawled the words: ME ENAMOURER AD INFINITUM.

“It looks Latin,” Slouch observed.

“No duh.” Vernon wrote the words down in his notebook. “But if our girls are what we think they are, how could they know any Latin?”

“The bums? They all had childhoods, probably very traumatized childhoods, and some of ’em may have gone to church. Childhood impressions, you know? They say a lot of a kid’s religious background leaks out later in life, once the schizophrenia sets in. Now they’re crazy and they’re remembering stuff.”

Vernon shrugged.

“It’s a solid connection, though. The magic marker jive.” Slouch seemed delighted by the desecration, just as any atheist cop would be. It was a lead.

“Yeah, but it’s still shit—”

Slouch grinned. “We probably shouldn’t cuss here.”

“And it doesn’t matter how solid a connection we’ve got, Downtown will question the expense of having Technical Services come out here for a workup. So that’s why we’re not going to ask.”

“Why not?”

Vernon whispered, “Because we’ll be laughingstocks, ordering a latent crew and photographer to a minor case of vandalism. Way they see it, those costs should be doled out for the serious stuff.”

“Yeah, like the murder we had yesterday, and ten to one it was the same magic markers used on the fuckin’ junkie chick.” Slouch bit his lip at the expletive.

“We’ll do a little workup ourselves,” Vernon said, “then they won’t be calling us the Two Stooges at Headquarters.” His eyes turned critical. “You’re not very observant, are you?”

Slouch ground his teeth. “If there’s hot chicks around, sure. And you know, you can say what you want but I think the headmistress or what ever she is is hot.”

Vernon lifted the hem of the altar cloth up with the tip of his shoe.

“Well how do you like that?” Slouch said.

“Bag it and mark it.”

Recessed there lay one green magic marker. Slouch turned an evidence bag inside out over his hand and picked it up. “Sounds like Bouncing Betty’s coming back.”

Ms. Lancre’s footfalls grew louder as she re-approached. Her lips seemed pursed in a manner that denoted satisfaction. “An interesting phone call, Inspector.”

“Church business?” Vernon asked.

“Police business, I would think,” the woman said. She crossed her arms beneath her bosom. “That was the school’s secretary, letting me know that earlier today a Mr. Mills called the school to report a curious observation. You see, Mr. Mills’s ten-year-old daughter, Grace, is a student here.”

“Yes?” Vernon said, scribbling notes.

“Last night at shortly past nine, Mr. Mills was driving Grace home from the skating rink and their journey happened to lead them right past the school.”

“Yes, yes?” Vernon tried to hurry her along.

“And they both happened to notice several homeless women loitering in front of the school.”

Vernon and Slouch looked at each other.

“That could be very helpful. I’ll need Mr. Mills’s phone number, ma’am,” Vernon said.

“The secretary will be happy to oblige,” the woman said. “Mr. Mills and his daughter took note of this because it seemed uncharacteristic and a bit odd.”

“Um-hmm.”

“But that’s not all,” the woman continued as if unfolding a great puzzle. “You see, it wasn’t only these homeless women they saw loitering. They said they also saw a woman who appeared to be a nun.”

“A nun?” Vernon questioned. “So it could be someone connected with the school?”

“No, no, Inspector. For this nun, according to them, was dressed in the old pre-Vatican II habit and wimple, something most orders were allowed to dispense with a long time ago—since 1965 as a matter of fact. You simply don’t see it much these days, not in America, at any rate. Only the most austere orders still subscribe to the old dress codes. What I mean is it’s very unlikely that a nun dressed specifically in these sorts of raiments would be seen near the school, especially at such a late hour.”

It’s something, Vernon thought. Now if I only knew what to do with it. He frowned when he caught Slouch’s eye cast toward the woman’s bosom. “If you don’t mind my asking, ma’am…are you a nun?”

Her aquamarine eyes glittered. “I’m a Bride of Christ, yes. But if you’re inquiring as to my whereabouts at the time this other nun was seen, I was attending a blessing at the Cathedral last night—”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. I was just curious. When I was a kid, we always addressed a nun as ‘Sister,’ yet you introduced yourself as ‘Miss.’”

“The old formalities are fading, sir,” she said. “In church, I’m Sister Mabille Lancre but at school I’m Miss. It’s considered less authoritarian, for the students, though I’m not sure what to think about the efficacy of such modern liberalizations. We simply do as the Holy Father bids. But I’m pleased to know that you’re a Catholic, Inspector.”

How’d I get into this? Vernon wondered. “Well, to be honest I was raised that way but…”

She gave a knowing smile. “It’s easy to lose sight of God in this wicked age; however, once you start looking again, the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven will be back in your hands.”

Jesus. Slouch was grinning at him over the woman’s shoulder. Get back to business …“Who was the first person to discover the break-in, ma’am?”

“The janitor. If you’d like to speak with him, just ask the secretary.” She looked back at the denigrated altar linens. “Regrettably, the school’s chancellor, Father Bosch, has not yet been notified. He’s out of town. He’ll be repulsed when he hears of this offense.”

Vernon tilted his head. “I’m not belittling what happened here, Ms. Lancre, but it’s really not that serious. Just some light vandalism and one pried-open window.”

“A crack gang would’ve torn the place apart,” Slouch commented.

Ms. Lancre looked slapped in the face. “Not that serious? Really, Inspector, and with you raised in the Faith.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am but I’m not sure what you—”

“Something much more grievous than mere vandalism has occurred here, sir.”

“Really?”

She looked at him, yes, like a nun scolding him in school. “You’re not very observant, are you?”

Slouch silently hee-hawed at him behind her back.

“Come here!” She led them to the other side of the altar. On the floor lay several pieces of—

“Wax paper?” Slouch guessed.

“Not quite,” she said, effusing sarcasm, “but I’m sure Inspector Vernon knows, being the stalwart Catholic that he is, hmm?”

Vernon did know what the papers were; he remembered from when he was an altar boy. “The wrapping from the rolls of Communion wafers, right?”

“For the Host, yes,” the woman explained as if sickened. “And seeing that the wraps are empty we can only come to the most repugnant conclusion…”

“The homeless girls ate the wafers?” Slouch assumed, confused. “Since you call that repugnant, I guess the wafers taste pretty bad, huh?”

“That’s not what she means, Slouch,” Vernon told him.

“Indeed not,” she snapped, “and please remember that they’re not merely wafers, Officer. They represent the Body of Christ.”

“Transubstantiation and all that,” Vernon said.

“Yes, the ultimate mystery of Faith. For the Host to be consumed beyond the act of Holy Communion is to represent the most appalling offense. They hadn’t yet been blessed, of course, but still, the very idea.”

“Of course,” Vernon tried to accommodate her, “but where there’s the Body of Christ, isn’t there also the Blood—in other words, the wine?”

“Most certainly.”

“If they consumed that, too, there’ll be some really good fingerprints on the bottle,” Vernon informed her.

She walked to the opposite side of the altar, to a wooden cabinet mounted to the wall. “But as you can see…” She opened the cabinet to reveal several unopened bottles of wine. “They haven’t been touched.”

Fuck, Vernon profaned, then felt a little guilty when the figure of Christ aloft seemed to frown at him. He bagged the empty wrappers. Iodine fuming, he thought impulsively. “Ma’am? And where are the wafers stored?”

She walked to an identical cabinet on the other side, began to reach for it, but—

“Don’t touch that,” Vernon commanded. He put another evidence bag over his hand and opened the cabinet. “Nothing left,” he said. “May I take this knob temporarily, Ms. Lancre?”

Slouch stepped up. “You have his stalwart Catholic promise that it’ll be returned after we tape it for prints.”

“By all means,” she said.

Vernon unscrewed the knob inside of the bag, then inverted it. Now, however, the woman stooped over, hands on knees. She seemed to be peering at something in the back of the cabinet.

“Ms. Lancre?”

“My great Lord. More despicable vandalism.”

Vernon took out a cheap penlight on his keys and shined it inside.

“What is that?” the woman asked. “It’s hardly Latin, like the other writing. It looks Slavic.”

The backing board at the rear of the cabinet was white foam-board, and on it, in the same alternating black, green, and red, the words appeared: TARA FLAESC WALLKYA.

“The hell is that?” Slouch asked.

Ms. Lancre stared at him, outraged.

“Sorry.”

Vernon transcribed the words in his notebook. “What ever it means, I’ll find out.”

“If it really means anything,” Slouch amended. “Homeless schizos like to write and talk in imaginary languages sometimes.”

This was true but…Not this time, Vernon felt. “I’ll be in touch, Ms. Lancre,” he said, his mind cluttered now. “I’ll have vehicular patrols stepped up in this area for the time being.”

“Thank you. Godspeed in catching these corrupted souls. I’d very much like to meet them once they’re apprehended.”

Vernon half-smiled. “To give them a tongue-lashing?”

“Of course not! To remind them that God forgives all.”

Vernon stalled. “Right. Good-bye.”

Slouch stole a last glance at the woman’s bosom, then followed Vernon toward the door.

“Oh, and Inspector?” she called back.

Vernon turned back. “Yes?”

“You’ll find God again, one day.” She smiled very thinly. “I feel certain.”

Vernon got a chill and left the chapel.

(IV)

Doke was the Man on the Scene, black and bad, and no shit for brains. He never touched his product. Never get high on your own supply ’cos if you do, you fuckin’ die. He knew the score. And just as fast as he could bust a move, he could bust a cap in a froggy junkie’s coconut. Business was business.

He was the main bagman on Broadway, from 79th to Columbus—or…at least he thought he was. He’d started out as a clocker at six, and had been dealing rock and black tar for five years, mostly rock. Twenty-three now, but he had the nose for the street like a player twice his age. He knew how to work the trash out there, he knew how to get someone to need his product, and he could always tell when someone was ready to tip.

He sold for the Kings. Z-Mob had been moving on their turf but so far, tough shit. The Kings knew how to take care of their gig; couple of times they’d caught Z-Men punks selling in the zone and these poor fuckers were found a week later in some cubed cars. Boo-yah, Doke thought, hitching up his baggie pants. I’m with the right crew, not these poo-put motherfuckers. He had $120 sneakers that blinked. Cool. Doke was a cliché and didn’t even know it.

Lotta dime-dealers and assholes said working West Side was a ball-buster ’cos so many people here were rich. “Ain’t no good crackheads Upper West Side, man,” a fence told him once and he’d pronounced crackheads as “crackhades.” “They all rich, man. They all pill junkies, man. Oxy, Vyky, that shit, man. They ain’t on the pipe or the needle. Don’t you know nothin’?” Shee-it, Doke thought, laughing. WHO don’t know nothing? He sold to a lot of rich white house wives, as a matter of fact, but of course, he’d sell to anyone. Fuckers coming right out of rehab gave Doke some quality satisfaction in employment. He was always there waiting with a free bag, get ’em right back on the Devil’s Dick. Kids were fun, too,’ cos he liked the idea—he liked the ideology. Tip ’em with a few free rocks and next thing they knew they were ripping off cash out of their rich parents’ wallets and selling shit in the house. They’d take the $80,000 Audi and sell it to a chop shop for five grand and just say some “bad man” stole it, then every penny of that five would wind up in Doke’s kick. Kids tipped the quickest, see, and the earlier you got the hook in ’em, the harder it was to get out and the more it cost the motherFUCKIN’ U.S. taxpayer in the long run. Fuck them, Doke thought, bopping. What they ever do for me? But the rich house wives were always the best. While Hubby’s busy with his job on fuckin’ Wall Street, his squeeze is chipping away at the checking account, lying about the bills, selling the jewelry, and next thing you know Hubby comes home from work one day to find out Junior’s college fund is bone-dry and his “high-class” wife has been a closet crackhead for the last two years. Doke nodded as he continued down the sunny street. Shit-yeah.

And Doke considered himself an equal opportunity drug dealer. He did not discriminate. Rich, poor, young, old, niggers, spics, kikes, white trash, whoever you are—I got what you need …

Worst customers, however, were longer-timers on their way to what they called Rock Bottom. Get it? Mostly chicks who’d been working the street ten or twenty years but by now they looked like such shit they couldn’t snag a john in a million years. Next stop? Homeless City. Lot of ’em were moving over this way ’cos—shit—try being homeless in a crack hood. You’d be dead in two minutes. They kill bums there, cut your throat just for the dirty clothes on your back. Doke had a couple packs of these girls who were sleeping in the closed buildings ’cos it was safer here. They were always a harder sell but if you roughed them up, sometimes you could motivate them. Then give ’em all a free toke on the pipe to remind ’em what they’re missing. They’d find ways to get money. It was never much but Doke’s point guy with the Kings? Dude named Archie. One time Archie told him this: “The smart businessman pursues all profit, large and small.” Straight up. Come on, Doke wasn’t some piece-of-shit player dealing on the street.

He was a businessman.

Cop gave him the eye as he was turning off 72nd, near where some guy he never heard of named Lennon got shot. Doke would’ve given him the eye back ’cept he was carrying so he just went on his way ’cos, thank God, it was a free country and a dude shouldn’t be shook down for walkin’ the street just ’cos he looked like a crack-dealing scumbag. I’ll fuckin’ SUE, and win! It happened all the time these days. I got my rights, motherfuckers. Then, a couple blocks later:

Well, well, well, well, well, he thought.

Up the street two familiar faces turned into an alley, a pair of the same homeless trash he was just thinking about. Haven’t seen those two in a while nows that I think about it. Thought they must’ve croaked by now. If they had, that would be fine with him,’ cos if you asked Doke, white hoes too beat to make crack money had no right to exist. But then he remembered what his main man Archie had said…

Doke picked up his pace.

“Yo! You two!” he called right after he stepped into a side alley. “Hold up!”

The two girls turned. Big eyes in drawn faces showed something like terror. When they turned again, Doke shouted with authority.

“Hold UP, I said. Don’t MAKE me have to run.”

They stopped, leaning against the alley wall.

Yeah, those two. He remembered them. The one that stuttered and he could never tell what color her hair was ’cos it was so dirty. Looked like she was wearing the same jeans he last saw her in over a month ago, but now she had a new T-shirt that said THE DAMNED on it, what ever the fuck that was. Doke had slapped her up a couple of times, not ’cos she ripped him off,’ cos…it was just fun slapping her up. She just LOOKS like she needs it. Other one was the one with pink glasses and missing a bunch of teeth. Shitty orange halter and blue jeans brown with dirt.

Doke loped up, giving them the Look. “Where you think you’re goin’, huh?”

“Home,” Glasses said.

“Home, shit. You ain’t got no home. Ain’t seen you two in a long time. Don’t you owe me for some Bits I slipped you?” he bullshitted.

“Nuh-nuh-no,” the stutterer said.

Doke paused. They still looked like shit but…not quite as shitty as last time. Like they gained some weight or something. “Yeah? Well, maybe I’m thinkin’ of someone else who ripped me off.” But now the stutterer was staring at him, half in fear and half in something Doke didn’t like. Like maybe…loathing? “What’choo eyeballin’, ho?”

“Wuh-wuh-we don’t smoke no more,” she huffed out with a great effort.

Doke laughed. “Only way either of ya don’t smoke no more is ’cos you’re too skanky to turn tricks. But I can tune ya both up right now, if ya got cash.”

The stutterer stiffened up again, “I-I-told you, we don’t do crack no more-no more-no more—”

“Be quiet!” Glasses blared, little boobs swaying in all the halter’s play.

“We ain’t got no money neither!” the stutterer added in a testy tone.

Doke didn’t like this. They were being rude, and no crackhead was rude to him. When he stepped right up to them, they moved back against the wall as if pressured by the distance between them.

“I’d kick both of your white-trash asses ’cept I’d get my shoes dirty.” He tipped up a Nike. “And just one of these shoes is worth more than both of ya and all them other little dirtbags ya’ll hang out with. No money, huh? Well I guess that means I gotta search ya, and I’m keepin’ everything I find.” And then he shoved the stutterer back hard against the bricks and rammed a hand down her pockets.

Fuck. “What’s this shit, cunt?” The only thing he found in her pockets was a can of anchovies.

Did Glasses smile ever so slightly? She actually took a step toward him. “We got some money, Doke, and we’ll crack it up some. We got enough for two rocks.”

“Francy!” the other one exclaimed, looking appalled. “We don’t do that shit no more! What would the New Mother say?”

Doke stared poker-faced. New Mother? Fuckin’ loonies …“Don’t know what you hoes are talkin’ ’bout and I don’t care. Two rocks is fifty bucks, same as always. Lay it on me.”

“It’s at home,” Glasses said.

Doke laughed. “I’m standin’ in it, ain’t I?”

“We live right down here in the old clothes store. There’s a hole. You have to come with us.”

“Francy!” Stutterer shrieked again. “She’ll kick us out of the convent-the convent-the convent, the—”

“Be quiet!” Glasses shoved the other one ahead of her, down the alley.

The convent? Doke loved the shit some of them said once their brains were gone. Man, this is a hoot.

He followed them down a relatively clear alley. Were they whispering? Glasses must be talkin’ the other one into it. She knows the score. Once a crackhead, always a crackhead, even when you ain’t got shit left. Their dirty flip-flops slapped ahead of him.

When they stopped, Glasses pushed a garbage can away from the brick wall of one of those fancy white clothes stores that had gone out of business. A long time ago it was a department store Doke thought his mother worked at, but he didn’t really remember her much. He knew his daddy turned into a hype and always thought that maybe he killed her. Doke didn’t care.

Behind the garbage can was a hole in the wall. “In here,” Glasses said, and then got on her hands and knees. The stutterer had already shimmied in before her, fast as a skink.

“You fuckin’ crazy? I ain’t goin’ in there,” Doke said.

She glared back. “Fine. Then don’t, then we’ll have to cop from the Z-Men. Only way you’re getting any money from us is by coming in here.”

“Bullshit—”

“I ain’t smokin’ crack on the street when it’s light outside!” And then before Doke could raise further shit, she shimmied into the hole.

Doke looked down. He didn’t like that remark about the Z-Men. And I’ll bet they been buyin’ from those motherfuckers all along …And what would he have to fear by going in? It was fucked-up, sure, but there was no way they had a guy or a pimp in there. Maybe I’ll just jack both the bitches out, take their green, and kill ’em, he considered. Doke had killed a few bums in his time. A man needed something to do when he got bored.

Fuck it. He got down on hands and knees.

He could barely get his shoulders in but after some fidgeting, he succeeded. His face seemed to constrict when he squeezed through the narrow passage. Bum piss, he knew. He’d smelled plenty of it in his time. As he inched through, each inhalation felt thick. But then what could he expect following two homeless crackheads into their crib? He squeezed through a larger hole, and when his hips passed the makeshift threshold, he knew he could see light.

Yeah, my time’s worth a lot more than havin’ to crawl into a shit hole for fifty bucks. I’m killin’ these hoes …

He had an ice pick strapped to his ankle for such occasions.

Once inside, Doke smirked and stood up. Several candles provided the weak, urine-yellow light that flickered on the bare-block walls. This was probably a boiler room or something a long time ago, but now only rubble, stacks of boxes and crates, and garbage characterized its stark features. A kerosene heater sat off to the side, next to boxes of candles and some packs of magic markers. Several ratty sleeping bags lay on the floor.

“Over here.” Glasses’s voice.

But Doke remained stalled in place. In one corner a mountain of trash sat piled, and several rats skittered like they owned the place. “Smells like piss in here,” he complained. “Shit’s stingin’ my eyes.”

“Oh, you get used to it,” came a squeaky voice he didn’t recognize but then he looked aside and saw a third girl sitting on a box. She appeared to be watching a television on the floor but the television was off.

“You bitches told me no one else was here.”

“That’s Sandrine,” Glasses excused. “She likes to watch TV.”

“The fuckin’ TV’s busted!”

Glasses giggled. “Yeah. But sometimes you can still see stuff.”

In fetid dark, the bum-chick called Sandrine enthused, “It’s true. Right now I’m watching the man on the stone slab. It’s like a show you see over and over again.”

Watching the man? Doke, frowning, walked over, unconsciously ducking his head beneath low pipes. Something crunched under his foot; then he frowned harder when he saw what it was: an anchovy can.

“Anchovies are easier to shoplift ’cos they’re smaller,” Glasses informed.

“Now the dog’s barking, too!” exclaimed Sandrine like a little kid even though she was probably thirty.

Glasses went behind her, to smile at the television screen.

Doke looked at the screen, too. It was dead, blank. Their brains are garbage. “I ain’t got time to fuck around in this piss-hole. Let’s see that money or else I’ll have to go ghetto on your asses.”

Glasses handed him fifty very dirty dollars.

Awright. Now what? Am I really gonna kill these kooks? Right now all Doke wanted to do was get out of this freaky place. The smart businessman pursues all profit, large and small, Archie’s voice etched at the back of his head. Just give ’em the crack, Doke figured. They’ll want more tomorrow.

He reached into his pocket…

“Oh,” Glasses said. “We don’t want any crack. We don’t smoke that shit anymore. We don’t do any drugs anymore.”

Doke stared.

Sandrine looked up from the dead TV. “We’ve been purged. The New Mother has sanka-fried us.”

“Sanctified,” Glasses corrected.

“We only-we only told you we’d cop some crack to lure you in-you in-you in-you—”

“Be quiet!”

It was the other one, the one that talked fucked-up. Doke wasn’t really nervous yet, but there was something a bit uneasy behind his rage. The stutterer had resurfaced from a back corner. She had something in her hand. Doke squinted.

A brick.

Doke blurred for a split second, and in the split second after that he had his ice pick in hand. “I’m fillin’ all you crazy bums fulla holes—”

“Salut,” another voice said.

Doke froze.

The voice sounded accented and…weird. Like someone talking through the wind.

“She’s here…”

Black knuckles turned white as Doke’s hand tightened around the pick’s handle. That voice he’d heard seemed to come from every direction of the squalid room, yet something he couldn’t begin to define commanded his gaze. He looked to the corner, behind the pile of garbage.

Is that …

A woman stood there. He could see candlelight flickering up and down her nude body, and he could also see that she wasn’t any bum. She was all curves and enticing female lines. But…

Nude, yes, but there was something like a weird hood around her face…

Then the accented voice repeated what the bum-girl had said:

“Look.”

As Doke’s eyes widened, his vision dimmed to black, and it was in the all-pervading absence of light that he began to see things…

He saw his mother being pummeled by the fists of the man he presumed was his father. “Where’s my skag! Where’s my skag!” the man raged, arms full of needle marks, a candle burning on a table next to a spoon. The fists flew into a frenzy as his mother’s face was pounded open. “Ain’t worth SHIT!” Then the man collapsed her head with a rolling pin…

Doke hitched in a breath. “No…”

“Look.”

Another vision: soldiers from long ago slowly proceeding into a forest, the looks on the faces in the oval chain-mail hoods that of horror and revulsion. The forest seemed to extend without limit, yet between every tree stood a twenty-foot wooden pike on which a Turkish soldier with the invasion force of Mehmed II had been impaled. Some through their mouths, some through their rectums, some through their chests—there were thousands of them—and as Doke was forced to stare harder at the impossible image, he noticed that there were hundreds of women and old men impaled as well…

The blackness snapped away. Then—

Doke was back in the shitty room, staring at the nude woman in the corner. Her eyes seemed alight. She was grinning.

Two very thin, inch-long teeth could be seen in the grin.

“Now, my blessed sister.”

SMACK!

The stutterer brought the brick so hard against the side of Doke’s head that the retinal lining of one eye detached. Half his sight winked out as he collapsed to the dirt-lined floor. The throb of pain at his head had Doke convulsing.

Shadows hovered. Doke couldn’t move.

Hands pulled off his blinking shoes while greasy fingers first extracted the fifty dollars from his front pocket, then the five-hundred-dollar roll. His baggie full of crack was extracted as well, then tossed to the garbage pile. Doke could feel more than see his pants being pulled off.

He continued to mildly convulse from the preliminary effects of hematoma, yet those sociopathized brain cells continued to fire, continued to feel the pain thud like crashing waves. He thought he also felt a hand fiddle with his genitals.

The other bum-girl laughed. “It’s so little…”

Doke was too far gone to feel emasculated, and too far gone to do essentially anything except lie there and shudder as blood and spinal fluid gently leaked from his fractured skull.

“Enough merriment, sisters.” The accented voice. Did Doke sense the nude woman closer now, leaning over him? Her voice seemed to ooze along with his blood.

“Let us pay homage now, to our great and generous defender.”

The girls rose and stepped away. But two of them moved up, each grabbing an ankle. They stepped apart, to spread Doke’s legs.

The oozing voice smeared across Doke’s mind…

“Singele lui traieste.”

Doke’s good eye blinked. He could see a fourth girl now, one with short black hair covered with bald patches, walking around.

In one hand she held a hammer, in the other a long, sharpened pole.

CHAPTER EIGHT

(I)

This is crazy, Father Rollin thought as he stood at the corner of 67th and Columbus, counting the number of hotel rooms facing the street. He counted with his finger, very intently. Several strollers stopped to peer at him. I don’t care if they think I’m out of my mind, he asserted to himself but still felt embarrassed. He looked over his shoulder, to approximate the alignment; then he thought, Hmm. Fourth one from the right side of the building. That looks like it …

He picked up his small suitcase and entered the old brown brick Ketchum Hotel, well known for its Federal-period architecture. A quick trip up to the second floor, trying to maintain his bearing, and then he found the fire-exit map near the elevator. The fourth room from the right appeared as Room 207. Got it. Now let’s just hope I’m not wasting an awful lot of money.

Back downstairs, he approached the check-in counter. The lobby seemed very busy, which wasn’t good. Somebody’s probably already booked the room, his cynicism told him, or perhaps it was a secret hope so that he wouldn’t have to go through with this at all. He actually winced at several women in shining dresses, carrying physiques that he could only describe as…comely.

A lanky, narrow-faced clerk addressed him with a French accent. Rollin had always carried a trifling grudge against the French, for forcing Pope Clement V to move the papacy from Rome to Avignon in 1309. It was all political! he’d raged with some other priests once, after too much wine. GOD is not political! How can the masses believe that the Church is infallible when everyone from kings to presidents can manipulate the Holy Office? It was a silly argument, but Rollin still didn’t much care for the French.

“It’s a plea sure to receive you at the Ketchum, Father,” said the clerk, whose brow seemed to twitch at Rollin’s presence. “How may I be of assistance?”

“This is probably a fool’s errand,” Rollin began his lie. “I don’t have a reservation, but I was wondering if Room 207 is available. Of course, seeing how busy you are today, I’m sure it isn’t…”

The clerk’s narrow face seemed to tweak at the odd request. A few taps on the keyboard, and, “You’re in luck, Father. We’ve only three rooms unreserved today, and 207 is one of them.”

“I’ll take it for, say, three nights, if possible.”

“Of course, Father.” But then the clerk stiffened with some French-accented chuckling. “The standard rate is $279 per night—”

Rollin wilted, extracting his credit card. God’s work always costs money…damn it, and what is this dupe laughing about?

“It’s regrettable that I won’t be able to give you the convention rate since, I feel certain, you’re not attending the convention.”

Only now did Rollin notice the looks he was getting from the flashy lobby crowd. “Convention? No, no. And the reason I’ve asked for Room 207 is only because I’ve stayed here before and love the room’s view.” Priests shouldn’t be able to lie so easily, he considered. But the man had said something about a convention. “So what’s the big event? Consumer trade show or something?”

Now the clerk was beside himself to stifle his amusement. His smile nearly went up to his eyes. “No, Father, I’m afraid not. It’s the Adult Video Awards Convention.”

Oh my God! Rollin thought. “I’ll just…take the room, please.” He collected his key-card and skirted back to the elevators. Absolutely humiliating …

More cosmetically perfected women smiled at him when he got off the elevator. “Oh, Father, I love your ring,” said a platinum blonde in a body stocking. Rollin trembled when she grabbed his hand to look at it, forcing his eyes away from croquet-ball-sized breasts. “Uh, thank you. Go with God.” He rushed to Room 207 and slipped in as quickly as he could. If somebody I know sees me here… what on earth can I say? But he shoved the trepidation away when he approached the wide windows and parted the drapes. The moment of truth was at hand. He took out his binoculars, stepped six feet back from the gap in the drapes, and zoomed down the alley, which cut up to Dessorio Avenue.

Well at least SOMETHING went right today, he thought when the view showed him that he’d calculated the angle with accuracy. If he stood right against the wall and hunched down, he got an almost dead-on view of the rear windows of the annex house. Rollin fixed himself some coffee, then pulled a chair to the wall to sit. Peeping Tom time again, he thought, amazed at his low-brow tactics. What else can I do? Break into the place? The diocese couldn’t bail me out because they don’t even know!

He tried to sever it all, along with the cosmic disappointment that a lifetime of service to God had led to this. Instead, he teased the focus ring on the glasses.

The top two floors stood drapeless and appeared empty, yet the long windows of the second level possessed raised blinds that revealed a room full of lit computers, book and media shelves, and a slant-angled table that he presumed was a drawing desk. Must be her studio. And below, on a balcony, one narrow window revealed a fairly wide wedge of a very ornate bathroom, complete with a hot tub. A floor lower, he could see the newly installed security bars of the basement windows.

Rollin sighed. Now what? I’m spending $279 per night of my own money—of which I have precious little—all to afford a view of the back of the annex house …

What do I expect to see?

He supposed if he saw nothing, then his prayers would be answered.

Movement flagged him from the studio window—There she is! Rollin could see Cristina Nichols sitting at the large computer screen dressed in a fine robe. At one point, she got up from her work and walked to the window. She seemed to be reveling in the sunlight, which was just beginning to pour in over the top of the higher-leveled condos behind the house.

When he coughed, the binocular’s surreal clarity vibrated like an earthquake; for a second he glimpsed the tops of two heads. Who could that be? He lowered his vantage point and saw a pair of homeless women shuffling down the alley toward Columbus. One with glasses, and one with scabs on her head. They jabbered silently as he watched. Though homeless persons regularly came to the West Side to panhandle, Rollin knew that few actually lived there. Most of the shelters were near the lower streets or up in the Harlem area, yet he’d seen these girls with some frequency.

And Rollin felt certain that it was these women specifically who’d broken into the annex house a number of times when he was its charge.

I’ll have to confront them, he knew, for all the good it’ll do. Or better yet, follow them some time.

Rollin squinted into the eyepieces when he looked back to the studio window. He also gulped.

Cristina Nichols now stood behind the glass with her robe parted, her breasts bared. Rollin could hear his heart thumping. Don’t watch. This is NOT what you’re looking for, and you know it …

God knows it, too.

In that last fraction of a glimpse, Cristina Nichols’s face appeared blank, trancelike, and her hands were slowly caressing her breasts in the sun. The image seemed to pinpoint—on dark, swollen nipples. Then her hands slid downward…

What a place to do THAT—

But Rollin’s heart thumped louder when he brought the binoculars back down. The two homeless girls were approaching the end of the alley. Much closer now, he could discern their unkempt details.

The one with the scabs on her head seemed to be wiping her hands off with a rag.

A white rag that came away red.

(II)

A hot fugue state was the only way she could think of it. For the second time, Cristina caught herself standing before her studio window, touching herself. She nearly shrieked when she grew cognizant of what she was doing, the recognition arriving just short of climax. I’m turning into a nympho! she thought when her senses returned, and she jumped back and resashed the robe.

What brought THAT on?

Her hangover had gone, replaced by this. She didn’t like not knowing the cause of her actions, and after last night’s drunken blackout, an uneasiness began to unsettle her stomach.

The nightmare, magnified this time, the drenching eroticism, the blood.

She went to shower again, to cool herself off and clear her head. What had she been doing? She turned the water from cool to cold, drawing goose bumps. I was in the studio, working out a sketch of the next figure…The Vampirical Vicar …It struck her as odd how the “vampire” bent had seeped its way into the Evil Church line: first the nun, now the vicar. She knew it was all just more influence of the nightmare. And, yes, she remembered working at her drawing table when, without invitation, remnant images had crept into her head: last night’s lesbian-dream frolic, a half a dozen faceless women covering her with hands and tongues while the fanged nun looked on in proximity to the dead man on the stone slab and the queer vase sitting atop it. The unpleasant imagery should’ve left her desires mute yet Cristina found the opposite; she felt charged, misted with sweat, nipples tingling. It’s almost like I was in a trance, she mused. When the dream imagery had faded, it had been replaced by something even more objectionable…

Britt.

Cristina felt ashamed in the recollection. She’d been sitting there suddenly remembering Britt erasing the magic marker from her skin but eventually Cristina’s mind appended the memory. Next, she imagined not Britt’s fingers on her skin but Britt’s lips. Cristina cringed as wet lines were licked and sucked from nipples to navel, all the while Britt’s fingers sliding behind to knead Cristina’s rump and tease the bottom of her sex. Eventually she was urged to the bathroom floor, then Britt straddled her stomach, shouldered out of the scarlet shearling vest, and forced Cristina’s hands to her breasts. Britt sighed, her face upturned. Then she leaned, propped by her arms, to slowly offer her own nipples to Cristina’s mouth, a hot whisper pleading, “Suck them. Hard. Like when—”

Like when …

Cristina did so without reservation, in spite of the awfulness of the reference. Her sex moistened as if on cue, her own nipples suddenly gorged to aching.

“Yes, yes,” Britt breathed through her teeth. “Just like…so long ago…”

The fantasy, however jaded, only stoked Cristina further. Her mouth continued to tend to her foster sister’s areolae while her fingers fumbled frantically at the buttons of the jeans. “Take these off,” she whined in a hot swivet. “Take them off right now and…”

The fantasy snapped and once again Cristina found herself standing open-robed before her sunny studio window—

Masturbating, she finished. Jeez.

After the shower, she sat at her table, ashamed. Should she tell Britt? God, no. I’ve already hassled her enough. Why can’t I be strong, like her? Cristina knew she overreacted to things, perceived her insecurities with far more cruciality than they warranted. This had happened before on rare occasions, and Britt’s therapeutic analyses were always dismissively similar. Erotic latency, the forbidden made enticing by social strictures, she would say. It’s nothing. We’re not even really sisters; it’s just more Goldfarb mental backwash that your mind manipulates into a false fantasy, trying to get rid of it. But sometimes it takes a while. When Cristina reminded herself of that, she felt better.

But just a little.

It seemed that her inability to shed the past was stealing from her. Stealing my joy, my new life here. Again, she knew what Britt would say:

Don’t let it.

Among the demented abuses of her foster parents was the forced couplings. It was the only way Cristina could think of it. While Andre Goldfarb was busy molesting Scott, their foster brother, Helga worked on Cristina and Britt. She drugged them with God knew what and then coerced them into sexual scenarios in which Helga herself would eventually join in. Scott, too, was often forced to participate…

Scott hadn’t fared well in the aftermath, while Cristina and Britt were able to adjust via therapy after the authorities had rescued them. Goddamn the Goldfarbs, she thought all too often. “They’ll probably die in prison,” Britt had said once. “Child molesters are anathema on any cell block. It’s the worst thing to be.”

I hope so …Cristina wasn’t one for ill will but here, certainly, was an understandable exception.

Early evening approached, her studio window growing dim. I’m still a little out of whack from last night’s booze, she reasoned. Just like Britt said. Minor alcohol poisoning and dehydration. She looked back at her latest precursory sketch, and found she liked it even more. The Vampirical Vicar. She smiled at the playful sketch. At first she thought of drawing a modern-day priest—like Father Rollin, perhaps—but drew this instead, a stuffy parson that appeared more English, in pompous red vestments denoting the clergy of hundreds of years ago. Large doll-like eyes were bloodshot, and like much of the line the face was more cherubic than scary. She wasn’t sure if the long, straight mustache worked or not but she found she liked the image. The vicar’s crooked smile showed long thin fangs, just like the Noxious Nun.

I wonder …

An unbeckoned thought caused her to amend the sketch. Where her Noxious Nun bore a three-jeweled bowl of blood, the Vampirical Vicar held a curious decanter—from her dream, of course—which suggested a vessel for Communion wine.

Now she liked the sketch even more.

I can’t wait to show this to Bruno. Enthused, then, Cristina focused at her table, to begin a more refined draft.

(III)

“So we’re here for what reason?” Vernon asked Detective Taylor in the small, computer-filled cubby loudly referred to as the Electronic Evidence Assimilation Unit at Manhattan North Borough Command. Taylor scratched his unkempt mustache and frowned. “It’s what you wanted, and because you didn’t tag a link on the case number from last December, I couldn’t go to the Information Systems Division downtown.”

Vernon’s mind wandered. He was standing behind a civilian employee hunkered over a terminal. “December? Oh, the Christmas tree stand thing.”

“Yeah, that big caper. Ain’t no way it’s not connected to the impalement.”

“I know but it’s hard to push that way.”

“You’re just afraid of being laughed at since making inspector.”

“Tell me about it.” Vernon had to agree. “Christmas tree stands, magic markers, and forty bucks’ worth of whittling knives…”

Taylor smiled wide. “And bum-girls, speaking of which…” The detective pointed to the computer screen.

“There they are,” Vernon said in a hush.

“When I told you the owner of the hardware store couldn’t find the surveillance disk, I was wrong. They never got it back from us. It’s been in the C.E.S. mainframe the whole time. Took this guy here two minutes to pull it up.”

Vernon’s eyes were taken by the screen, which now showed several haggardly dressed females moving in slow-motion down an aisle of the darkened hardware store. The nerdy tech at the desk would freeze the closest image of each perpetrator, hit a key, then slo-mo to the next. A printer below the desk hummed, kicking out four eight-by-ten glossies. The tech handed the photos to Vernon.

“These look great,” Vernon complimented.

The tech smirked like an accountant bothered by something trivial. “You could’ve done it from your precinct house.”

“We don’t have that kind of technology at our house,” Vernon told him.

The tech smirked sharper. “Inspector, it’s ten-year-old technology.”

“Like I said, we don’t have that kind of technology at our house.”

Taylor eyed the slick printouts. “Just like the drugstore.”

Now the tech shook his head. “Where have you guys been? Nobody gets pictures developed at the drugstore anymore. Don’t you have a printer and a digital camera?”

Vernon and Taylor raised their brows. “We’re old-school, but thanks,” Vernon said. Then he took Taylor back out to the parking lot. They studied the printouts more closely, while Taylor verbalized a description of each woman running down the aisle with several boxed Christmas tree stands:

“Ratty-looking blonde with glasses, ratty-looking brunette in pink sweatpants, another ratty-looking brunette in ratty-looking jeans, a ratty-looking redhead, and—”

Vernon completed the summary, “A ratty-looking woman with very short hair and patches of psoriasis—”

“And large breasts…not that I’d want my face between them. She’s probably got boob lice.”

“You sound like Slouch,” Vernon complained.

“No, Slouch would want his face between them. You know Slouch—after a couple beers, anything goes.” Taylor flipped through the photos again. “At least we know what they look like. No way to tell how old they are, but if we spot one on the street we’d probably recognize them.”

“Yeah, but that’s too easy,” Vernon offered cynically. “That’s not the way my luck runs since I turned fifty.”

“Ten-year hard-luck streak, How?”

“That’s Inspector How to you…Patrolman-to-be Taylor.”

Taylor laughed. “I’m just joshin’.”

“Just what I need.” Vernon threw Taylor the keys to the unmarked. “You drive. I’m too old.”

“Yes, sir, Inspector. Where to?”

“Same area you and Slouch cruised with that twenty-five-year-old hooker who looks thirteen.”

“Cinzia. Right.” Taylor pulled off onto 100th, then darted into traffic on Broadway.

Vernon was thinking as he re examined the hard copies. “The redhead was the one we busted in December, right? Where’s she now, or have you been slacking?”

Taylor’s dark mustache trailed down the sides of his mouth like an Italian actor from the seventies. “She’s long gone. I already did the follow-up this morning.”

Vernon glared. “Then how come you didn’t tell me that this morning?”

“Because I was busting my ass trying to run down the fuckin’ surveillance footage from the hardware store like you told me to do,” Taylor emphasized with a raised voice, knuckling the wheel.

“Oh, right. Good job, by the way. So what happened to the redhead?”

“She was clinically fucked-up so she never stood trial.” Vernon turned on the fireball-light on the dash and whooped his siren, to make an illegal turn past Cleopatra’s Needle, run a red light on 92nd, and shoot a right onto Amsterdam. Other drivers leaned on their horns but Taylor didn’t even hear them. “Chronic abulia and apraxia, they told me, what ever that means. And ‘schizoaffective.’ They let her out of the state hospital after a blue paper and ninety days of therapy; her case doctor said she was not capable of mens rea. Then the OT counselor told me she split town, took the first Greyhound out to DeSmet, South Dakota…Like I’ve heard of that. Give me some time and I’ll try to run her down.”

Vernon shuddered when a bus roared by. “Don’t bother. The minute they’re out of a therapeutic environment, they stop taking their meds and are back to square one. She was nuts and homeless here, you can bet she’s nuts and homeless in South Dakota. We’ll just eyeball the streets where the hooker said to. We’ve got nothing else to do except go home.”

Taylor opened his mouth but then closed it again without a word. They passed Tecumseh Playground and Verdi Square. Post–rush hour was still heavy with vehicles. At every corner, however, panhandlers could be seen sitting down with their empty cups or trudging this way and that amid the throng of the upper crust. “Who says there’s no homeless problem on the Upper West Side?” Taylor remarked.

Vernon reflected. “Like the hooker was telling us, if they don’t foot it all the way up here from the shelters every day, they squat in recently closed buildings. It makes sense.”

“Yeah. If your career is bumming change, you’re better off doing it here than the fuckin’ Bronx. Restaurants, bars, stores, they’re going under or getting bought out every day. You shack up in one place for a week or two, then move on to the next. I’ve just never really noticed so many homeless around here in the past.”

“That’s because this is the first time we’ve actually been looking for them. And that Cinzia girl…Didn’t she say something about the hardware store chicks congregating near a vendor at the corner of Dessorio?”

“Right. Slouch and I talked to the guy. He verified what the hooker told us but—”

“Couldn’t give specifics ’cos he probably sees a hundred different homeless people every damn day,” Vernon reasoned.

“Um-hmm.” Taylor slowed the car, pointing. “There’s the guy now. Wanna go talk to him? Now we’ve got pictures he can look at.”

Vernon eyed the short, stocky vendor at the corner. He wore a New York Islanders shirt and a Mets cap, and had a gnawed cigar between his teeth. “Naw. I told you. My luck doesn’t run that way.”

Taylor pursed his lips. “It’s police work, How. You’re the one who said we’ve got nothing better to do. Come on. And you can buy me a hot dog. I don’t make enough on detective’s pay.”

Vernon shrugged. “All right.”

Taylor pulled into a No Parking zone. The instant they both got on the sidewalk, they froze.

“I don’t believe it,” Vernon muttered into the flow of oncoming pedestrians.

Taylor cut a big grin. “And you said your luck never runs this way.”

“Mine doesn’t but evidently yours does.” Vernon threw the photos back in the car and extracted his handcuffs. “Grab her.”

Taylor immediately latched onto the arm of a shabby, large-breasted woman in cutoff military pants. Her very short dark hair was patched with bald spots and scabs.

“Hey!” she whined. “Take your—”

“Police,” Vernon said. “You’re under arrest.”

“You shits! Help me, somebody! These cops are trying to rape me!” she shrieked.

Vernon chuckled. “Christmas tree stands and woodcarving knives? But relax, you don’t have to tell us anything because you have the right to remain silent.”

Taylor pushed her forward against the car and cuffed her.

“You can’t hold me,” the seedy woman proclaimed. “I can fly anything God can make! I’m gonna lock you up in a cave full of milk bottles and soup!”

Vernon rolled his eyes at Taylor. Taylor said, “Rice Krispies.”

“The government put these cameras in my teeth!” She opened her mouth wide. “Now they can see you two shit-cakes!”

“Get her in the car,” Vernon said, unable to refrain from smiling.

“These guys aren’t cops!” she wailed. “They got fake badges that the guys who killed Kennedy gave them!”

“Those are some lines, huh?” But Taylor paused before moving her off. “Hey, How. Check it out.”

Vernon stooped to peer. He was looking at the woman’s very dirty hands cuffed behind her back. All of her fingernails appeared to be lined with dried blood.

CHAPTER NINE

(I)

“There he is,” Paul said, looking up from his booth at Harry’s Bar at the Helmsley Hotel. It was their after-work hangout, and seemed to be devoid of other attorneys but chock-full of stockbrokers, whose barside banter always proved more interesting than that of the former. Half of the brokers looked on the verge of suicide. Paul swizzled a Johnny Walker Blue on the rocks, and already had a bottle of Asahi waiting for Jess. Jess sat down as if winded, his hair perpetually disarrayed, and drained a third of the bottle.

“I take it Massacessi’s people didn’t dig your arbitration rebuttal,” Paul suspected of his partner’s more-harried-than-usual look.

“Oh, they loved it, but the traffic on Third sucks. Christ, it’s past seven.”

“I always cut up Eighth, then swing over on Forty-second.”

“Sure, probably to stop and snag some lap dances.”

“Don’t need to.” Paul huffed a chuckle. “Since Cristina’s moved in, she’s turned into a dynamo. She’s wearing me out.”

“There’s always the Big Blue.”

“Yeah. I take ’em in place of One A Days.” Paul sipped his twenty-five-dollar drink. “I tweaked the highlights on the Soledad motion and punted them. It looks good…even for billing five-seventy-five an hour. So what about Massacessi?”

“They want to renew for five years—”

“You’re shitting me?” Paul said, startled. “That’s great. Hell, I ought to let you pocket the whole retainer ’cos you did all the work.”

Jess’s brow shot up over his next chug of fancy beer. “Really?”

“Fuck you…partner.”

Both men laughed. “Don’t know how you can drink those fussy Jap dry beers, but I picked up a case for you anyway, for this weekend.”

Even Jess’s spiked goatee looked sloppy. “This weekend? Oh, yeah. Cookout at your place.”

Paul smiled. “Well, carryout, not cookout. You haven’t seen the house since we got all the furniture in. It looks so sumptuous I almost feel guilty living there…Almost.”

“Once a lawyer, always a lawyer. The Catholic Church has too much property as it is. You’re like Robin Hood but with none of that ‘give to the poor’ jive on the end.”

Paul shrugged through another sip of scotch. “Just as the Ten Commandments were written in stone so were these words: ‘A buyer’s superior knowledge of property value is NOT actionable.’”

“Amen.”

Through the front window, they both glimpsed a minibus waiting for the light on 3rd. Big letters along the side read: FAMILY SERVICES FOSTER CARE OF NEW YORK.

Both men averted their eyes at once, neither speaking, until the bus pulled off. Eventually Paul broke the silence. “Just when you think you’ve forgotten about something shitty.”

“I hear ya. But I read somewhere than 90 percent of the foster services in the U.S. are right on.”

“Yeah, but we’re both living with two girls who fall into that other 10 percent. It just burns me up, those Goldfarb psychos. Twenty years ain’t enough.”

“They’ll croak in stir, watch.” Jess always took the positive side.

Paul ordered another round. “Ain’t good enough. Sometimes I think about paying someone on the inside to fuck them up.”

Jess lost his joviality fast. He leaned over and whispered, “If you’re going to make yourself liable for premeditation and conspiracy, kindly refrain from doing it in front of me, and think about not talking that kind of shit in a public place.”

Paul waved it off. “You know what I mean. And don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it, too,’ cos if you do…you’re a liar.”

“Can’t argue with ya there. Better way to look at it is Goldfarb’s probably got a size-thirteen asshole by now. That’s good enough for me. And you’re forgetting the only good thing to come out of it.”

“What’s that?”

“Even after a childhood like theirs, Britt and Cristina landed on their feet and both got their shit supremely squared away.”

Paul nodded but it was half-dismal. “I guess I just think too much. That was some pretty awful shit they had to go through.”

“Sure. Giving barbs to little kids, and God knows what else, and molestation, I presume.”

Paul looked up, puzzled. “You presume? Didn’t Britt—”

“She told me some of it but none of the details,” Jess said. “She’s a strong chick, both of them are.” A pause over his beer. “You mean Cristina told you everything?”

Paul reeled a bit in the posh seat. “Well, yeah, pretty much. The Goldfarbs drugged them up all the time, and had them doing everything to each other.”

Jess squinted at the unpleasant revelation. “Each other? I thought it was just Andre, you know…”

“No, no, man,” Paul corrected, smirking as though the scotch were lemon juice. “Andre and his wife were switching off between the two of them and the foster brother, and they made them all…do…each other. They even had their friends over. The psychos were putting those kids in orgies.”

Jess looked shell-shocked. “I—I had no idea. Britt never got into that much detail.”

“It was some sick shit. And the brother never made it—he’s in an institution, all fucked-up. It was a fuckin’ kiddie porn club the Goldfarbs had going. They took thousands of pictures and sold the shit to their little network of perverts. I petitioned the prosecutor’s office to let me see the post-trial evidence, but I’ll tell ya, I wish I never had. I actually threw up once I got back to my car. You wouldn’t believe what those scumbags were doing to Britt and Cristina in those pics, and you can tell, even though they were just kids.” Paul gulped. “You can tell by their faces that it was Cristina and Britt.”

Jess just stared, his mouth sagging open.

A black aura seemed to settle over each man’s head. Paul cleared his throat—“But like you said, all that matters is that they both shook it off and landed on their feet in spite of it. Most girls who go through the wringer like that don’t. Neither of them are fucked-up at all…Well, maybe Cristina is a little sometimes—Christ, look at those dolls she designs, but the shrink she saw in Stamford said it was a constructive therapeutic outlet. And you wouldn’t believe the money she made last year from those things.”

“I know. Britt told me,” Jess said. He was trying to shake off the shock of the bombshell that had just been dropped on him. “Britt doesn’t make a whole lot of money herself but she is doing a whole lot of good. She told me that that’s her therapy. But I didn’t know about all that other shit. I’ll think twice whenever I give her a hard time about some piddly bullshit like forgetting to take my fuckin’ suits to the cleaners. Christ.”

“Yeah, and I drink too much,” Paul said, and raised his glass. “We’re both attorneys so I guess that means we’re both assholes.”

“Yeah, but at least we’re rich attorneys, so that’s got to count for something,” Jess tried to joke. “Ultimately, there’s a lot of really sick scumbags in the world, and we’ve got to do everything we can to protect our girls from them.”

“Tell me about it. There’s evil everywhere—it’s a sick, sick world, all right.” Paul seemed to ruminate on something. “I know this guy who does legal consultations for the cops, he’s always up at the Forensic Investigations Division in Queens. I ran into him today at Joseph’s Steak-house, and you know what he told me?”

Jess looked physically pummeled by everything he’d already heard in the last few minutes. “Do I want to know?”

“They managed to keep it out of the papers so far but he said the cops found a woman murdered yesterday by impalement.”

Jess gaped. “Impalement? What the hell is—”

“Somebody sharpened the end of a broomstick or something and pushed it up this woman’s snatch till it was in her mouth. And she was alive when they did it.” Paul clinked the ice in his glass, his eyes off-focus. “How’s that for a sick world?”

(II)

Sandrine laughed, munching the macadamia nuts she’d shoplifted dirtied-handed from the bulk foods section of a Gristede’s Supermarket. “It’s sort of like a Christmas tree. We should get lights!”

“There’s no electricity here, you dope,” Francy reminded her.

“Oh. Yeah. But still, it would be cool, wouldn’t it?”

She and Francy both looked with satisfaction at Doke, propped up now and quite dead on the sharpened wooden pike. He just hung there, his feet a few inches off the ground.

“He’ll start to-start to-start to stink soon,” Stutty commented, her wan face shifting in the candlelight.

“So what?” Francy kept looking at the corpse. Even after they’d propped him up, it had taken him a few minutes to die. She enjoyed the way he sort of quivered on the pike. “The New Mother said that our Prince liked the smell so much he kept impaled bodies in the room where he ate his meals.”

“Gross,” Sandrine offered.

“It was a different time, Sandrine.”

Sandrine shuffled idly to the corner where they kept a pile of canned food and candy bars they stole. She knelt before the several dolls she’d stood up on the floor, but…

She’d had three. Only two stood there now.

She wiped her smudged hands off on her pink sweatpants. “Who ripped off my doll?” She examined the remaining two, one a cutesy little girl who was blue and frosted, the other a smiling girl with black bangs who looked like she was rotting. Sandrine couldn’t really read but if she could she would’ve seen the names on the bottoms of each figurine: HYPOTHERMIA HARRIET and LEPROSY LINDA. “I had three here, but now one’s missing!” she complained, glaring at her associates with suspicion. “The boy with the bloody belly is gone.”

“We don’t steal, except the way our Prince did,” Francy reminded her. “Like the New Mother said. You only steal from those who steal from others.”

“But the boy with the bloody belly was the coolest one!”

“Where-where did you get them?” Stutty asked with a grin.

“Well, I ripped ’em off from the lady’s house, but…I wasn’t really stealing. I was gonna take ’em back.”

“That’s all right,” Francy bid as if forgiveness was hers to dole out. “She’s not in the convent. But you know none of us stole it. We’re your sisters now.”

“Virginia stole it, probably-probably-probably—”

“Be quiet!”

Sandrine fumed. “It figures. She was a shitty bitch anyway—”

Francy chuckled. “And she won’t be stealing anything now.”

“Yuh-yuh-yeah!” Stutty guffawed.

Sandrine cooled off, and put the two figurines in her pocket. “I hope the New Mother comes to night.”

“She will, unless we haven’t been faithful enough.”

Stutty frowned at a can of anchovies. “We should-we should-we sh—”

“Be quiet!” Francy yelled.

“We should what?” Sandrine asked, bored now.

Stutty concentrated, her fists clenched. “We should get something good to eat tonight. I’m sick of these gross anan-anchovies.”

“We can do that,” Francy approved. “We have some money now, and the New Mother says it’s okay if the money comes from the faithless.”

“Let’s go to McDonald’s and get good stuff,” Sandrine enthused.

“I’d ruh-ruh-ruh—” Stutty ground her wobbly teeth. “I’d rather get a meatball sub at the Subway next to the health food store.”

“We can get what ever we want,” Francy told them. “Let’s go now.”

More than $500 comprised Doke’s till; these were high times. Thank God for the New Mother, Francy thought with a smile full of holes. But a scrabbling caused them all to look toward the narrow entrance.

“It’s probably Scab,” someone said. “I haven’t seen her all day.”

“Oh,” Francy said.

It was another homeless woman, whose name was Crazy because that’s what she was.

“Not her!” Sandrine complained.

“You can’t-can’t-can’t come here!” Stutty yelled. “This is our house.”

Crazy wore a pair of plaid men’s shorts she’d found in the garbage, and a black blouse with torn-off sleeves. Her black hair looked electrocuted, and one eye constantly looked to the left. She was barefoot and pallid as cream.

“Ruthie Mooseface and Blinda told me you lived here,” Crazy said, scratching lice. When she started coming closer, Francy blocked her; she didn’t want Crazy to see the impaled drug dealer stuck benhind the stack of boxes. Ruthie Mooseface and Blinda, huh? “Hi, Crazy. Yeah, we’ve lived here for nine months. That’s how long the place has been empty, and no workmen have come yet. But don’t tell anyone else we’re here, okay?”

Crazy stood like someone who’d had a bad stroke, which was actually true. “The Z-Men said they’d kill me, they’ve been looking for me. Can I stay here a while?”

“No!” Sandrine snapped.

“Be quiet, Sandrine,” Francy said more calmly. “Of course she can stay here. She can even join the convent. The New Mother said we have to help our sisters.”

Crazy didn’t even question the bizarre statement.

“But to join,” Francy told her, “you have to die—”

CRACK!

It was Stutty who’d brought the brick down on Crazy’s head from behind.

“Take her clothes off,” Francy ordered the two girls. She smiled. “I’ll get a stick.”

(III)

Cristina awoke just as the clock struck one in the morning. She lay still, thinking. Why am I…wide awake? She should be exhausted. Paul had come home from work later than usual but he’d scarcely stepped through the front door before they’d been wrapped up in one another. Cristina could tell by his breath that he’d been drinking yet the day’s rising desire melted any disfavor she might normally feel. She had his ocher-hued dress shirt off and on the foyer floor before his brain could register the act; just as fast she practically tore open his pants. Paul hadn’t had to bother removing Cristina’s clothes for she’d greeted him at the door nude.

She had felt desperate for the gluttonous sensations that only a man could provide—there’d be no waiting to get to the bedroom. “Here, here,” she panted, her breasts pressed against his chest. Her sex seemed to pulse along with her heart. “Right here.” And then she brought him down to the handwoven Ersari carpet. Paul was about to speak but Cristina began sucking his tongue before he got the chance. Frenzy sunk her crotch right down, taking him all the way. It didn’t seem that his previous imbibing had hindered his ability, as it had the night before. Cristina’s eyes rolled upward with each stroke. “Harder, my God,” her voice gushed. “Do it as hard as you can—” And when he did she squealed half in shock and half in delight. She felt gored now, and pommeled, but that was how she needed to feel. Her lust made her blood feel thick. Paul’s groin continued to bludgeon her most private place, and all she wanted was more. Each thrust only added more heat to her yearning, which now seemed primitive, more than human. She cringed as he climaxed and filled her sex with a flood of slickened heat. Cristina continued to ride him fast until he turned limp. Paul half-gasped his apology, “Aw, honey, I’m sorry I didn’t last long en—”

Her mind reeled, all her thoughts a stew of lust. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” she panted. Still straddling him, she grabbed his hands and forced them to her breasts, which now felt so full of blood and desire that they seemed alien to her, twice the size they should be. “Squeeze them, squeeze hard,” she pleaded. When she tensed her thighs, the well of semen drained out of her. She intricately plied her sex in unison with his kneading fingers, then shrieked again and climaxed. The series of spasms first clenched every muscle in her body, then collapsed her to the floor, wracked. Her own sexual fluids had seemed to pour out of her.

“Oh, baby,” he groaned when he got enough breath back to talk. “You’re an animal …but of course I mean that in a good way.”

She lay limp against him, one thigh draped over his stomach. “Well, this animal has been thinking about you all day long…even when I was still hungover. Her thigh nudged his spent genitals. “And, don’t worry, I’ll be taking advantage of you again before long.”

Paul chuckled. “Honey, you’re gonna kill me but…so what?”

When Cristina felt more of him trickle out of her, she suddenly lurched. “Oh my God! The carpet!”

“Probably the biggest wet spot of all time,” Paul laughed, still flattened.

“It’s from Uzbekistan!” she exclaimed. “You paid thousands for it.” She started to jump up, to grab some carpet cleaner and rags, but Paul just pulled her back next to him.

“Cristina. I’ll buy another one. Let’s just…lie here a while…”

Cristina relaxed. I wore him out, all right. But in truth she only felt half-sated even after her own orgasm. He appeared to be drifting off to sleep right now. “Honey? Honey?” she said, gently jostling him. “You’re falling asleep on the floor.”

“Mmm,” he replied, then blinked back some alertness. “Since you’re responsible for completely immobilizing me…how about some coffee?”

Cristina giggled and kissed him quick, then slipped off to the kitchen. She made coffee and puttered in the kitchen a bit, not even really mindful of the fact that she was still naked. She felt brimming in sensations, her nipples still buzzing, and the soft afterglow between her legs working its way through the rest of her. “How was work?” she called out.

Paul answered groggily. “Not as good as after work but not bad. Jess landed a retainer renewal worth about two-point five mil, and I just closed a deal worth about half that.”

Good Lord! “You call that ‘not bad’? Paul, that’s fantastic…”

“It’s all this great sex you’re wearing me ragged with,” he replied. “It’s good luck. It’s an Oriental thing: sexual harmony brings prosperity.”

“I suppose you read that in a fortune cookie,” Cristina joked.

“I’m just…very lucky,” he muttered but kept glimpsing a slice of her nakedness in the kitchen. “Uh, you know it’s great having a gorgeous fiancée make me coffee buck-naked but make sure those blinds are closed all the way. Wouldn’t that be a riot if there was an evening service letting out of the church and they all looked over here?”

Good idea, she realized. The blinds were opened slightly but she knew no one street level could see in. “Father Rollin told me he doesn’t even have a congregation anymore,” she explained, darting into the bedroom to select a robe. “Said the church is mainly used for special occasions and meetings.” She pulled on a caramel-brown robe but momentarily shivered when the soft silk slipped across her nipples. I can’t believe this. I’m charged up like a battery tonight. “He said he’s going to come over sometime for coffee so he can introduce himself to you.”

“You can bet he was just being polite,” Paul said tiredly from the living room. “I doubt that he wants to meet the shifty attorney who clipped the New York Diocese out of a couple million bucks because they didn’t bother to find out how much the property was worth in the long term.”

“You didn’t really clip them, did you?” Cristina asked, but she was still distracted by the robe’s silkiness.

“Technically, no,” Paul chuckled. “I was just doing my job better than their guy. Rule Number One in real estate law. One man’s carelessness is another man’s fortune.”

Cristina was grateful for a career that didn’t involve such tactics. She was about to come back to the kitchen, though, when—

“Serveste pe domnul …”

Cristina froze in the short hallway. Had she really heard the bizarre utterance? It sounded foreign and…muffled.

Then she heard a creak of some sort. She stood right beside the door to the basement. Cristina opened the door and looked down…

“Honey?” Movement in the other room, and hushed footsteps. “Where’d you go?”

Cristina looked over, concerned. Paul came forward, pants back on but belt buckle and shirt still undone. “I could’ve sworn I heard a voice, and—I’m not sure—but I think it came from down here.” At once the obscure fear she’d expressed to Britt slammed back: that someone else was in the house.

Paul rolled his eyes. “I heard the same thing the other night, only upstairs. It’s the people in the condos next door. They’re all retired and hard of hearing; they turn their TVs up.” His arm touched her shoulder. “Relax. It’s nothing.”

Cristina remained poised, eyes wide on the open doorway.

“Just to set your mind at ease,” Paul said and snapped on the light switch, “I’ll go look.”

“Oh, please,” she mumbled. “It was just so strange. It sounded foreign.”

“So, they watch foreign shows next door. A lot of those old people are immigrants who made a lot of money starting businesses in the fifties.” But Paul descended the basement stairs just the same.

What if, Cristina fretted, someone really is down there?

What would she do? And what if she really were right in what Britt dismissed as paranoia and overreaction, that last night in her stupor someone else had scrawled on her breasts and stomach?

For a moment, all the invisible blonde hairs on her arms stood straight up like filings under a magnet.

“Nothin’ there, baby,” Paul said, trudging back up.

“It just sounded so—”

He put a finger to her lips. “Don’t worry your little heart about something that’s impossible anyway. Every single exterior door and window in this house has not one but two alarm triggers.” He snapped off the light and closed the door. “Come on.” He put his arm around her and returned to the kitchen. “Now where’s that coffee?”

Cristina poured him a cup, sluffing the incident off. “Sorry I’m such a nut today.” She couldn’t even begin to tell him everything else. “It’s late. Have you even had dinner yet? Let me fix you something.”

“Actually, with all the excitement at the office today, I’m not the least bit hungry, and besides”—Paul yawned—“I’m exhausted now, thanks to you. I’ll have something delivered for you. Grace’s delivers.”

“I”m not hungry either.” Now that her hasty fears had been allayed, she felt oversensitized again. “I’m never hungry after great sex…except for more great sex.”

Paul laughed with a shake of the head. “Let’s give the Captain a little time to get back to shipshape.”

Shortly thereafter Paul had gone in to take a shower but evidently Cristina’s voracity had taken a bigger toll than he’d let on. She’d lounged on the couch for a while, reading through a book on Max Ernst and the “irrationalism” art movement, but when she peeked in the bedroom she found Paul already asleep. Her more greedy side felt let down but then she admitted, He is forty, for God’s sake, and his job’s a pressure cooker, so she resigned to bed herself, presuming to awake fresh in the morning, but—

Here she lay now—hours later—wide awake. She pressured her mind to recover anything she might have dreamt that would waken her so abruptly but found to her relief that there was nothing, just a pleasant blankness chaperoning her slumber. Suddenly that aggravated confusion permuted to satisfaction. She smiled in the dark. No nightmare this time. No evil nun, no bowl full of blood in a dungeon with a man on a slab. Paul lay sound asleep beside her; she touched his shoulder as the dirtiest inkling suggested itself: that she should excite him in his sleep and let him wake to find her atop him—she was certainly aroused enough—but then she elected not to. I practically raped him tonight. She traced her fingers across her sex and winced at the gust of plea sure. Sex maniac, she scolded herself and gently edged off the bed, slipped on her robe, and left the room. The clock ticking followed her to the kitchen, and it somehow amplified the rest of the house’s silence. Even from outside—no sounds at all.

She lemoned some ice water as she reflected on the day. She’d gotten quite a bit of work done once her hangover had ebbed out; that and her ludicrous mishap with the magic markers. Jeez, what a ditz, she thought. It was funny now. Sometimes I’m so on edge, she realized, while other times not at all. Maybe everyone’s that way but I just don’t see it. She wandered the living room, sipping her water. A lewd smile came to her lips when she spied the expensive carpet that she and Paul had sullied; then she found herself turning out all but the light above the stove and peeking out through the wooden blinds. The church’s upper windows were dark, though she couldn’t imagine why she’d even be looking.

But of course: the priest. Father Rollin struck her as a very nice man, but his spirit seemed crimped by something, like a nerve pinched. But she’d only thought of him in the first place via the abstraction; she’d just begun on a priest, of sorts, for the second set of figures in her Evil Church line. At once her artist’s inclinations sparked, and she was heading upstairs for her studio to tweak her day’s work. Her feet took her quickly up the plush crimson carpet to the bare hall that led her to her studio.

She snapped on all the bright white overhead fluorescents, then turned on her computers. Several preliminary sketches, old and new, lay arranged on the drafting table. She eyed the most recent one—the Vampirical Vicar—then eyed the configured drawing model on the computer screen. No, no, no, she realized at once. It was the “tone” of the figure’s dress that was off. Too English, she realized. She wanted antiquated and Gothic but more European. Even the name now—vicar—struck an out-of-tune chord. Too obscure. She got to sketching again, keeping the figure’s dark eyes, prominent nose, and thick, straight-across mustache, but appareled him in religious raiments more reminiscent of early-Renais sance Eastern Eu rope. Her excitement surged. It’s so much more on the mark! she exclaimed to herself and kept sketching. No more Vampirical “Vicar,” she resolved. Her thoughts ticked. Kids today don’t even know what a vicar is, but …A quick glance to the first figure in the line—the Noxious Nun—and she thought, Every nun needs an abbot, right? So …

She wrote the words on the pad to see how they looked lettered out: THE ABOMINABLE ABBOT.

Yes. Much better …

Was this why she suddenly couldn’t sleep? Her muse stirring her to make this change forged in her subconscious? It didn’t matter. The image and the name was much more interesting.

She tinkered another half hour, growing more and more satisfied as her conception of the character grew more and more complete. An hour later she felt as mentally exhausted as a ditchdigger must feel physically. She spun in her chair, lounging back. Her feet reeled off the floor and she knew that one of her moods was returning—a sexual mood. Suddenly she felt pressed in by her needs, thinking back to her spontaneous escapades with Paul right on the floor. When she glimpsed his picture on a bookshelf, she bristled with more pent-up excitement.

I can’t believe I’m doing this, she told herself. She felt childlike, about to raid the cookie jar, but in this case they were very adult cookies. I know it’s here somewhere, she thought, rummaging through several boxes of supplies she hadn’t yet unpacked. Ahhh …She didn’t pack it with her clothes for fear of Paul finding it; instead she’d secreted it in this box of power strips and extension cords…

Her vibrator.

It had been the instrument’s style that essentially caused her to buy it—a stout plastic handle that tapered to a rubberized wand not much wider than a cigarette. She distilled her thoughts of Paul’s body after she retook her seat and let the device’s tip buzz over the pinpoints of her nipples. The sensation defied effective description, save to say that it seemed to stimulate nerves she didn’t know she had and in ways that no other such device—or man—could effect. You naughty girl, she thought, cringing as she removed the buzzing tip from her nipples and stroked the shape of each breast entirely with the wand’s curve. She imagined Paul’s mouth on her sex as she continued, eventually sweeping the wand slowly across her belly and up and down the insides of her thighs, but—

She had to be honest with herself.

It wasn’t so much Paul she was thinking about but instead the lustier aspects of last night’s dream: the queue of women stroking her body with their hands and mouths alike. She tensed more in the soft chair, her belly sucking in and out as she now brought the maniacal tip closer and closer to the hood of her clitoris. If Paul walked in right now…what could I ever say in a million years? But the rankling thought was too weak to banish the fantasy. The images thickened in her head, and at last she let the tip find its target. She breathed through clenched teeth as the lesbian fancy summoned all those rising sensations at once and set them off like a bombshell. One orgasmic wave after another claimed her, leaving her helpless to spasm off in the chair, all the while those forbidden images in her head seeming more and more real as though she were genuinely being cocooned by several women.

Her body went slack in the chair; that rawness of post-climax would not allow her to leave the vibrator in place. It fell from her hand, buzzing inertly on the floor as she simply lay there in the chair as if floating.

When her breath returned she felt assailed by guilt. Sneaking upstairs to masturbate along with fantasies that didn’t include the man she loved seemed like psychic cheating. Nevertheless, she couldn’t deny the potency of the vibrator’s prowess. She reached down, turned it off, and stuck it in a drawer.

What am I going to do with myself? She sputtered and pushed her tousled hair off her brow.

Then her eyes shot wide.

In a split second, Cristina went rigid as if from a bolt of fear. She spun in her chair without volition but found herself staring in dread at the back windows. She knew the source of the sudden dread; it was the impression that she was being watched.

She rushed to the windows. But it would be impossible for anyone in the alley to see her all the way over at her desk. Why do I feel like someone was watching me? She gazed between the slats of the newly installed blinds. And who COULD? Across the alley only a few balconied condos could be seen a street back, and Cristina knew likewise that the sheer angle from those lofts wouldn’t allow for a voyeur’s prying eye. But when she inspected the windows more closely she found that when she looked to the right there was a vantage point she’d been previously unaware off: half of the alley’s opening could be viewed, and through it a wedge of the main road and some hotels and other buildings.

She frowned and shook her head, sputtering again. The notion was folly; even if someone that far away could see in here, what would compel them to? They’d need binoculars or a telescope, for God’s sake.

Enough of this. Back to bed. Downstairs, however, she paused at the door to the basement. Why am I …She looked at the door, touched the knob. Then she laughed to herself. Between passing out down there last night, and then her insistence of hearing strange voices several hours ago, she knew she had something to prove to herself. A test…to prove there’s nothing down there.

Unafraid, she opened the door, switched on the lone bulb, and went down. Masses of dust-skinned clutter seemed congealed in the dark. Boxes, mostly. None of it’s our stuff, she knew. The church must’ve abandoned it all once Paul bought the house. She peered into several of the boxes and found everything from old toasters and electric can openers to books decades old. One box was filled entirely with The Book of Common Prayer and another, Catholic Prayers for the Dead, but years of humidity left them bulged with rot. We’ll have to clean this place up eventually, she thought but found her eyes skimming along the floor. Would she find the magic marker she was sure she’d touched last night? Or perhaps she wasn’t even looking. The boxes formed wide aisles and now she meandered through them, toward the sodium light pouring in through the streetlevel windows. She looked out and saw only the alley street and the bricks of the buildings beyond. Without thinking, she tried the windows to make sure they remained intact and locked. She found herself trying to focus but didn’t know on what. No foreign “voices” were in evidence down here, nothing amiss. See? she challenged herself. But she never noticed the erratic footprints on the dusty floor toward the rear.

She had to squint in the weak light, half-feeling her way back toward the steps. Then she peered down…

That oblong patchwork of cement.

“The same exact spot I passed out on,” she told herself aloud.

The coolness of the cement reached up through her feet but strangely transformed into heat. She felt every square inch of skin beneath the robe glaze with a light sweat, while that maddening oversensitivity returned twofold. The silk robe was again charging her skin; at once she was anxious nearly to the point of audibly whining. Her nipples erected, and her sex began to prickle through some heady frisson. I’m insatiable, she realized. Even after the powerful sexual release just minutes ago, she cringed again in the same wantonness.

She kept staring down. Not again …She cupped her breasts outside the robe, then within, as she encircled the patch’s small emblem with her toe, the crude design that looked like a strangled dragon…

Her eyes widened, then squeezed shut, and in that black interim, images from the nightmare splashed into her mind like paint thrown against a wall: the fanged nun, the three-gemmed blood-filled bowl, the weird voices and the man on the slab and the bizarre decanter and the many sets of feminine hands cosseting her body…

And, indeed, when Cristina winked out of the mental jag, she caught herself openly caressing herself, right where she stood. This is crazy! she thought. She didn’t like this place. What had caused her to even come down here? She sashed her robe—frowning at not only herself but this new and seemingly limitless sexual angst—and started back toward the stairs.

A figure, obscure as soot, blocked the way.

Cristina’s heart gave a jolt.

“Cristina!” Paul exclaimed. “What are you doing down here?”

“Jesus, Paul, you scared me half to death!” Cristina wilted in the aftershock. But…how would she answer his question? “I—I’m not sure why…”

When Paul took several steps, the basement’s single bulb surfaced him from the blots of darkness. “When I woke up, you weren’t in bed,” he said, looking around with disapproval at all the excess clutter. “Then I thought I heard voices. Were you…talking to yourself down here?”

Had she been? She knew she did that sometimes. “I guess I could have been,” she admitted. Suddenly she became overly aware of her erected nipples pushing bumps in the sheer robe. Would he notice? And, worse, had he seen her caressing herself. My God, I hope not.

“Well, I talk to myself sometimes, too,” he said. The stacks of stained boxes seemed to annoy him. “Christ, I didn’t realize how much junk the diocese left. I’ll have to hire some refuse people to take it to the dump.”

Cristina’s head filled with a mild drone. She felt woozy by the sight of him meandering closer; her desires were hijacking her. I can’t help it, she thought hopelessly. I …“Paul?” she whispered and let her robe come undone. “I need you again.”

Had the light dimmed by some fluke in the current? Suddenly he was just an obscure shadow again.

“Oise plac’ute,” flowed the weird accent-tinted words and that’s when Cristina felt electrocuted by the shock of discovering that this figure in the dark was not Paul, it was a curvaceous woman, nude save for a nun’s wimple and hood, her flesh seeming half-composed by the darkness itself but flesh nonetheless for when her hands reached out to touch Cristina’s breasts they were warm and very, very real, and then the woman grinned, showing two long thin fangs ringed by wet lips. Cristina couldn’t budge as the lips moved closer, sealed over her own, and then the hot, phantom tongue slid between the fangs and plunged brassily right into Cristina’s mouth, all the while the nun’s hands kneading her breasts and twisting her inflamed nipples. Cristina had the impression of other figures scurrying around her from behind and sneaking up the stairs, but her horror quashed the observation. Meanwhile, the nun’s hot mouth sucked all the air from her lungs, and then Cristina quailed, rose up on her tiptoes, and fainted dead away.

(IV)

Paul shuddered out of sleep just as the clock in the hall struck two. His arms raked the bed’s left side where he expected to feel Cristina but she wasn’t there. As his grogginess wore off, he discerned the hiss of the shower, could see the thin thread of light under the door.

Paul rubbed his eyes. He felt some odd sensation that he couldn’t name but then forgot about it when he thought back to his and Cristina’s frizzly lovemaking earlier. What more could I ask? he thought, chuckling. Just as he was drifting off again, he heard the shower hiss stop. A pause for a minute or two; he could hear her now, drying off. Then a wedge of light hit his eyes as the door partly opened. Just as Cristina would step out, the light snapped off, leaving Paul blind. He could hear but not see her approach the bed, felt the mild jostle when she sat on the mattress-edge near his knees.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.

Her hand ran down his stomach. “Uh-uh.”

I’ll bet I could go again, he realized, but when he touched her bare shoulder and attempted to slide his hand to her breast, she straddled him, gently grabbed his wrists, and placed them above his head. Then her own hands came back to his groin.

Oh, yeah …Paul still couldn’t see a thing. Cristina’s fingers wasted no time exciting him, but they also distracted him. “Aw, baby,” he said. He’d hardened already, and then his teeth clicked together at the meticulous way she was handling him, unlike anything she’d done before. He reached down, then, and touched her leg—

“Honey, that feels so—”

“Shhh!” she demanded and quickly returned his hands back up over his head, feigning bondage, he supposed.

“Oh, kinky, huh?”

Again, “Shhh…” And then her mouth immediately lowered to his genitals. Paul tensed up at once. Her mouth worked frenetically, fingers working in unison. She was performing the intimate act with a fast, slick intricacy that astonished him. It was noisy and wild. Paul’s head reeled at the feeling. She’s never done it this good before, he realized in a lusty stupor. She must be watching pornos or something …

Her mouth continued to work him. She was simply doing it and demanding nothing in return. In spite of being so thoroughly drained on the living room floor, Paul’s climax was breaking before he knew it, her mouth never abating. He tensed for many moments as his lust emptied, then went slack on the bed. Her lips remained tight as they eventually slipped off. He heard her swallow.

I guess it wouldn’t exactly be romantic to tell her that that was the best blow job of my life, he wondered. “Oh, damn, baby, that was just so—”

She errantly gave his spent genitals a caress, then the bed creaked as she got up. Was she walking around the bed? He still had no night vision thanks to the momentary shock of light when she’d come out of the bathroom. “Where are you…”

The bedroom door clicked open, but there was so little light in the hall that he could barely detect her form stepping out of the room and heading for the kitchen.

“Honey? Would you get me a can of Sprite?” he asked.

“Um-hmm.” And then her shadow disappeared.

Wow. That was something. I’ll bet Jess doesn’t get action like that …

Paul remained lying back, sated. He kept drifting in and out, but when he focused his thoughts and looked at the LED clock, he saw that ten minutes had passed and Cristina hadn’t come back to bed. It didn’t matter, he had to go to the bathroom anyway. He turned on the lamp by the bedside, glanced over, then did a double take at Cristina’s airy, walk-in closet. The door hung open and he noticed several dresses on the floor. They must’ve fallen from their hangers but it was odd. Cristina was a neat freak. Not like her to overlook something like that. Then he went into the bathroom, still steamy from her shower, but noticed water on the floor, the towel lying there, and the shampoo sitting on its side. What a mess. And again, it was odd to observe. Cristina always picked up after herself.

He finished, put on his robe, and went out to the kitchen. Another raised brow, then, when he noted more minor disarray: the refrigerator door an inch ajar, several cabinets hanging open, a bag of plantain chips busted open and sitting on the counter, along with crumbs. He chuckled at her sudden slovenliness.

But where was she?

Several chips crunched underfoot when he walked to the stairs. A glance up showed him her studio lights on. I guess tooting my horn gave her some creative inspiration, he joked. But she often would work spontaneously, sometimes jumping up from bed just to jot down some notes or pen a quick sketch. Artistic people were like that.

He thought of going up to talk but decided not to. Don’t interrupt her. Besides, my jones is taken care of for a while. But when he turned he noticed yet another oddity.

A pair of shoddy old blue jeans and an orange tube-top lay in the hall. Had she just dropped them there? Why not put them in the laundry room ten fucking feet away? he wondered, now a bit testy at her carelessness. I paid a lot of money for this joint and all of a sudden she’s treating it like a trailer. After a few seconds, though, he thought back to the outstanding sex and reconsidered. On second thought… she can mess the place up all she wants. I’ll hire a damn maid.

Next, he squinted at the clothes. Must be old stuff she wears when she works, he reasoned. He couldn’t even recall ever seeing her in the tube-top. I’ll just go back to bed, he decided, but after a glance into the cove at the foyer’s end, he amended, Or maybe I’ll have a drink first. One couldn’t hurt, right? I work damn hard. Quietly as he could, he went to the glass-and-mirror bar, poured two fingers of Dewar’s eighteen-year-old, and snuck back to the darkened kitchen for some ice. It only bothered him a little to sneak around like this; he knew more often than not her objections to his drinking were overreactive. Nevertheless, he went back to the bathroom to sip his drink, in case Cristina came back down unexpectedly.

The expensive scotch filled him with that inexplicable warm buzz, which blossomed in the belly, then crept to the brain. That’s even better than a cigarette after sex. He’d quit several years ago; these days, smoking only tarnished the upscale image he needed to accommodate his success. A Cuban Monte Cristo on the other hand was another story, but Paul only lit one up on special occasions. He kept an ear tuned for the bedroom door in case he had to dump the drink in haste, but all remained nice and very quiet.

As he drank, however, his thoughts had no choice but to drag back…to her. She was so beautiful and, now, so voracious. This house and this city really does suit her. She still had her sullen moods sometimes but what woman didn’t? Probably true for me, too. He repictured the lascivious scene from the handwoven carpet, the sight of her creamy thighs splayed over his hips, her back arched, forcing her desire-gorged breasts out. Damn, he thought next. Just picturing her body had him half-aroused again. He finished his drink. Can’t hurt to try. As kinky as she’s been lately?

He brushed and gargled, then popped three mints in his mouth and headed back to the stairs.

In the hall, he stopped short.

The jeans and halter that had lain crumpled there minutes ago were gone. I didn’t even hear her come down. Frowning, he shrugged, then hiked up the stairs to the studio.

What the hell is going on?

The overhead lights blared but Cristina was nowhere to be seen. Paul scratched his head, duped. “Cristina?” he called down the dark hall. Then to the stairs, upward: “Cristina? Jesus! Where are you?” He thought he heard a creak but knew it was only the house frame. A bellow this time, “CrisTINA!” But only a sterile echo bounced back. There’s no reason for her to go past the second floor, he realized. Nothing there but empty rooms, no fixtures, no lights.

Then he heard—or thought he heard—a voice.

Downstairs.

What is this bullshit? he thought, and thumped down. “Cristina?”

First thing he noticed back downstairs was the basement door in the back of the short hall. It stood open a crack, and he could see an outline of light from the basement’s only bulb. Paul pushed the door right open and proceeded down. “Cristina, why on earth are you—”

The air smelled moldy. He didn’t even have to go halfway down before he could see her lying limp on the cobbled floor. Jesus! He raced down. She lay crumpled, as if she’d collapsed. Her robe was tied shut but strangely parted over her chest to reveal her breasts, and V’d below the sash to reveal her pubic area. She must’ve simply fallen that way. The syrupy dread that poured over his mind dissipated when he felt a strong pulse. “Cristina?” He touched her face, jostled her slightly, until she began to moan a little.

Paul picked her up and carried her back upstairs.

CHAPTER TEN

(I)

Slouch had just brought her in from the unit’s temporary lockup. “The lady says she doesn’t want an attorney.”

“That’s all right,” Vernon replied from his desk. “We’re not going to be asking her anything anyway.”

The woman had been cleaned up and dressed in a blue cotton smock and drawstring pants. Slouch sat her down, her wrists cuffed in her lap. Vernon gulped at the condition of her scalp.

“Says her name is Scab,” Slouch said. “Won’t tell us her real name.”

“Fine.” Vernon studied her. The woman sat in silent adamance. “Scab’s fine. She must know that her prints and DNA aren’t on file.” He made eye contact. “Scab? You’re going to be transported to the jail wing of the hospital in a little while, for an evaluation, a thing called the blue paper. We’re not going to ask you any questions but we will tell you some things just so you understand what’s going on. Is that all right with you?”

She pursed her lips. “That’s a question.”

“What?”

“You just said you wouldn’t ask me questions but you asked one.”

“Sharp lady,” Slouch said.

“Doesn’t look crazy to me,” Taylor said from the other corner. He was pouring coffee that looked like blackstrap molasses.

“You’re absolutely right, Scab,” Vernon said.

“But you can ask me anything you want, I still won’t tell you anything. I don’t have to. I’m saved.”

“That’s cool.” Vernon tried to sound hip. “Religious girl.”

“No, I’m no Holy Roller—shit, I hate them. One tried to rape me once,” she babbled, looking around. “I’ve been saved by the New Mother. I’m in her convent. She saved us from drugs. We’re all in the convent.”

Vernon nodded. “Right. The girls you ripped off the hardware store with a few nights ago and last December. We know all about them. By the way, we have photographic evidence against you on the December job, and an eyewitness when you stole those whittling knives.”

The woman rolled her eyes, muttering. “That ho who looks like a little girl, the shit.”

Vernon smiled. Taylor said from across the room, “Scab, the reason Inspector Vernon is talking to you right now is because he wants you to understand the seriousness of these crimes.”

Scab’s large, sloppy bosom rocked when she laughed. “Christmas tree stands. Yeah, that’s real serious.”

“No, but murder is,” Vernon remarked. “One of those stands was used in a murder. You know…Virginia Fleming. And her body was written on in black, red, and green magic markers, just like the ones we found in your pocket when we brought you in yesterday.”

Scab fidgeted in her seat.

Vernon continued, “And just so you know, we haven’t found Ambrose Alston.”

“Who?” Scab asked, fuddled.

“Nickname’s Doke, a petty drug dealer. We did this thing called a Five-Probe Match from the blood on your hands. The blood belonged to him.”

“But we’ll find him,” Taylor assured. “We won’t ask you where he is.”

Scab shrugged. “I have to pee.”

“She already went to the bathroom, How,” Slouch said. “Before she left the lockup.”

“You’ll have ample chance soon,” Vernon told her. “It’s funny, though. A minute ago you mentioned being saved. Another eyewitness saw you and your friends at the Sisters of the Heavenly Spring Catholic school—when you and your friends vandalized the chapel there with—wouldn’t you know it?—black, red, and green magic markers.”

“Don’t forget taking care of their munchies with the Communion wafers,” Slouch added.

“And a bunch of bizarre words,” Vernon tacked on. “Interesting. It must be hard squatting, though, in this part of town.”

Scab was rocking in her seat, barely listening. “I’m not gonna tell you where we live but we used to live in the shelters down where all the numbered streets end. They’re no good, though,’ cos you can get raped in those places sometimes. We’re sick of guys raping us. We used to squat in the old buildings in the Meatpacking District, and we stayed for three months in one place that used to be a sex club but got closed down. It’s no good there now because there’s workmen everywhere. And we used to hop around the Upper West Side whenever a place would get sold—the flower shop on Seventy-second, and the Irish bar—but you could usually never stay more than a couple of weeks because workmen came and turned it into something else.” She looked to the window, clasping her hands. “We just take the subway a lot now, from other places. It’s worth the trouble ’cos the panhandling’s great here.”

“Um-hmm.” Vernon stewed on her words. She’s probably not lying but…why do I think that she is? Her body language and eye movement had changed rapidly when she’d mentioned the subway.

“It don’t matter. I’m saved,” she said. “I could die right now and I’d be saved.”

“Oh, right. You’d be saved by the nun who was with you when you broke into the school.”

Her eyes snapped right to Vernon’s.

Yes. Very interesting.

“I told you, I gotta pee.”

“In a minute, Scab.” Vernon tapped an eraser against his blotter. “It must be hard being homeless, though—”

Scab laughed.

“That’a girl!” Taylor exclaimed.

“No, it’s peachy,” she came back. “I hope you get to do it yourself someday.”

“Honey?” Slouch said, “if the inspector doesn’t solve this case, he will, and we’ll be right there with him. We might even be panhandling with your friends by the hot dog vendor.”

Scab’s eyes narrowed.

Slouch clapped. “We’ll all be one big happy family.”

“You guys are assholes,” Scab muttered.

“You got that right, lady!”

“Slouch,” Vernon said. “Shut up.” He turned back to the woman, who wasn’t sounding terribly incompetent right now. “I could never hack being homeless in the city. The winters? No way. That’s got to be the worst part.”

“No,” she groaned. “The worst part is never having food and watching so many rich stuck-up assholes walking into restaurants where steaks cost fifty dollars and they won’t even give you a fuckin’ quarter.”

“Where’s Marx when you need him?” Slouch asked.

“But the cold wasn’t bad this winter,” she went on, “ ’cos we found one of those kerosene heaters last fall in a Dumpster near that Greek restaurant that closed. We’d go there a lot to dive.”

“Dive?” Taylor asked.

“Dumpster dive. The guys working the kitchen would never give us a hard time. But anyway, just before they closed, we found the heater and it still works.”

Proximity, Vernon thought. Maybe she jived me about taking the subway so I’d think she wasn’t cooping in our neck of the woods. He made a mental note. Greek restaurant, closed last fall …“Scab. I’m going to break my promise just a little, and ask you one question.”

The woman stared at him.

“Nothing you might say will likely be admissible anyway, so what’s the harm, right?”

Slouch hooted. “Now that’s what I call conscientious police work!”

Vernon nodded through a frown. “You don’t have to answer it, but I’ll ask just the same. So level with me? What’s with this nun?”

Suddenly the woman looked uncomfortable.

“You said something about a convent. This nun is from a convent? Is she the New Mother you mentioned? Explain it to me.”

“It doesn’t matter, except she saved us.” She gazed off. “Ask me something else. I can’t talk about her.”

I love this job, Vernon thought with a rising sourness. “Okay. What can you tell me…about this?” And then he placed the small figurine on the desk. “It’s some kind of novelty toy, I suppose.” The cherubic doll smiled through its morgue-blue pallor, the exploded stomach gaping red. “We found it in Virginia’s pocket—you know. The girl you impaled on the wooden rod mounted in the Christmas tree stand.”

Scab seemed to vaguely recognize the toy figure. “Oh, Virginia must’ve stole it—she was a shit anyway.” Her hollow eyes flicked to Vernon. “I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re trying to worm out of me. But we just do what the New Mother says.” She looked again to the macabre figure. “Virginia stole it from Sandrine,’ cos I think it was Sandrine’s. She had a couple of ’em.”

At least he was getting something. Mental Note Number Two, Vernon registered. Sandrine must be the name of one of the other girls on the video. “So it was Sandrine who killed Virginia,” he stated rather than asked. “We know you were all there, though. The magic markers.”

Scab made her eyes go cockeyed at Vernon. “The fish people are coming to get you—they told me so on the TV that doesn’t work. You can smell them when they get close—they smell like the Fulton Market. Oh, the government put cameras in my fillings.” And she snapped her mouth open.

“That’s priceless!” Slouch exclaimed, his feet up on his desk. “Pretending to be crazy again, huh?” Vernon nodded. So what if there’s no criminal conviction? Even an NGRI solves the case.

But not all of the case.

“Scab?”

She scowled. “I told you, I have to pee!” She spread her legs in the chair. “It’s your floor.”

I just want to retire, Vernon thought. Florida, maybe. Or Texas. “Slouch, get a female officer to take our friend to the head.”

“Right away, boss.”

Scab’s knees were knocking. Maybe she really did have to go. Slouch returned with a tall blonde sergeant in uniform. “Honey, Sergeant Perschy here is going to take you to the tinkler.” He winked to the poker-faced blonde. “Keep an eye out for the fish people.”

Vernon turned the recorder off when Scab and her escort left. “It’s all a bunch of Ganser BS, if you ask me,” Taylor said.

“Probably,” Vernon said, thinking. “They’ll find out at her eval, and so what if the P.D. says we coerced information from her?”

“What’s this we shit, Lone Ranger?” Slouch said in a mock Indian voice.

“Either way, she goes up for a long time,” Taylor noted, smirking at another sip off coffee. “There’s got to be a ringleader, though, and she ain’t it.”

“I agree,” Vernon said. Now he absently fingered the plastic doll. “A woman named Sandrine, and a Greek restaurant that closed sometime after last fall. That part didn’t sound like bullshit.”

“It’s something we can go on,” Slouch observed.

Vernon smiled. “What’s this we shit, Tonto? You need to shag ass out of here and pound some street. Go ask some restaurant managers about the Greek place. I’d love to know how close it is to the crime scenes.”

Slouch shuffled to the door, pointing to Vernon but looking at Taylor. “Got a man here, doesn’t like the Red Sox.”

“I’m punishing you, traitor,” Vernon said. “And bring back some doughnuts before you go off-shift. We’re police. We have clichés to maintain.”

“Got it covered.”

The door shut.

“This is some case,” Taylor proposed with a smirk. “Homeless bum-girls.”

“We’re just bums with pensions and salaries.” Vernon mused, It’s all the same, in a way. The case seemed alien to him. “How long’s it take her to pee?”

“She’s a woman in custody,” Taylor reminded, “who’s acting nuts. It’ll probably take her all day.”

Vernon felt stifled and bored at the same time. If she doesn’t come back soon, I’ll fall asleep at my desk. But he had a feeling that something would be livening him up rather soon.

As the homeless woman did her business in the stall, Sergeant Perschy groaned to herself. Damn ulcers. She paced the sterile bathroom, keeping an ear to the stall for any funny business. What a shitty job, in a city full of shitty people…and half of those shitty people I’ve dated. But at last she caught herself smiling in the long mirrors over the sinks. No one had ever wanted to marry her—and now that she was forty, she was all right with that—but at least she’d finally found a decent man who she could come home to every night. Tony was a narc detective in Midtown South. Five years younger than her and still pretty virile. He made her feel like a woman again, and she could tell he wasn’t the cheating type. God knows I’ve had enough of them.

She frowned when the lights fizzed out.

“Hey!” the prisoner exclaimed in the stall. “What’s—”

“Brownout, maybe,” Perschy said. “It happens sometimes in the summer.” Suddenly the foggy wired glass over the bathroom’s only window barely offered any light at all. “Hurry it up in there. You’re due for transport soon.”

“Gimme a minute! Jesus!” the whiny voice echoed.

Sergeant Perschy continued to pace the darkened room.

Tap!

She turned, startled, reflexes sending her gun hand to her holster.

“What was that noise?” asked the girl in the stall.

“I don’t know. It—”

It hadn’t come from the stalls but from another door near the exit. JANITOR, a sign read. Perschy opened the door and leapt back when a broom fell out and clattered on the floor.

“Hey! What are you doing out there?”

“It’s just a broom,” Perschy laughed. “Now hurry it up.” But when the sergeant proceeded to pick up the broom and replace it in the closet…

She stalled, staring.

Next to the large sink, more brooms and mops stood in the closet, but something else stood there as well:

A figure.

A shadow that only looked half-formed. “Salut,” it said in a faraway voice.

Sergeant Perschy felt woozy, yet she drew her service pistol and aimed. “This is a restricted—”

“No, no,” whispered the voice in a gentle accent. “To really see what you need to know…you must look.”

Perschy gulped, gun hand wavering. Something forced her to stare at the figure’s eyes, which were merely darker holes in the shadowed patchwork that gave it shape. It was the shape of a woman.

“So…Look,” it said.

When Perschy looked, her own eyes closed, and it was then that she began to see.

“Alas, poor love…”

Perschy saw two men in shabby clothes. One sat at a dirty table, counting pieces of crack cocaine from a considerable heap. The other man was raping an unconscious woman on a linoleum floor scarred by cigarette burns. The scene ensued in a queer silence. When the man on the floor was finished, he stood up with a confident smile, rebuckling dirty jeans. Clipped to his belt was an NYPD detective’s shield. “To hell with health and dental. Now that’s what I call a great employment benefit.”

The man at the table laughed. “Where else can we get paid, get laid, and walk with crack money all at the same time?” He scooped the pile of crack into a plastic bag. “Shit, the Kings will lay five or six hundred bucks on us for this.” And then he grinned up.

It was Tony.

“Good deal.” The other man nudged the unconscious girl with his foot. Her pasty breasts wobbled. “Say, you still dating that sweat-hog blonde?”

Tony chuckled. “Shit, I’m living with her, man, at her place. The slob is so in love with me she pays all the bills and all I’ve gotta do is pop her a few times a week and whisper sweet nothings.”

“Classy guy.”

“I save a big kick with her paying the rent. In this city? What I save there, plus what I make reselling the dope we rip off these fly-by-nights, I’ve got some big, big money sitting in a numbered account. Offshore, man. No names. My retirement’ll be set. You have a numbered account?”

“Naw.”

“Look into it. You get interest instead of letting your haul sit in a shoe box. Trust me, every cop needs a numbered account.”

“You mean every crooked cop,” the other detective laughed.

“Well…yeah!”

Tony stood up. The other guy pointed to the girl on the floor. “You want another piece before we split?”

“No, I’m set.” Tony got a quarter from his pocket, and flipped. “Call it.”

“Tails,” the other guy said.

The coin landed tails.

“Damn,” Tony bellyached. “That’s three in a row you’ve won.”

“Tough luck, my man. But look at it this way. You’re really making the city a better place. Have fun.”

Tony tore the cord out of a shabby lamp and wrapped it around the girl’s neck. He tightened it hard, kneeing her chest while she flipped and flopped. Her face turned bright red. He waited a few more minutes until he was confident she was dead.

“Ready when you are.”

“Hey,” Tony said. “Since I offed the hose-bag, you drive.”

“You got a deal. What do you say we go Mexican?—”

—and then Sergeant Perschy’s eyes snapped back open, full of tears. Her lower lip quivered. Her hands shook.

Now the shadow seemed bolder, details of a strong but pretty face showing through her murk. Dark-rose nipples and creamy white rings of breasts showed now, as though edging out from a pool of petroleum. The eyes, though, were just blacker holes, and as she spoke, twin white needlelike teeth augmented her grin.

“For when you look, you see the truth,” the accented voice fluttered like finch wings. “The truth you’ve always known…”

Sergeant Perschy put her service weapon to her head.

“No, no, not yet, my soiled sister,” fluttered the voice. “Very few receive the honor of what you are about to witness.”

Perschy’s gun hand lowered. When she reached into her pocket, she blinked, and in the space of that blink saw a stone room with glassless windows, a gorgeous forest beyond. In the room sat a sturdy man at a heavy wood table. He was dunking bread into a bowl of blood, then eating the bread with gusto, muttering prayers. Though the prayers were in another language, Perschy understood that the words were prayers not to God, but to the Devil. The man wore shining chain mail augmented by jeweled leather. When the bread was gone, he drank from the bowl.

Perschy’s mind seemed to glitter the darkest radiance. From her pocket she withdrew her key ring.

Scab came out of the stall. She offered her cuffed wrists and let Perschy unlock them. Then she calmly removed her transport garments and approached the closet.

Vernon and Taylor scrambled when they heard the single shot. They both had their guns out when they hit the door and stepped into the consternation of the hallway. “Watch for exits!” someone shouted. “Watch the doors!”

“Good thing we’re wearing our vests, huh?” Taylor forced the scary point. Neither of them were. “Anybody see a perp?”

Probably some Al-Qaeda wannabe, Vernon thought. Got fired from his mailman job so now he’s going to kill infidels. But then his guts sank when someone else shouted, “One of the bathrooms it sounded like!”

“Men’s room’s clear!”

Five cops three-pointed into the women’s room. First, silence. Then three walked out, guns lowered, faces blanched.

Please, no, Vernon thought and entered as if stepping into a morgue.

The image of all that blood struck him like a sudden bellow. A veritable scarlet pool shined over a great portion of the tile floor. In the pool’s farthest perimeter lay Sergeant Perschy, looking up at the ceiling with wide, dead eyes. She appeared to have been shot directly in the Adam’s apple at a hard upward angle, for a plume of cranial matter that grimly reminded Vernon of lasagna flared behind her head. Her service weapon lay to her left. Later forensic analysis would determine that she’d committed suicide.

Vernon’s eyes followed the rest of the blood to its alternate source: the homeless arrestee known as Scab. It took Vernon’s powers of cogitation several moments to even conceive what had happened to her, but when he did so, he realized it was a treatment of something he’d seen before.

Scab sat in a grotesque squat, pallidly naked, head craned upward and mouth strained open. She sat impaled on a broomstick whose end had been hastily sharpened. Vernon could only guess how she’d achieved this exotic act of self-termination. She must’ve sharpened the handle, climbed up on the top of the stall, and then lowered herself down. Her body weight did the rest …

The broomstick entered her body at the vagina, and exited out her mouth.

Everyone simply stared.

“No way they didn’t do a body-cavity search at the lockup,” one of the cops said. “How’d she sharpen the broomstick?”

Vernon felt wobbly on his feet, but inadvertently noticed a key ring lying in the pool of darkening blood. “Right there,” he said.

“Perschy’s keys,” another cop said. There was a penknife connected to the ring, the blade opened.

“And God knows what this crazy shit is,” one cop said as he opened the door to the stall that Scab had probably been using to relieve herself. Fingered in blood were these words: TARA ROMANEASCA, TARA FLAESC ROMANAE. TARA FLAESC WALLKYA. “The fuck’s that?”

“Look here, Inspector,” observed the other uniform. “Perschy must’ve died before the girl.”

Vernon nodded, just now noticing some bare footprints in blood skirting most of the pool. “I guess Sergeant Perschy killed herself, then the prisoner walked over to get her key ring.”

“Yeah,” Taylor said, “but how do you explain this?”

Taylor pointed to more footprints closer to the impalement, where Scab’s prints logically ended.

Another set of bare footprints had tracked back through Scab’s blood and led into the custodial closet, where they disappeared.

“That’s just great,” Vernon intoned. His voice echoed. “Two different sets of bare footprints in the room, but only one person with no shoes on. Yeah. That’s just fuckin’ great…”

(II)

“Cristina?” A smiling face: youthful, handsome, short dark hair and insightful eyes focused through the haze. “I’m Dr. Stein. Paul called me over to have a look at you.”

“Hi, honey.” Paul’s voice, just beyond. Cristina felt her hand squeezed. Only seconds transpired between her waking and her recollection of what happened last night. At once, her heart raced.

“My, God. Paul. A woman was in the house last night.” Now her vision had cleared. She trembled. “She attacked me in the basement.”

Paul and the doctor fell silent, just as Cristina noticed that Jess and Britt were there, too. They all stood around Cristina’s bed, faces drawn by concern. Sunlight poured in through the plush, parted drapes. She could see the clock; it was past noon.

“There was no one in the house, Cristina,” Britt said. “It’s like what we were talking about yesterday.”

“But there was!” Cristina exclaimed and leaned up.

Dr. Stein was putting away a blood-pressure cuff. “Just calm down, and take it easy today. You’re in perfect health, Cristina. There’s nothing to worry about. You simply suffered from an hysteria-related shock.”

Cristina wouldn’t be deterred. I know what I saw. “Doctor, if there wasn’t someone else in this house last night, then I’m not in perfect health. It means I’m hallucinating—”

“Um-hmm,” Dr. Stein agreed.

Britt and Jess cast Stein an alarmed look.

“Honey,” Paul said softly. “Let Dr. Stein explain. See, you were hallucinating last night, and I may have been, too.”

Britt cut in, “Paul, what are you talking about? Hallucinosis is serious.”

“A temporary symptom. I’ve seen it before,” Dr. Stein told them.

“It’s all about the basement, Cristina,” Paul added.

Cristina’s mind swam. She remembered full well what had happened down there. She’d originally dismissed the voices she’d heard, and maybe they had, indeed, been from the condos. But…

The woman, she thought. “I think my mind…added things, the power of suggestion and all that. Some of it, sure—I can agree it was imagined.” She recalled Paul coming forward in the basement but after a blink he’d changed—into a nude woman. More imagination from the stress of her dreams and her work stress had added a nun’s wimple to the intruder…and fangs. “But I didn’t imagine all of it. I know I didn’t. There was a woman. In the basement last night, and she—” But she couldn’t say the rest, probably not even to Britt if alone with her. This woman had molested her sexually, and the worst part was several fibers of her being, which lay low beneath her terror, had enjoyed it. “I’m just…certain there was someone there,” she finished.

But the doctor seemed perfectly content. “Cristina, when Paul showed where he’d found you last night, I noticed it right away. Your basement is full of mold—water molds, slime molds, New York City has hundreds of cases per year of persons being stricken by symptoms of mold toxicity. Do you know how many wet, dark basements there are in this city? It happens all the time, especially to contractors.”

Cristina contemplated the words. “Mold toxicity.”

“Yes,” the doctor asserted. “Sporadic exposure rarely causes serious long-term symptoms, but the temporary symptoms can be quite profound, especially in poorly vented areas.”

“Such as every friggin’ basement in Manhattan,” Jess commented. “Hell, when I first moved to the city, I had to drop some large coin getting the mold cleaned out of my damn closets in the Village.”

“Symptoms can cause mild fever, respiratory irritation, and varying degrees of hallucinosis,” the doctor went on. “In particular, myxomycetes molds produce airborne spores that in many cases lead to hallucinatory effects as well as paranoia. I’m not a mycologist but the blackish molds I noticed growing in your basement look like the same strain.”

Paranoia, too? Cristina couldn’t deny it. “All of a sudden your explanation sounds very reasonable.”

“I even felt woozy when I was bringing you up from there last night,” Paul told her. “It explains everything, honey, and like the doctor said, it’s not that serious.”

Jess was pinching his goatee. “Hey, Paul, remember Jack Molina we went to school with? He represented a landlord against a multiple-tenant class-action suit put up by Gogh and Michaels. The landlord was renting moldy basement apartments, and most of the tenants were getting sick as dogs and started seeing things.”

“Right,” Paul recalled. “But it turns out the landlord fudged the city health codes so he wouldn’t have to pay the cleaning fees. Molina lost his ass.”

“Well, Molina didn’t, but his client sure as hell did. Molina still snagged four-fifty per billing hour anyway.”

Jess and Paul erupted in laughter.

“Lawyers,” Britt complained. “What a jolly bunch.”

Dr. Stein wrote several prescriptions. “So that’s it in a nutshell, Cristina. You’ll be fine. But don’t go in the basement again until you get a bonded contractor to get rid of that mold. For the next few days, take this mild antibiotic; it’ll help clear any spores that might still be lodged in your upper respiratory tract. And also a mild sedative in case you have trouble sleeping.” He turned to Paul. “If headache or fever persist beyond forty-eight hours, have her in to see me.”

“Will do, Doctor.”

Stein bade his farewell, leaving Cristina feeling quite relieved but also foolish now as she lay in bed past noon surrounded by the people closest to her.

“Well there you have it,” Jess said.

“Mold spores,” Britt said. “It can give you a pretty good trip, I guess.”

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Cristina admitted. “Not only was I convinced that a woman had broken into the house but…”

“But what?” Paul asked.

“I can’t say it because you’d think I was loony.”

“Come on,” Britt egged.

Cristina smiled at her own embarrassment. “The woman was a vampire.”

Everybody laughed. “You’re loony,” Paul said, “but I still love you.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s a riot,” Britt said. “Last night you thought the Noxious Nun was in your basement!”

“It seems so. Blame my subconscious mind.”

“Just so long as you’re all right,” Paul said. “But until further notice, the basement’s off-limits.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I don’t need any more experiences like that.”

“Just the same,” Britt asked, “how are you feeling?”

“Like an ass, but aside from that and being a little tired, I feel all right.”

“Come on, everybody, let’s clear out of here so she can get dressed,” Britt ordered.

“Jess and I have to get back to the office anyway,” Paul said. “But if you need anything, call.”

“Thanks, honey,” Cristina bid and kissed him.

As Britt herded them out, she said, “I’ll hang around a while. We can go get lunch.”

“Great. I’m starved.”

The door didn’t quite close all the way. As Cristina dressed she could hear everyone talking in the foyer.

“Mystery of the day solved,” Jess joked. “Mold in the basement. Say, Paul. You ought to sue the diocese for selling you contaminated property!”

Paul and Jess roared laughter.

Cristina shook her head, and continued to spruce herself up. In the closet, though, some of her dresses seemed to be disarranged, as if they’d been rehung in haste. One hanger was empty. Was something missing? Stop imagining things, she ordered herself. Next, in the bathroom, she was brushing her hair when something unconscious caught her eye.

What …

There, in the mirror’s reflection. Cristina turned very slowly and saw that the Noxious Nun figure Bruno had given her was sitting on a vanity shelf behind her. The figure’s fanged smile seemed to harass her, the toy-sized bowl of blood held as if it were being offered to her.

Cristina was certain she’d taken the figure upstairs a day or so ago, to display it with her other figurines.

She had absolutely no recollection of bringing it back down here.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

(I)

What to do, what to do? Rollin fretted. He sat in the chancel of his own empty church, not praying so much as worrying. Last night, from his window at the Ketchum Hotel, he’d seen enough to spark an escalating dread. Through his voyeur’s binoculars, not only had he witnessed Cristina Nichols masturbating unabashed—twice—he’d seen at least one other woman in the house, and—

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that woman before …

One of those homeless girls who’d always seemed to gravitate toward the house. Another thing he’d noted over time was this: it had been going on for almost a year, as though the house might be preparing them for something, coaching them. Like the house has recruited its own attendants, he abstracted.

Rollin only knew what he had been warned.

If it’s true…what in God’s name can I do about it, especially if I don’t even have access to the house anymore?

The priest errantly touched his ring. After Cristina Nichols had left, Rollin identified the woman he had seen in the studio window as one he often saw scrounging the streets, a dilapidated urchin still carrying around a ghost of a long-faded prettiness. Pink, bulky glasses, blondish hair, an orange halter top lately, he thought. Who is she? And those other ones she runs about with? At least they appeared better nourished than when he first began to notice them. He could only imagine who might be manipulating them…

Rollin walked to the end of the narthex of the church; he opened the massive front doors and peeked out. The annex house stood bright in sunlight, its windows shining. How many times had he peeped in those windows? Two well-dressed men laughed as they came down the steps—a broad-shouldered, dark-haired man, and the other goateed, with longer hair—and got into an expensive sports car. I wonder which one was Paul Nasher? As the car drove away, a stunning woman with shoulder-length and almost-black hair waved good-bye from the annex house’s threshold. A friend of Cristina’s, I guess …For a fraction of a second the woman made eye contact with Rollin. Damn! He smiled feebly, stepped back, and closed the door.

He hadn’t seen Cristina since her masturbatory bout last night in the studio. Rollin decided he’d keep the expensive room at the Ketchum for a few more nights. Surveillance was important but so far it had yielded little.

Echoes of footsteps clattered as he walked back down the darkened nave. He crossed himself at the altar, though his mind wasn’t particularly close to God at the time. The homeless woman with the glasses, he reflected. He knew that he’d seen her in the house, and if she’d found a way in, so must have the others. But how? he wondered. How are they getting in? And from where? These were the questions that vexed him.

Perhaps today he’d stroll the streets and keep an eye out. But his stomach ached with the next thought: the certainty that he’d have to find a way to enter the house and find out how they were getting in.

Even if it means breaking into the place myself …

(II)

Vernon felt dissolute, actually wobbly as he came down the steps of police headquarters on Madison. The yelling still echoed in his ears. Behind him he frowned at the infamous One Police Plaza as it loomed in its grandiosity, while the actual HQ building he’d just left looked more like him: old and weathered. Slouch picked him up in the unmarked in the small half-court out front.

“I probably won’t be able to sit down,” Vernon said when he opened the door.

“What?”

“The commissioner just gnawed my ass so hard, I don’t think I have one anymore.”

Slouch laughed. “He was probably on the rag. I heard he gets that way. But it couldn’t have been that bad.”

Vernon slid in and sighed. “I thought he was gonna have a stroke he was yelling so loud. There were veins sticking out at his temples. All I know is I’ve got a sergeant in good standing killing herself twenty feet from my office and a suspect in custody dead by impalement—a homeless woman—two days after another homeless woman was found dead by impalement. And I’ve got evidence of a third person in the room at the same time but when the PC asks me who the third person was, I don’t have an answer. ‘What are your leads?’ he asks, and the only thing I can say is a quartet of still more homeless women who stole some Christmas tree stands and whittling knives from a fuckin’ hardware store. I’ve never felt so inept in my life. I’m supposed to be on the ball but right now I’m under it. I wouldn’t blame him if he transferred me to the impound lot.”

“Come on.” Slouch tried to sound positive. He whipped into traffic, passed Foley Square, and turned up Centre Street. “It’s a fucked-up case. Everybody gets ’em.”

“A fucked-up case?” Vernon grimaced like someone with gas. “The PC calls it an ‘unacceptable deficiency of protocol and professional foresight.’ All I know is we have to find those other girls on the video or I might as well turn in my papers.”

“Can’t help you now, How,” Slouch said. “I’ve got court.” He pulled into the criminal court complex. “You wanna take the car?”

“No. Drop me. I’ll take the subway back to the precinct.”

Vernon got out and allowed the walk to Varick Street to clear his head. He walked as if with blinders, distraction leaving him scarcely aware of where he was. He took the One Line and got out at the Lincoln Center stop. When he ascended up from the platform, a row of homeless sat against the first building, some squawking crazily, others just sitting there with halos of flies circling their heads. One of them, a woman, looked up with eyes whose whites had turned to the color of cigarette ash. “Can you spare a couple bucks, Officer?” she asked.

Vernon pretended not to hear, and high-stepped away. I must be wearing a sign. Brazen graffiti besmirched the polished stone below a bank’s front windows. One scrawl read Z-MEN RULE but was X’d out, while another read BUY ROCK FROM THE KINGS. Hang them all, Vernon thought bitterly, but then he chuckled. Or better yet, impale them. No one would sell drugs if we impaled the dealers in public. His distraction focused down without conscious effort as he neared 69th and Columbus but when he spied the hot dog vendor, his awareness engaged. He was scanning alleys and passersby. Where are they? he thought. He took out copies of the prints, studying them as he walked. The most prominent of the three remaining thieves was the girl with glasses. Even in the grainy print, they looked like pink horn rims, like a child might wear. Probably found them in the garbage and they worked. He could tell the woman was missing teeth, for she was grinning in the freeze-frame, boxes of several unassembled Christmas tree stands under her arm. The nuttiest case of my career …

An upcoming throng nearly overwhelmed him; it made Vernon realize he no longer functioned at the same rapid pace as most New Yorkers. He waited for the moving crowd to divide around him, then found himself standing in front of the vendor. Today he wore a New York Giants hat and a Jets jersey. “Hot dog, Officer?” he asked, cigar stub jittering. “On the house.”

Vernon wilted. Made again. “How did you know?”

The stocky vendor laughed. “I saw you yesterday busting that bum-chick, you and your buddy who needs a haircut.”

Bum-chick, Vernon thought. I guess that’s what we reduce them to. “I’ll take a dog, thanks. With kraut, please. Oh, but first—” He thrust forward the hard copies. “You’ve seen these women around?”

The vendor barely looked at the pictures. “Yeah, yeah, your guys have already shown those to me. I see ’em every now and then, every other day, maybe.” But the man’s amusement was plain. “With all the crime in this city? Why waste time with a few bum-chicks?”

“They impaled a woman on a wooden pole,” Vernon said automatically, then regretted it.

The man laughed. “Jesus! Can’t have that!”

Probably thinks I’m bullshitting…and I wish I was. “You seen any of these girls today?”

“Naw, don’t think so. But you know, I see a lot of people. During a rush I ain’t gonna notice.”

“Sure.” Vernon gave him his card. “Next time you see them, call that cell number. I’ll give you a hundred bucks right out of my wallet.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

The vendor eyed the card, nodding. “Awright.”

Vernon took the piled-high hot dog wrapped in foil. “Thanks.”

“That’s Sabrett’s. I ain’t like some of these other guys who say they’re Sabrett’s but they ain’t.”

“I believe it.” Vernon pointed to the card. “Call that number. I’m serious about the hundred.”

“You must want these bum-chicks bad.”

Vernon stared as if at a bombed building. “More than anything you can imagine,” he said and walked away.

The first bite told him the hot dog was not Sabrett’s. Tastes more like one of those generic chicken dogs. But he wasn’t about to complain. Suddenly a figure startled him, a raddled woman who smelled bad.

“Hey, mister. If you don’t eat all of that, can I have the rest?”

Vernon’s eyes locked. Not one of mine, he knew instantly. The woman stood short and squat, oddly wearing a wool scarf. Rotten tennis shoes were wrapped up in sheets. A baggy pea-green shirt looked streaked with old vomit. He thought of showing her the pictures but, If she knows them, she might tip them off. For some reason, being so close to the woman made him nervous. He gave her the rest of the hot dog and a five-dollar bill, then strode off.

The street was so crowded he had to walk along the buildings to stay out of the way. He wasn’t quite sure what snagged his attention, though, when he stopped in front of one store. SPIKE’S COMIC EMPORIUM, the glass read. Then he stared at the glass and caught the small colorful mini-poster behind it. IN STOCK! CADAVERETTES! Vernon stooped, squinted. It was a promotional poster, showing several cute but morbid figurines all in a row. Then, Cadaverettes, he remembered. The word had been imprinted on the bottom of the doll they’d found in Virginia Fleming’s pocket…

He flinched at the bell that clanged when he pushed through the front door. Shelves of comics occupied the front, while toys and shirts were in back. “Where are these Cadaverette things?” he asked the man at the checkout who looked to be Vernon’s age but had spiked blond hair and a leather vest.

“Aisle Four,” he said without even looking at Vernon. “The new shipment just came in, and we also got a few Plastic Surgery Botchies back.”

Vernon felt duped. He shouldered through high, labyrinthine aisles, sniffling at the store’s mustiness. Rows and rows of action figures, dolls, and figurines—some quite elaborate—clogged the shelves. He dragged his vision along. “Gurl-Goyles, Fantasmic Fishies, Living Dead Dolls, Verotik World,” he recited. Then, “Ah. Here they are.”

Boxes five inches high and three thick sat on end, each with cellophane windows displaying dolls that smiled in spite of grievous wounds. CADAVERETTE #2, read one box, Y-SECTIONED WANDA, and inside stood a cutesy figurine of a grinning nude girl whose pallid thorax was marked by stout black stitches—presumably surgical staples—in the fashion of the autopsist’s Y-incision. Vernon couldn’t guess what market appeal might exist for such novelties; some of the dolls were actually scary, but all at least unsettling in their amalgamation of grotesqueness and whimsy. A row of larger boxes contained four figures in each: Headless Helen, Hypothermia Harriet, Gutshot Glenn, and Floater Frank. That’s the one Virginia Fleming had, Vernon recognized of Gutshot Glenn. The very idea puzzled him. I guess I’m just an out-of-it old fuck, he thought. Somebody MUST be buying these things—there’re shelves and shelves of them …Another section with a similar style boasted PLASTIC SURGERY BOTCHIES. More of the same but a different theme. Tummy-Tucked Tina sported a horrendously mishandled abdominal augmentation; the lower half of Botox Bonnie’s face was all inflated lips. Jeeeeeesus, Vernon thought. Then: Why am I looking at this stuff? It was only coincidence that one such figurine was found in a decedent’s pocket.

“You must be into the Nichols stuff,” said the spiked proprietor. He flapped Vernon a large, shiny card.

“Nichols?”

The clerk seemed half-offended that Vernon had questioned the name. “Cristina Nichols. Right now she’s the hottest name in novelty figurines, created the Cadaverettes that you asked about.” He gestured to the card. “We’ll be getting the first four figures in her Evil Church line in a few days, but if you want any, you better preorder. They’re almost gone.”

Vernon didn’t know what the hell this guy was talking about. He looked at the card…

Suddenly his blood felt like ice water.

It had to be coincidence. Of course. Nevertheless, the first thing he noticed on the card were wavy black, green, and red lines, ribbonlike, floating behind four figurines of a similar style as the Cadaverettes he’d just been appraising. CRISTINA NICHOLS PRESENTS: EVIL CHURCH CREEPIES! read the top of the glossy card. Four grotesque dolls were shown, all portraying some sort of Gothic church motif.

The first figure was a nun.

Vernon had to drag his sentience back, while still eyeing the nun and the wavy lines. “This some kind of promotional thing?”

“Right,” said Spiked Hair. “It’s Nichols’s brand-new line, and it’s making serious waves. If you want any of the first run, like I said, you better preorder.” Then the guy went back to the register.

Coincidence, yes, but almost too uncanny. Black, green, and red, Vernon thought in a drone, just like the markers at the crime scenes …

And a nun.

THE NOXIOUS NUN! read the title beneath the figure. She grinned with whory red lips, brandishing fangs, as she seemingly held a bowl of blood. The front of the bowl sported three spots to denote jewels: one black, one green, one red.

What am I thinking? he wondered. He couldn’t imagine. On the back was distributor information and shipping dates, plus a tiny picture and biographical data about this person named Cristina Nichols. There was also some manufacturer information and a website.

Vernon walked in a daze to the register. The clerk looked suspicious. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t really look like someone who’s into novelty figurines. You look more like a cop.”

I do mind you saying so, Sawhead. “Uh, they’re for my…niece.” Vernon had no idea why he was doing what he was about to do. “I’d like to preorder,” he said.

“Smart move. But you have to pay in advance. They’re $12.95 each, or all four for forty.”

For fuckin’ dolls! Vernon gave him his credit card. “Just the nun, please. This promo thing, though. It says that Cristina Nichols lives in Connecticut. Any idea what town?” But why on earth would he even ask? What purpose could there be in contacting her? “My niece…collects autographs of her favorite…doll designers.”

The clerk didn’t bat an eye at the howling lie. “Actually, that bio’s dated. She recently moved to New York.”

“Not Manhattan,” Vernon could only assume.

“The distro rep came in here the other day and believe it or not Nichols lives right around here someplace. Just a few blocks. I’m trying to get her in here for a signing but I guess she’s kind of reclusive. We’ll see. Just check the window every week for an announcement.” The clerk gave Vernon his credit card back. “We’ll call you when the order’s in. What’s your number?”

Vernon gave him a precinct card and smiled. “Thanks very much. My…niece will be delighted.”

The clerk arched his brow at the card. “Sure.”

Vernon walked out, befuddled. I just spent thirteen bucks for a nun doll and I don’t know why. The coincidence? The black, green, and red lines? And Scab mentioned a nun, he knew. And on the night of the chapel vandalism…a nun was seen with several homeless women …

Vernon walked all the way back to the precinct house, thinking that it might be a good idea to turn in his retirement papers.

(III)

Rollin stared listlessly into the infinity-shaped field of his binoculars. He couldn’t help but feel self-conscious, not just from the technical fact of what he was doing, but also what he sat in the midst of. Behind closed doors, he thought. For the price, these motel rooms should be better soundproofed; the adult-video convention was in full swing now, and evidently some of the participants took many respites in their own rooms. Rollin could hear wanton moans, climactic shrieks, and bedsprings creaking for the entire time he was there.

By now, eyestrain was getting the best of him. He kept the glasses trained on Cristina Nichols’s studio window, not sure what he was hoping to see. She simply sat at her desk, tapping on her computer or turning on her stool to sketch something. Rollin only wished his vantage point was better angled; he couldn’t see at least half of the studio. Once every so often, he raised the glasses to the windows of the upper two floors but discerned only bare walls and unmoving shadows.

No interlopers.

But they’d have to be crazy to sneak into the house in broad daylight while the woman was home, he reasoned, then caught himself in the gaff. Have to be crazy?

They probably ARE crazy …

He sat there until his voyeurism became paralyzing. The day was dimming, and so was his energy. He began to nod off but snapped awake when movement hailed him. Two women were shuffling down the alley.

Is it them?

He couldn’t be sure.

Enough for today. Maybe he would see something tomorrow. Or the day after that, or the day after that …Frustrated and still partially ashamed, he closed the drapes and left the hotel room.

Grins floating above fleshy cleavage and plenteous bosoms mocked his Roman collar when he exited the lobby. Seven P.M., he saw on his watch. Maybe…Paul Nasher’s home from work now …

He walked straight down Dessorio and moments later was knocking on the opulent front doors of the annex house.

“Oh, hi, Father,” Cristina cheerily greeted when the door opened to a gap.

“Hi, Ms. Nichols. Hope I’m not disturbing you,” he said, “and if not, I thought I’d take you up on your offer for a cup of coffee. I’d love to meet your fiancé.”

“He’s working late to night, but come on in anyway.” Her hand took his arm and showed him into the living room. “I was just about to make some anyway. I hope you like Costa Rican. It’s the best. We get it at Barney’s.”

Rollin felt stifled once inside. “Uh, yes, please. Costa Rican will do quite nicely,” But Rollin mostly drank whatever he could afford on his stipend. It was the sight of the room that waylaid him; the binoculars hadn’t done the place justice. Italian marble, velour wallpaper, custom-made furnishings. “It’s amazing what you’ve done here,” he finally said.

“Oh, yeah. Paul went all-out fixing the place up.”

The priest chuckled. “Quite a bit different from what it used to be when I was the charge of this house.”

Cristina smiled, her blonde hair slightly mussed. “I would imagine, but I guess as a priest you might not approve of what we’ve done here. The house must strike you as the peak of materialistic sin.”

“There are far worse sins,” he assured.

“Good. Come and see the kitchen,” she invited.

Rollin followed, eyes wandering to every corner. The kitchen was more of the same, the best of everything. The aroma of coffee almost intoxicated him; Rollin felt desensitized to everything else. Even Cristina’s honest prettiness, made more provocative by tight jeans and an obvious bralessness beneath her blouse, assured him that at least lust was one sin he would not have to account for today. The woman simply seemed perfect in her genuineness. She tinkered at the coffeemaker while engaging in small talk, regretting that Paul wasn’t home yet. She handed him a cup. “I never did quite understand how the house came to be sold,” she said.

Rollin fumed at himself. It was sold for a song because I happened to be on a six-month sabbatical and the bunglers at the diocese thought they were making a killing. Instead, he said, “In truth the Catholic Church owns too much land and—after all—money is money. Not all church property is tax-exempt, you know.”

“Really?”

“Oh, no. The church must justify each exemption, and if a property is deemed to no longer be serving an active purpose for the church, then Big Brother wants his tax. It’s actually quite fair; otherwise the church could buy up foreclosures all over the place and not have to pay a penny in property tax, then reap huge profits when values take off.” He chuckled again. “The Catholics really aren’t the greed-barons we’re made out to be. The truth of the matter is, the diocese had no reason to continue owning this house, so they sold it.”

“How interesting. About the taxes, I mean.” Just then, a phone rang in a distant room. “That’s probably my boss calling, so I may be a little while. But feel free to look around.”

“Thank you.”

He watched her skirt energetically into a small den of some sort. “Oh, hi, Bruno. Yeah, sure we can do that now…”

It seemed that she’d be talking at some length. Rollin stood there, thinking. I suppose if I had some actual courage I could …The contemplation heckled him. Walking softly, he left the foyer and entered the short hall next to the stairs. The basement door seemed to challenge his being there, saying, I dare you.

Rollin opened the door and went down.

Half of his conscience focused on the opportunity, the other half feebled over a suitable lie should he be caught down here. The basement looked no different. Still the same cluttered old place. All of this junk is actually ours, he knew. But we’ll let Mr. Millionaire Paul Nasher get rid of it at his own expense. Boxes of books—church books—formed walkways. Cobwebs festooned the corners. He walked quickly to the windows in back and checked them for signs of tampering. I know they’re getting in here somehow, he thought. And the more time that passes, the worse it will get. But as far as Rollin could tell, the windows were secure. He couldn’t imagine how they’d been sneaking in here.

Then he thought, The vault …

He walked around another outcropping of boxes and assorted stuff, and there it was: the patch of cement bearing the seal. Unconsciously, he first touched his ring, then slipped his own pendant out from under his shirt, rubbing his fingers over the embossment as he looked down.

My God, he thought.

The seal in the concrete was intact, but the concrete surface itself was cracked. Between two boxes, he noticed a small sledgehammer and a chisel…

A click. Rapid footsteps. Rollin’s heart sped up.

“Father Rollin!” Cristina exclaimed. She’d come halfway down the steps but seemed to hesitate there. “You mustn’t come down here!”

Rollin grabbed a book out of one of the myriad boxes, then came around to the steps. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I should’ve asked first. The diocese left a lot of stuff down here, and I was simply retrieving something, this Thomas Merton book. It was one of my favorites.” He held the book up, to validate the bald-faced lie. “I apologize, Ms. Nichols. I’ll put it back if you like. Technically, I suppose it is yours.”

“No, no, keep the book, of course, but come up from there right now!” she seemed frantic. “It’s dangerous down there.”

Rollin hastened up the steps and turned as she closed the door. “Dangerous?”

Cristina seemed relieved he was out of there. “Of course, you wouldn’t know. But we found out this morning that the basement has toxic mold in it.”

Rollin was nearly speechless. “How…odd. I suppose it is a bit moldy, as basements can often be. But toxic?”

“That’s what the doctor told us this morning,” she informed, leading him back to the kitchen. “I actually had a spell down there.”

Rollin looked at her. “A…spell?”

“Yes.” She seemed intrigued. “I actually passed out from the spores. Believe it or not, the mold made me see things.”

“You don’t say?” But Rollin only wished he could relate his true thoughts: I hate to tell you this, Ms. Nichols, but it wasn’t MOLD that made you see things …

CHAPTER TWELVE

(I)

Cristina surged as she straddled him—she knew she was using him for his body yet again to night, yet she couldn’t deny her desires. It was like a drug—her lust.

“Jeez, hon,” Paul muttered beneath her. “I don’t think I can again…”

“Try, try,” she moaned, rocking on him in the darkness. “Please…” Don’t lose it, she begged him in thought. She knew she was asking a lot of him, but her desires were demanding much of her as well. Cristina’s blood felt like oil heating up on a stove top. Paul was gasping with every thrust. The shadows seemed to push her face down toward him. She began to slowly suck down the side of his neck, and when her tongue laved over his jugular vein, she could feel his pulse beating like a hummingbird’s. Next, their tongues were playing around in the other’s mouth with more fervor than she could ever recall. Paul’s hand slipped between them, his fingers hunting for nipples to tweeze in time with his thrusts, and when he began to pinch, she panted, “Harder, harder,” into his mouth. “Please, honey, as hard as you can.” She squealed and orgasmed when her plea was answered, and a moment later, Paul spent himself as well.

Good, good, she thought.

She collapsed atop him and sighed. She felt like butter now, melting into still-warm bread. The words in her head arrived like a zombie’s drone: I just couldn’t get enough tonight. Just like last night, and the night before …“Paul? That was wonderful…Paul?”

But he was already asleep beneath her. I’m surprised I didn’t kill him, she thought. Lately I’ve been riding him like a mechanical bull. Even in her exhaustion, though, she felt beaming, her nerves energetic in the revel of life. She slipped off the bed’s silk sheets, nipples constricting as the air-conditioning dried her glaze of perspiration. She traipsed about the room, sated in its darkness and silence. Only the moon leaked in through the louvers. In the big mirror over the dresser, the silverish light on her face sur-realized her features, leaving lines and wedges black but luminescing the rest.

Her thoughts strayed when she decided to wander the house. What a relief, she regarded of Dr. Stein’s diagnosis. For a while there, I thought I was going crazy. Hearing things, seeing things? All because of mold in the basement. Tomorrow a contractor was coming to give them an estimate for the cleanup. She’d been surprised, though, by the look on Father Rollin’s face when she’d mentioned it earlier. He was in and out of this house for years, she knew. But he’d probably spent very little time in the basement. Through the dining room blinds, she peeked quickly outside.

Hmmm …

At first she’d thought she’d seen the tiniest glint in one of the church’s dark windows but, Just the streetlight, or the moon, she dismissed.

It was past one in the morning now. The stillness of the house lulled her. It scarcely registered that she’d been wandering around in the nude—something she’d rarely done in the past—but now that she thought of it, she smiled. Her fingers stroked her hips without forethought. I like being nude, she thought. I like being naked in the house, at night, in the dark and the silence. The observation surprised her, as did the recognition that just this instant, she couldn’t imagine being happier. It was a joyous complacency, rooted in so many things, she supposed: her youth and health, her success in hand with Paul’s, this new environment and the love she felt pouring over her. If such a thing as an aura existed, she knew that hers must be blazing white.

She slipped back into the bedroom and got into bed. Sleep welcomed her—After all that sex? she thought naughtily—but her mind still tinkered with some thoughts. What could really explain her mood changes? One day shy and sheepish, the next day voracious? It’s everything, she knew.

It was all part of her now—the real her. Yes, she knew she was changing, and she knew it was all good.

Cristina fell asleep with an arm and leg hooked over Paul’s strong body. Hence, she was not awake to see the curvaceous, shadow-formed figure ooze into the room, grin down at her, and run a single finger up the side of her throat.

Nor was she awake to hear what it whispered in a voice like smoke: “Tara Romaneasca, tara flaesc Romanae …”

Cristina wakened at seven, to the sound of the shower. My God, I’m sore, she thought when she leaned up. Her muscles ached but a smile touched her lips when she realized why. It must be from their frenetic lovemaking. We tried some pretty off-the-wall positions, she recalled. She pulled on her robe and went out to make coffee, which was ready the same minute Paul rushed out of the bedroom, adjusting his tie. “Oh, you’re a gem,” he said, kissed her quick, and grabbed his insulated traveling cup. “Thanks.”

“You’re up real early,” Cristina noted. “I thought lawyers didn’t work till ten.”

“Not today, baby.” He finally knotted his tie. “Jess and I have a big client coming in at eight-thirty. Primo important.”

“Primo, huh? Too primo to skip out without breakfast? I could make you something.”

“No, thanks. Ann’s bringing in some of those egg-muffin things—”

“Ann?” Cristina grinned. “Should I be jealous?”

“You know, Ann, our secretary.”

“Is she pretty?”

“She’s very pretty. And very lesbian.” He paused to look at her. “Not nearly as pretty as you, anyway.”

Cristina gave him a hug. “Have a good day—”

“You, too—” He was pulling away, jingling his keys. “Oh, and try to find that menu for Shun Lee’s; we’re getting the carryout there when Jess and Britt come over. I know it’s around here somewhere.”

“Okay—”

“Oh, and don’t forget about the guy coming at nine.”

“The mold guy.”

“Right. The sooner we get that mold out of there, the better I’ll feel.”

“Me too.”

“Gotta run, love you.” He gave her another peck and was out the door. Cristina smiled after him.

Later, a contractor arrived—a tall young man with an eye patch. I hope it wasn’t mold that caused that, Cristina thought. “That’s quite a job title,” she said when he assured her he was “an IAQ-certified mold inspector” and “a full member of the National Board of Mold Remediators.” He put on a mask like a painter and descended the basement steps with what he described as an “infrared swatch scope.” I didn’t know mold was so technical, Cristina thought. He returned in about a half hour, mask off and jotting on a clipboard. “Pretty bad down there, huh?” Cristina assumed the worst, but his reply was surprising. “No, ma’am. When your fiancé called, he said he had a toxic mold problem, but there’s nothing toxic down there. It’s just a simple black Mycota mold.”

“Really? Our doctor said it was the kind that could make you sick and even see things.”

“Probably just covering his bases,” the man said without ever looking at her with his one good eye. He kept scribbling as he talked. “The molds we get around here look a lot like some of the protostelids that sometimes cause hallucinations. I’ve given you multiple estimates for what ever kind of work you might want: basic remediation, aqueous Ph-control and sequestrant-based sealing, or full reconditioning. If you want to know the truth, all you need is the basic unless you want to turn the basement into an apartment.”

Cristina brushed her hair out of her eyes, flummoxed. “Nothing harmful down there?”

“No, ma’am. The mold you’ve got down there wouldn’t make a parakeet sick.” He scribbled some more, and gave Cristina the top sheet. “And we can also fix that crack in the cement, if you want.”

He left as abruptly as he arrived. Well…he was young, she realized. We better get a second analysis. And what had he said about cracked cement? I never noticed any cracks, she told herself. She started to go down herself to look, but then paused at the door. No. I better not. If that kid’s wrong about the mold, I don’t want to be passing out and God knows what else.

As she was mounting the steps to her studio, she grimaced. The aches in her back and shoulders had trebled, which only confounded her. Why am I so damn sore all of a sudden?

Cristina’s muscles throbbed as if she’d been doing some heavy manual labor. Forget working today, she resolved and turned back down. I’m going to go take a nice, warm bubble bath …

(II)

The room buzzed.

And it stank now worse than ever. “How do I look?” Francy asked, striking a flapperlike pose amid the glowing candles. “Do I look maaaaav-alous?”

Stutty looked awed and even jealous of the diaphanous red dress. The label read Dolce & Gabbana, but she’d never heard of him. “I wish I could wear it-wear it-wear it,” she lamented. She was whittling points onto some more broomsticks.

“You don’t have the right curves, Stutty. I do.”

“Gimme a break!”

“Big deal,” Sandrine muttered. She fiddled with her Hypothermia Harriet doll. “It’s a rich-person dress, and I say shit on rich people. We don’t even really know if you’re ever going to need it.”

Francy fell silent, glaring at her sullen companion. “The New Mother said I would, Sandrine.”

Sandrine shrugged.

“You don’t believe the New Mother?” Francy took an authoritative step on two dirty feet. “After all she’s done for us? The New Mother can see the future. Don’t you believe that?”

“I…”

“ ’Cos if you don’t believe that, you can’t be in the convent!” Francy half-yelled. “She’s known the future since our Prince lay down on the stone table! Since the time of the Infidels! Since when the time the Darkness came to the land and blessed them!”

“I believe the New Mother,” Stutty offered. “She said we’d be off crack and now we are. She said that guy and the woman would move into the church-house, and they did. And-and-and she told us what was there, and we’ve seen it. She said she would come to us, and she has, hashas-has-has-hasn’t she?”

“Yes,” Sandrine dolefully agreed.

Candlelight flickered over the dress to make it look alive. “So how can you not believe?” Francy questioned.

Then Stutty, enthused before the dead television said, “As the Time gets closer, the New Mother becomes more real, just like she said. We even felt her last night, right?”

“Well…yeah,” Sandrine said.

“She’s always been real, Stutty,” Francy corrected. “Just less here, and more somewhere else, since the time of the Prince. But now that’s reversing.”

“Okay!” Sandrine rebelled. “But so what? What do we get out of it?”

Francy leaned close, lowering her voice. “We get to live forever.”

“Forever?” Sandrine winced, offering her hands to the reeking, garbage-strewn room. “Here? Like this?”

“No, Sandrine. Like her. And anyone who doesn’t believe it can’t be in the convent.” She eyed the moldering corpse of Doke in the corner. It was a warning.

Sandrine, in her depression, continued to object. “So why can’t we go to the house and get the thing ourselves?”

“Because that’s not what’s in the future,” Francy reminded. “That’s not what the New Mother said. It has to be the woman. The New Mother already knows what’s going to happen. It was all planned a long time ago. The woman has to touch it first.”

Sandrine fidgeted, prone to clinical depression. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I do believe…”

“Good,” Francy stated.

“She’s just fucked-fucked-fucked-up,” Stutty diagnosed. “ ’Cos of drug-drug-drug-drugs.”

“Oh, right,” Sandrine exclaimed. “I’m fucked-up.”

“We’re all fucked-up!” Francy celebrated. Then all of them, even Sandrine, laughed.

“You should take the dress off for now,” Sandrine said. “If you don’t, it’ll be all dirty by the time you need it.”

“Yuh-yeah,” Stutty added. “You’ll stink it all up!”

“Kiss my ass!” Francy cracked back. “I took a shower last night, in the house.”

“You did?”

Francy’s eyes widened. “Yeah. And you should’a seen the bathroom. I’ll bet Donald Trump doesn’t have a bathroom like theirs.”

“Who’s Donald Thump?” Sandrine asked.

Francy smirked. “Never mind. But it was the best bathroom.”

Stutty grinned. “Yuh-yuh-yeah? But what else did you do?”

“Shut up!”

They all laughed again.

Francy continued to strike poses. “The New Mother’s coming out earlier and earlier now, and pretty soon she’ll be as real as us. But we have to believe. We all must believe.” Suddenly her posing stopped and she got serious again. “ ’Cos anyone who doesn’t…”

She pointed to Doke. Then she pointed past more boxes, to Crazy, and impaled next to her was Ruthie Mooseface and Blinda, whom they’d impaled early this morning.

The room buzzed.

(III)

Vernon found it inconceivable that the vast campus of Columbia University existed entirely in the middle of Morningside Heights. From the end near the Teacher’s College it looked endless. He’d walked so much his feet began to hurt…Big fancy Ivy League place like this and they don’t even have a campus directory. He hoofed past Fairchild Hall, squinting for building numbers. He felt invisible amid the throng of youthful students…and depressed when he realized, Jesus, I’m almost old enough to be their grandfather …Statues of Hamilton and Jefferson seemed to eye him with suspicion as he trudged on through beating heat. A crude xerox flapped on a lamppost: SAVE DARFUR, NOT IRAQ! it suggested. Vernon shrugged. Why save either? Both countries hate our guts. Next, it was The Thinker giving him the eye, as if to say What’s a busted, over-the-hill cop doing Here?

Good question, Vernon admitted. Probably another wildgoose chase.

Finally he found a map and directory board, which showed him that the building he sought sat at the other end of the campus. A small billboard next to the directory had this message: STUDENTS PARTICIPATING IN “SARAN WRAP” PARTIES WILL BE EXPELLED.

Vernon didn’t even want to guess.

The building was back near the Teacher’s College, where he’d first entered; the cool air sucked him in. The first door he came to read, DR. CARL AURED -LINGUISTICS, which stood open a few inches. Vernon stuck his head in. “Dr. Aured?”

A graying man who was bald on top looked up from his desk as if annoyed. “I can’t be bothered now—I have an appointment with a police officer.”

“I’m the police officer, sir. Inspector Howard Vernon.”

“Forgive me! You don’t look at all like the police.”

Vernon smiled gratefully. Well, that’s a change. “I appreciate you making the time to see me on such short notice.”

He held his hands up and pffft’d, like a Jewish patriarch. “The summer sessions? Not very busy. Please, have a seat.”

Vernon sat down, having noticed enough of the cramped office to tell it was sterile and lackluster, which probably paralleled this man’s job.

“On the phone you mentioned ‘strange’ writing at some crime scenes,” Dr. Aured recalled. “It sounds intriguing. May I ask what crimes were committed?”

“Murder and vandalism,” was all Vernon said. He slipped the man the notes he’d taken. “Pardon my handwriting. But the words look to be from several languages. One, I suppose, is Latin, and the rest…Well, that’s why I’m here.”

Dr. Aured appeared thrilled as he focused on the notes. “Mmmm,” he muttered several times, and, “Um-hmm.” After only a few moments, his gaze snapped back up. “It’s all Latin, in a sense—Latin-rooted, I mean—because it’s all founded in Vulgar Latin; a Romance language, in other words. This line here, for instance…” Aured touched the tip of his pen to what Vernon had transcribed from the closet in the precinct women’s room:

TARA ROMANEASCA, TARA FLAESC ROMANAE and TARA FLAESC WALLKYA.

“It’s a bit of a hodgepodge,” the linguist said. “Latin mixed with Saxon and Old English, and quite a bit of Finno-Ugris—the language of the Magyars of Hungary. Before the Turks overwhelmed the Slavias in the mid-1400s, the crusader princes of Romania and Bulgaria—all under the supervision of the Polish and Hungarian kings—frequently spoke in a meld of these languages so that Turk spies and non-Christians would be less likely to understand them. But these quotes are very strange…”

“But what does it mean?”

“Oh! Sorry! Of course, the reason you’re here,” the elderly man exclaimed. “It means something akin to ‘This land of Romania, this flesh of Romania.’ And ‘Tara flaesc Wallkya’ roughly translates to ‘This flesh of Wallachia.’”

“Wallachia?” Vernon questioned. “What’s that?”

“Southern Romania, referred to, of course, in the first quote.”

The next line was: ME ENAMOURER AD INFINITUM.

From the chapel. Vernon tried to keep things sorted.

“This is more bastardized Latin, just less bastardized. ‘My true love forever.’”

Vernon didn’t know which was stranger, the first quote or the second. Why on earth would bum-girls write something like that? But then he realized the folly of the question. How could they come to write ANY of it?

Unless someone was teaching them…

Dr. Aured chuckled. “But this next quote, is by far more interesting.”

Vernon looked at the notes again and saw: SINGELE LUI TRAIESTE, the words written in magic marker on the impaled body of Virginia Fleming.

“Yes, much more interesting, indeed. It seems to be an unaccented attempt at modern Romanian or Româna. You see, Inspector, the modern Romanian language is derived from Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian, seven vowels, twenty consonants, and twenty-eight letters. To ease some of the confusion, we have this system today known as the IPA—”

Why do I have a feeling that doesn’t stand for India Pale Ale? Vernon thought.

“—the International Phonetic Alphabet, which in some cases standardizes the different accents, diphthongs, triphthongs, etc., that exist throughout the world. But your criminals aren’t regarding the IPA at all, almost as if they’re trying to write by ear, and aren’t particularly educated.”

“You nailed that one,” Vernon told him.

Did Aured smile ever so slightly? He looked at Vernon and said, “‘Singele lui traieste’ means ‘His blood is alive.’”

Vernon squinted at him.

“You have some very unique criminals here, Inspector. Ultimately, they’re fudging phonotypic Cyrillic with Old Church Slavonic. No diphthongs, no triphthongs, no accents.”

“You’re already way over my head, sir.”

“Just the fact that the words are Romanian, I mean. It’s almost funny—not that murder can ever be funny, of course.” The linguist was digressing in his overkill of knowledge, apparently amused by something Vernon couldn’t comprehend. “Then the reference to Wallkya—Wallachia, in tandem with the line, ‘His blood is alive.’”

“You’re still over my head.”

Now the old academician smiled outright. “I’m afraid that’s all I have for you, Inspector.” He chuckled loudly. “Unless your murder victim happened to be impaled.”

Vernon nearly fell out of his chair. “Was that…in today’s paper? Nobody told me.”

Aured’s smile turned blank. “Well, no. I just made it up, based on the only inference I could assume. You don’t mean that your murder victim actually was impaled?”

Vernon felt as though someone had smacked him in the head. “We actually have two victims who were impaled, Doctor. How could you know that? I know for a fact that it’s not in the papers yet.”

“Oh, dear.” Aured’s eyes thinned in perplexion. “Just…from the words, Inspector. I was making a joke but now it seems…” He cleared his throat. “Wallachia is the province of Romania that was once overruled together with two more provinces, Moldava, and Transylvania, and in the mid-1400s, the warlord of these provinces was Vlad the Impaler—the historical Dracula.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

(I)

“Yeah, I’m sorry but this was last-minute,” Paul’s voice relayed over the phone. “Jess and I have to grab a commuter flight to Boston in two hours. Big accreditation conference in the morning, and there’s no way out of it. We won’t be back till tomorrow after six.”

“That’s okay,” Cristina told him. “If you have to go, you have to go.”

“It’s this license-renewal stuff that we have to have because of a lot of our clients. But it’s only one night.”

Cristina winced to herself when the implication finally set. I’ll have to spend the night here by myself, she thought. But just as quickly Paul added, “Britt’s coming over, though, so you won’t be by yourself.”

“Oh, okay. That’s great,” she said in a repressed relief.

“And, remember, we’re still on for tomorrow night with Jess and Britt, but don’t worry about anything. We’ll pick the carryout up on our way back from the airport. But grab some plum wine at the store, okay? And a couple six-packs of this beer called Tsing Tao. It’s really good with Chinese food.”

She didn’t balk at his mention of alcohol. He only gets over the top when he’s drinking liquor. And, besides, it was a very busy day he’d be winding down from. “Sure, honey. Have a safe trip, and call me when you get in.” Then she half-joked, “And don’t be letting Jess drag you to any of those strip-joint places. Promise?”

Paul chuckled over the line. “Of course, I promise. What do I need to go to a strip joint for when I’ve got a hot number like you waiting for me?”

Cristina blushed at the crude flattery. “Good answer, so the minute you get home, I’ll give you a lap dance you’ll never forget,” she assured, and then they exchanged their “I love you”s and hung up.

Cristina gritted her teeth when she flexed her shoulders back. Every muscle in her body continued to ache. She popped two Advils just as the knocks sounded at the door.

“Hi!” Britt greeted at the threshold. “Your overnight guest has arrived, and—” Thunder rumbled overhead. A light drizzle had just accelerated to heavy rain.

“Come in!” Cristina urged and stepped back. “I hadn’t even noticed that a storm was coming.” When Britt rushed in, Cristina peered down the street and watched late afternoon grow darker in fast increments. She began to close the door but paused when she thought she noticed a curtain flutter in a sidelight window across the street. The church, she thought. Then her eyes darted right; wet footsteps slapped down the sidewalk as two unkempt women ran, giggling, to escape the rain. Cristina watched after them but they disappeared quickly amid the torrential sheets. I wonder if it was those girls I saw. She came off her heels an inch when a crack of lightning roared. Cristina slammed the door and locked it.

“You don’t hear that a whole lot,” Britt called. “Jeez, like a bomb going off.” She’d set down her small overnight bag, plus a grocery bag, and was already in the bathroom drying her hair off.

Cristina meandered back. “No, you don’t.” She stopped at the spacious kitchen counter, looking at the bag. “I just don’t like the idea of Paul and Jess flying somewhere when there’s bad weather.”

“Little sister, a flight from here to Boston is so fast the stewardesses barely have time to get the complimentary drinks out before they’re landing. And if there’s lightning, they’ll delay the flight a little while till it’s gone. Relax. They’re big boys.”

Cristina nodded to herself, peeking into the grocery bag.

“And we’ll have fun!” Britt continued. “We can watch movies and get smashed!”

“I’m still a little wobbly from all that booze the other night with Bruno.” Cristina pulled some things out of the bag, including a bottle of teriyaki marinade. “What did you bring?”

“Dinner. You ever have skate filets? There’s delicious with teriyaki, taste just like sea scallops. Plus some fresh soybeans. The Japanese say that skate is a big aphrodisiac.” Britt laughed. “Too bad the boys are away, huh?”

“Great,” Cristina said. “You’re cooking this stuff, right? I can’t cook.”

“Leave it to me. You stick with weirdo art, I’ll do the cooking. And I can’t wait till tomorrow night. That’ll be even more fun.”

Cristina guessed she was right. The thunder rumbling kept her off-track. Britt bounced back out, having changed into shorts and a tank top. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m starving so let’s give this to-die-for kitchen of yours a workout. You do the soybeans, I’ll do the skate, okay?”

“Sure,” Cristina said. She cumbersomely began popping the small beans out of their pods while Britt flopped two big triangles of pale fish into a bowl and added the marinade.

Skate, Cristina thought with some doubt. I didn’t even know people ate it.

Britt grabbed a large fry pan off the rack. “So how have you been since the big Mold Mystery was solved?”

“Fine,” Cristina said but winced again at the nagging aches in her arms and back. “But a contractor came out and said the mold wasn’t the toxic kind.”

“You’re kidding me?” Britt shrugged. “Forget about it. Whether it is or isn’t, let Paul get the basement pressure-washed anyway. It can’t hurt. Besides, I’d trust the doctor’s opinion over some punk contractor.”

Good point, Cristina surmised. “I just basically took it easy today.”

“Good. Rich doll designers have that luxury.” Now Britt prepared some cooking oil and spices. “And speaking of luxury, I’m off till Monday so how about getting me a drink? A rum and Coke would do quite nicely, and do me a favor and pour yourself one.”

“How is me drinking doing you a favor?”

“Then I won’t feel like a lush!”

Cristina smiled and walked around to the bar. “I’m not in the mood myself. Maybe later.” At the bar, though, she noticed the basement door opened a crack. I’m sure that was closed earlier, she thought but stalled. At least I think it was. She closed it and got Britt’s drink.

“What’s on your mind?” Britt asked after a sip of her drink. “You don’t seem yourself.”

Snap out of it! I always do this! I bring other people down with my moods! “No, no,” she half-lied and got right back to the soybeans. “I’m fine, and I’m really excited about the new line.”

“The first four figures are in stores when?”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“That’s great. All the more reason to celebrate. Actually we’ll celebrate twice. Tonight and tomorrow night. I haven’t had Shun Lee carryout in ages. Tell Paul to be sure and get an order of the ostrich.”

“Ostrich?” Cristina exclaimed. “Skate, ostrich, cuttlefish—you’re really into some off-the-wall food.”

“Not just food,” she giggled but didn’t comment further.

As Cristina popped more soybeans out, she noticed that even her fingers were inexplicably sore. “I’ve had these outrageous muscle aches all day,” she said.

“Too much sex,” Britt laughed. “But I wish I had muscle aches for the same reason.”

Cristina frowned. “It could be, considering how much we’ve been doing lately. I feel like I’ve been digging ditches all day.”

“I love it! Sex equates to digging ditches!”

“That’s not what I meant. I just…ache.”

“Trust me. It’s from sex, and that’s a good thing.” Britt grinned wolfishly. “Come on. How often do you and Paul do it?”

A pang of embarrassment flared. “Two or three times a night, I guess. Sometimes more.”

Britt squealed.

“And I guess it’s more me than him,” Cristina admitted next. “I’m just…insatiable sometimes, and Paul’s always ready to accommodate me.”

“I’m so jealous, girl!” Britt had the pan heated up now, and was sliding in the skate. “Jess only gets that way on weekends so during the week I give him his treat at bedtime and just let him go to sleep. Then I let Mr. Rabbit out of his hutch.”

She’s something, Cristina thought and smiled.

The bizarre dinner turned out to be excellent, and over the course of the evening, Cristina did indeed begin to unwind. Paul called briefly to let her know they’d arrived safely at their hotel, after which Cristina felt awash with relief. At ten she fixed herself a drink while preparing Britt her fourth. They lolled on the wraparound couch watching old movies and found themselves mainly laughing at antiquated hair-and dress-styles.

Within an hour, Cristina was huddling close to Britt, as if for solace from the storm. Sheets and sheets of rain teemed against the house; that and the lightning flashes seemed hypnotic. All the while, the alcohol lulled her further. She nodded in and out, and at one point when she roused, she found Britt fast asleep beside her. The TV was still on but the sound turned down silent, the house still all around. The rain had stopped; lightning continued to flash in the windows but noiselessly now. We should go to bed now, Cristina thought groggily but before she could drag Britt or herself up, she fell fast asleep herself—

—only to be dropped right into the middle of her recurring dream and all its accoutrements…

Moisture trickles over the damp stone dappled by candlelight as she squirms in the clenching plea sure. She’s so familiar now with these cryptic surroundings that she feels at home in them while the warm hands and bodies incite her nerves. A haze sweeps across the scape of her vision, like looking through a veil, and she sees the other faces moving this way and that—faces that are smiling with the same lust that’s making her cringe on the warm stone floor. She feels blanketed by moving hands that explore every inch of her body. Two wet-lipped mouths descend through the dark haze to lick her neck, tongues circling in corkscrew shapes until they find their way to her nipples. Another mouth toys with her navel, then licks up and down her sweating belly, the wet tip inching ever so slowly down …

Now her lust is as much a haze as her vision. She knows that something else is occurring around her but the crush of sensations prevents her from concentrating. She’s seen all this before but now she senses she hasn’t seen it all. She tries to focus but then her attendants press down. The blanket of hands and mouths has now become a blanket of hot, squirming bodies, and the firelight changes into the furious illumined lines of black, green, and red shifting snakelike on the stone walls. She cranes her neck even as her phantom lovers take her, and she glimpses the stone slab beyond and the angled shadow that grows more resolute with her stare: the nun.

“Kanesae…,” the voice—a man’s voice—croaks, and that’s when she notices the man on the slab in heavy leather, boots, and chain mail. He’s quivering on the slab, a deep gash at the side of his throat. To his side sits the decanter you remember from before, and you sense that it’s full of blood but when you glance at the nun again, she shows you the fangs amid her grin and lowers the bowl she’s just filled. “Singele lui traieste,” she whispers, and then she grabs the man’s wrists and with little effort pulls him off the slab and begins to drag him up crude stone steps.

The colors churn. A dog barks. Her body goes tense and she releases one echoic shriek after the next as her climaxes break and her lovers titter and giggle and grin down at her, all showing needlelike fangs….

Cristina felt in a trance as cognizance returned. Her mouth pressed forward while smooth thighs vised her cheeks. What am I …Her thoughts began to trickle through. She felt fingers ranging through her hair. What am I doing? Another thought told her it must still be that nasty dream but eventually, as her lips continued in their task, she knew this was too real to be a dream.

I have no idea where I am or what I’m doing…

Her mouth inched back—

“Cristina!” a voice complained. The fingers in her hair urged her face back down. “You can’t just stop!”

But Cristina did stop. Only her confusion felt sharper than the sudden acknowledgment that something was wrong. She struggled back, rose up on her knees and looked down.

It was Britt who lay splayed and naked beneath her.

“Oh, my God! What—”

“What are you stopping for?” Britt snapped but then as she looked around herself, she appeared just as confused as Cristina. They were both naked, yes, and there could be no denying what they’d been doing. No dream. Reality. And they weren’t in the bedroom nor on the couch.

They were both on the brick floor of the basement.

Britt jumped up to her feet, covering herself. She was only partly visible in the feeble sunlight from the back windows. “Jesus Christ! How did we get down here? I thought we were in the bedroom!”

Cristina had no response. Her heart fluttered. “Let’s get out of here!” And she, too, jumped up. They both stampeded up the stairs.

Neither of them spoke as they clamored to pull on robes in the bedroom. Cristina looked appalled at the nightstand clock: it was 8:30 in the morning.

“All right,” Britt said after composing herself. “What just happened?”

Cristina sat on the bed, hands in her lap. She shook her head.

“What were we doing down there?” Britt asked. “I mean, besides getting it on?”

“I don’t remember going down there,” Cristina’s voice ground. “And I can’t imagine why we would anyway. And…I don’t remember…how the other stuff happened.”

“Well, I remember the ‘other stuff,’ Cristina.” Britt sat down next to her. She seemed more annoyed than bewildered now. “Let’s not hedge the issue. We were having sex, for God’s sake. And I don’t even remember who started it.”

Cristina gulped, memory struggling. “I guess…I did. And I’ve got no idea why.” She put her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, Britt! I don’t know what to say…”

Britt fumbled for a cigarette, squinting. “Don’t worry about it, Cristina. I guess it was just one of those things that happen sometimes. I guess we were drunk but…” Britt kept shaking her head. “But we weren’t that drunk, were we? I had three or four drinks but, Christ, that’s not enough to make me black out.”

“I only had one,” Cristina added. “I don’t think we were drunk. And there was no reason for us to go into the basement.”

Britt paused through more thoughts, spewing smoke. “This is really fucked-up.”

Cristina looked at her. “And I had the dream again, with—you know—the lesbian stuff like I told you the other day. Maybe when I woke up…I thought it was still the dream, so I…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Britt sputtered to herself. “Let’s try to take this apart. You had a blackout the other day, and woke up in the basement. And what happens to night? We both have a blackout—”

“In the basement.”

“Right, so we don’t have to be Sherlock Fucking Holmes to see the common denominator, huh? The damn basement.” Britt stood up abruptly but winced. “Damn. My arms and legs ache, and—” She looked at her hands. They had some small scuffs and cuts on them. Then she pointed to her knees, which were scuffed as well. “What the hell?”

Cristina showed similar scrapes on her own hands and knees.

“Come on!” Britt ordered and stomped out of the room.

At the basement door Cristina stalled. “Britt, wait. Maybe we shouldn’t go down there. Maybe it is toxic mold.”

Britt wouldn’t hear of it. “The doctor says it’s toxic, the contractor says it isn’t—Jesus, Cristina. I don’t give a shit. I’ve been in the basement before and nothing happened to me. We’re not hallucinating now, are we?”

“No, but—” Cristina looked at the door. “I don’t want to go.”

Britt grabbed her hand. “It’s just a basement. Come on!”

Cristina followed her down.

“What are all these damn boxes?” Britt complained. She began shoving some out of the way.

“Stuff the church left,” Cristina peeped.

Britt strode to the back and opened the windows. “Whether we remember it or not, we came down here for a reason.” She began visually combing the aisles between the clutter. Cristina stood aside, rubbing her arms. She didn’t have a clue what to do.

“Look at this,” Britt said.

Cristina came around to peer at that cement patch with the odd symbol imprinted in it but now the patch was webbed with cracks.

“It’s all broken up,” Britt said. “It wasn’t like that a few days ago.”

“I know. The contractor only mentioned one crack.”

Britt looked at her scuffed hands again. “It’s not too hard to put two and two together, little sister. We did this.”

“But with what? We don’t have any tools to break cement.”

Britt pushed two stacks of boxes apart. She pointed. “Oh, yeah?”

In the gap lay two small sledgehammers and some chisels.

Britt gave a sarcastic chuckle. “Yeah, I guess we must’ve been drunk last night.”

Cristina contemplated the remark but just couldn’t believe it. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Neither does us coming down here in the middle of a friggin’ thunderstorm to get it on, but we did anyway. Something must’ve prompted us to do this, and if we were drunk it was probably pretty stupid. Shit, we probably thought there was treasure buried under there or something.”

Cristina frowned. “Britt, I really don’t think we were that—”

“It doesn’t matter.” Britt began to think logically. “We did it for a reason but as we can both see, we didn’t finish the job. Maybe we’ll remember the reason if we do finish the job.”

“Britt, that’s absurd. You don’t mean—”

Britt grabbed Cristina’s hand again, urged her toward the steps. “Come on. We have to get dressed and go.”

“Go where?”

“To the nearest store that sells work gloves and shovels,” Britt told her.

(II)

What a sucker I am, George Gemser berated himself. I always fall for it, don’t I? He nearly collapsed when he withdrew and let Laura unwrap her coltish legs from around his back. She’ll start shitting on me all over again now. Guaranteed. From where Laura lay on the couch, she grinned up like a cat that had just fed, her pants off, her security blouse open.

“Now that’s how I like to end a twelve-hour shift,” she said, and she just lay there, not moving—deliberately, Gemser felt sure—just to let the image of her svelte body dig deeper into his brain.

“And that’s how I like to start them…” He got up and began to get dressed, feigning so much. Act like it’s no big deal, just another notch on the gun, he pleaded with himself, but he knew he was failing. For George Gemser, this girl was a big deal, even after all the smugness and cold shoulders, after all the hard-to-get cat-and-mouse games she liked to play—even after all the times she’d have sex with him one day and stand him up the next. He knew she lived on those head games, but Gemser also knew that he secretly lived for her. Every time he tried to break it off and retain some self-respect, she was right back in his face with that unfathomable body and Mona Lisa smile. Hauls my ashes and thinks she’s got me wrapped around her finger again. And she’s right, he thought.

Again, he pleaded with himself. Don’t be a wuss. Be a man. He strapped on his belt. “I gotta clock in and get on my rounds. See ya.”

“See ya?” she questioned and was on her feet in a blink. “Oh, so you’re gonna be Mr. Asshole now?”

He looked back at her. My God, I love you, you-you-you bitch. “Ain’t no big deal, right? Sport-fucking? You’re the one who wants it that way.”

She remained pants-less, blouse still open to reveal pert lemon-sized breasts and stomach as flat as the floor. “How do you know I don’t want it the other way?”

George’s resolve was bending. “Hey, I tried it the other way, remember, and got shit on.”

She traipsed over on the balls of her feet, to maximize the tone of her legs. She smacked a crude, wet kiss and pressed against him. “Forget about anything that happened in the past. Things change, you know? Maybe I have, too.”

George was wilting. He could melt in her arms right like this. The heat from her perfect body seeped right through his uniform to his heart. Then she broke away, and began to get dressed.

“You want to know something, Gemser?” she asked in a neutral voice. “And I don’t even care if you believe it.”

“What?”

“The only guy in the world I want to date, and the only guy in the world I want to fuck…is you.” She collected her things and shrugged. “Don’t believe me? Then there’s nothing I can do about it. I guess if you call me, then I’ll know it’s still on with us, and if you don’t…”

All that shining, long black hair billowed when she walked out the door of the old employees’ lounge.

Gemser stood there, shaking. She’s leading you on again! Don’t believe her! And DON’T run after her like a pussy!

Gemser blinked…and ran after her.

“Hey! I’ll call you!”

She paused at the glass front doors. Turned. Smiled. “That’ll make me very happy…”

Gemser gulped.

“Have a good shift,” she said, and pushed open the doors. “Oh, and see if you can find the keys to that door behind the boxes. It’s in my log. The blueprints say it’s an inactive boiler room but it’s not on the site map.”

“Uh—yeah, I will—”

Then she was gone.

Jesus, please us, he thought.

The smell of her hair and perfume was all over him as he made his first round of the building. It proved a maddening distraction. Gemser knew she’d set the hook again. Or maybe—maybe—she’s for real now …He punched his clock in every empty room, checked every window and every door, thinking about her every step of the way. He wouldn’t see her again for twelve more hours, and knowing this would make the shift seem twice as long. But after tomorrow they both had two days off in a row. Then we’ll be able to go on a real date—like regular people, he realized, suddenly giddy.

But he’d caught the entry on her log sheet, about the door not on the site map. A door no one had ever noticed, not even the developers who’d bought the place. They’d never noticed it in the lounge due to the boxes. Gemser went back in and looked at it. Steel frame, metal door face, but what looked like an older lock. An old disk tumbler, he recognized. Gemser knew locks; ten years in private security had taught him much. I’ll bet that lock’s been on there for forty years. And I’ll bet I could open it in forty seconds…Gemser reached in his pocket, fingered his set of HPC lock picks, then withdrew his hand. Better not. What do I care? It’s in the log. If the boss wants to see what’s behind it, he can get the keys from the property owner. Why risk getting in hot water when he didn’t have to?

Still, he thought he better check for an alternate entry. Gemser didn’t like assuming security responsibilities while not having access to every door. Could be paint back there, or faulty wiring. A firetrap. He made some notes about it in his own shift log, then made a foot patrol outside.

He cut through the side alley and walked down. The alley stood relatively clean—a surprise for this city. Several old garbage cans lined part of the building’s back wall. The old loading dock’s bay door was chained and locked shut, and when he checked it for tampering he found no signs. An exit door which they did have keys to remained secure as well. But there was nothing else.

At the end of the building, he thought he heard…

What the hell’s that?

He followed his ear, noticing the muffled yet distinct sound of metal clinking metal, but…

His ear led on, past the actual boundary of the Banana Republic building. Now he was standing behind the building next to it, like an old brownstone but without the same style. Mark Funari, their boss, had told them the place used to be an annex house for the church across the street, but now some people lived in it. The place obviously had a basement because as he walked farther he saw several street-level windows complete with decorative security bars. Now the clinking sound was louder. The owners must have some construction going on in the basement, that’s all, he realized. Then he left the alley.

Back inside, he returned to the employees’ lounge and kicked back on the couch. The Detex clock told him he had thirty more minutes before his next round, and in spite of his post-lovemaking excitement he found his eyelids drooping. Laura, he thought in a semi-dream, and the tighter he closed his eyes the more vividly he saw her: the sweep of shining black hair, the dark eyes aglitter, the seductive slopes of her body. The dream beckoned him deeper, and here they were again, naked and pressed together, ravening each other’s senses. “Suck these now,” she panted, sliding upward to let her breasts blare in his face. Her nipples felt like hot coins beneath Gemser’s tongue, which he was soon sucking in adoration. They swelled in his mouth. Then he licked her cleavage and could feel the hot blood vessels in each breast beating as the rest of her lissome body squirmed against him. Gemser’s eyes bulged in the crush of sensations.

Now it was her turn; her mouth trailed all the way down his chest and stomach, and when it drifted even lower, he groaned and turned his head aside. It was a daydream, yes, a fantasy—this he knew, so why would this ecstatic muse place him in such an odd location?

A dank room of stone bricks that looked like a dungeon.

Gemser didn’t care; it wasn’t real, it only felt real. Were those figures he spotted half-formed in the shadows? One of them a nun? He heard water trickling, and ticking as of a dog’s nails pacing the stone-block floor…

Laura’s mouth worked fervently, causing Gemser’s body to tense as the sensations continued to point and encroach his groin. He was about to—

“Not just yet,” she giggled and slid back up to him. “We’ve got forever.”

Gemser didn’t get it, and he didn’t understand why the muse heightened its weirdness by showing him the other end of the dripping room and an elevated stone slab.

Was there blood on the slab?

Gemser blinked. This is just a dream, but when he tried to open his eyes, he couldn’t. He could only continue to see behind them as Laura angled up with lust in her eyes and drool on her lips, and then her mouth opened wide to show glistening fangs, which tore into his throat and began to suck—

Holy shit! Gemser jerked himself back to full wakefulness, caught his breath, then laughed. I guess my subconscious doesn’t like Laura, he reckoned. The fantasy had taken its own course to merge her voluptuousness with a symbol of predation.

Get off your ass, he commanded himself and got up. With my luck, Funari would waltz in here and fire me for loafing. Still, the edges of the daydream nipped at him. He slung the Detex clock back over his shoulder but before he could exit the lounge he heard:

scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch

The sound came so faintly he couldn’t even be sure he’d heard it. Scratching or something. Very slowly, he looked to the other door.

Rats. I’ll bet that’s what it is. But before he put it on his log sheet he wanted to be absolutely sure. He slipped out his lock picks, isolated a “double-ball” as well as the tiny tension wrench. He got to work.

All he had to do was tease the pick along the top, then the bottom of the keyway while exerting the most minimal rightward pressure against the wrench, and—

click.

—the cylinder turned.

Gemser opened the door to almost be shoved backward by the stench of urine, garbage, and something he couldn’t really have known was decomposing human flesh. The scritching sound stopped; then he swore he heard someone say, “It’s the guard.”

Gemser got past the gagging and commanded in a stout voice, “Who’s in there? I’m calling the cops. This is private property.” Probably a bunch of bums living in there all this time and no one knew, he realized, sliding out his aluminum flashlight and stepping into the doorway.

A woman’s voice said the strangest word: “Salut…” And just as Gemser proceeded and before he could turn his flashlight on, many hands grabbed him and hauled him into the darkness. Then the door slammed shut.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

(I)

“Nothin’ like good old Baston to wear a lawyer out,” Jess commented as he parked the car, but Paul didn’t hear him; he was looking up at the house with a smile in his eye. I’ve only been away one night but I miss her so much it’s like a year.

Jess had an idea by looking at his friend. “Come on, lover boy. Let’s go in. The weekend has officially begun. I need to eat, drink, and get laid.”

“I second that.” Paul snapped out of it. “Grab the last bag.”

The smell of all that gourmet Chinese food drove them nuts on the drive back. They carried three big carryout bags toward the front steps. Paul was about to go up when—

“Excuse me. Would one of you be Mr. Nasher?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Paul said. It was the doorman from the condo building next door. He looked kind of slinky and stooped over in the stock getup.

“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, sir, but the management of my building asked me to speak with you.”

Paul looked puzzled at the tall condo building, then back to the doorman. “Is there a problem?”

“Oh, just a tiny one. Some of our residents have complained about the noise that seems to be coming from your basement.”

“Noise?” Paul frowned. “We had a contractor in there, I think, but just for an appraisal. I can’t imagine what noise you mean.”

“Perhaps it’s an exaggeration then, sir, but I was asked to mention it. You see, many of our residents are retired and getting on in years. They go to bed early. Quite a few on the first floor claim to hear noises like hammering in the wee hours—er, more of a clinking sound.”

“A clinking sound?”

“Yes, sir, over the past several nights, not to mention for an hour or so this afternoon. The sound was described by residents as something like hammers to chisels. I knocked on your front door earlier but there was no answer and, I’m very sorry to trouble you with this. But if you could look into it?”

“I, uh, I will,” Paul faltered.

“Good day to you, sir.”

The doorman returned to his post.

“Clinking sound? What the hell was that all about?” Jess asked, one arm wrapped around a carryout bag.

“I don’t know and I don’t care.” Paul mounted the steps. “All I want to do now is scarf down my char-grilled lemongrass pheasant satay and ball Cristina’s brains out…and not necessarily in that order.”

“You dog, you!”

Paul paused to grin at the door. “I’m telling you, man. Cristina’s never been so good. She makes me feel twenty again. All of a sudden she just so, so, so…”

“Horny as a mutt in heat?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of voracious but, yeah, that’ll do.”

“Come on.”

“We’re here!” Paul announced when he and Jess barged through the front door. They stalked to the kitchen to set the bags down.

“Damn, that smells good,” Jess remarked, putting his face to a bag. “Hey, where are the girls?”

“Here we are,” Britt said. They must’ve been in the bedroom. She and Cristina simultaneously embraced their men. “Oh, baby, I really missed you,” Paul said, breathing in the scent of Cristina’s hair.

She gave him a half-lewd kiss. “How was your trip?”

“A pain in the ass but now it’s over.”

“Amen to that,” Jess said, arm around Britt.

Cristina got four beers from the fridge. “Here’s the Chinese beer you wanted.”

“We’re ready,” Jess said.

Britt looked in the bags. “I hope you got the Hunan-style ostrich steak.”

“Two orders,” Paul said. “Plus pheasant satay, crab ran-goon made with Cousie crab, prawns in XO sauce, drunken chicken—oh—and sweetbreads with black mushroom.”

“What exactly are sweetbreads?” Cristina asked.

“I don’t know, lamb brains or something. Thymus glands.”

“I know what I won’t be eating…”

They all grabbed a beer, but Paul and Jess looked at each other as if by premonition. Something didn’t seem quite right. The girls, he thought. They both looked wearied in some way, their blouses smudged, their jeans dusty. It was as though they were trying to smile to cover up their fatigue.

“Everything all right?” Paul asked.

“Yeah, you girls look like you’ve been hanging Sheetrock,” Jess said, halfway done with his beer already.

Now it was Cristina and Britt who traded glances. But neither spoke.

“Come on. What’s up?” Paul prodded, and then the thought struck him. “You girls weren’t doing anything in the basement, were you?”

Britt’s eyes widened. “Why…do you ask?”

Paul was just shy of getting ticked. “The doorman at the place next to us said some of the old folks were complaining about noises coming from the house.” He eyed Cristina in particular. “From the basement. But how could that be? The basement’s off-limits.”

“The funky mold,” Jess added.

“Well,” Cristina began but then faltered and looked to Britt.

“All right, we were in the basement,” Britt spoke up.

Paul’s anger flared. “Britt, you were here when the doctor said—”

“Forget about what the doctor said,” she came back. “He was wrong. The contractor told Cristina the mold was typical and harmless. It’s not important. And we were down there all day and we didn’t get sick, we didn’t hallucinate.”

“We found something down there, Paul,” Cristina said.

“Look, I’m totally confused now—” Paul shook his head, aggravated. “What are you talking about? You found something?”

“Let’s show them,” Britt said, and then she and Cristina headed for the basement steps.

“Women are kooky,” Jess said.

They followed them down.

Paul didn’t like it even before he hit the steps. “I don’t know about this,” he muttered.

“Yeah,” Jess added. “I think we should do what the doc said and stay out of here until it’s clean.”

Britt frowned over her shoulder. “Oh, Jess, forget about the fucking mold! You’ve got to see this.”

A lot of the boxes had now been stacked aside, widening the aisle. A few more yards down, Paul spied some shovels, a small sledgehammer and a chisel.

“I thought the freaky doorman was high,” Jess said. “Guess that explains the clinking sound.”

When Paul saw most of the cement patchwork broken up and piled to the side he almost had a fit. “Cristina! Why the hell would you do this?” There was also some dirt piled to the side. “You’ve been digging? For what?”

“I—I wasn’t sure,” Cristina said. “But the patch was already cracked.”

“What?”

“Paul, calm down,” Britt said. “Just…look.” And then she pointed down.

After they’d broken out the cement, they’d dug several feet down. “We couldn’t get it out,” Britt told them.

Cristina looked down, too. “It’s too heavy.”

“So we figured you two he-men could lift it out of there.”

In the hole sat a single barrel of some sort that seemed to be covered in rust.

“What is that? A metal drum?” Paul asked and got down on his knees.

Jess knelt as well. “Maybe it’s a keg of wine, like, three hundred years old or something.”

“Or maybe buried treasure,” Paul fantasized.

Britt tapped her foot impatiently. “We won’t know what it is unless you guys can get it out.”

The men hesitated. Then they shrugged and got to work.

“Lever it up,” Paul said, his feet in the hole and pulling the strange drum backward. Jess got the shovel’s edge beneath the cannister’s base. Paul then pulled it over on its side with a huff.

“Jesus, the damn thing’s heavier than a floor safe…”

Jess lifted up on the rim, then shot a frown at Britt. “We’re lawyers, not forklifts!”

“Quit whining,” Britt egged on, laughing. “Would you rather Cristina and I mess up our beautiful nails?”

Paul and Jess failed at the first two attempts to lift the small barrel, but on the third—

“Up, up!” Paul grunted.

“Fuckin’-A!”

“Be careful,” Cristina fretted.

They hoisted it out on its side, then after a few more grunts got it set upright.

“Now what?” Jess asked, sitting exhausted against some boxes. “I’ll bet that thing’s made of cast iron.”

“And look at the lid,” Paul observed. “It’s crimped under the lip.”

“Try this,” Cristina said, offering the hammer and chisel.

Paul got to work, gradually hammering, then bending the iron lip up around the rim. The noise was nerve-racking. “I think I’m getting it…” Eventually—

“Bingo,” Britt said.

When Paul pried the lid open, Jess lifted it away and—

clang!

—heaved it aside.

Britt dropped to her knees and shouldered between the two men, reaching in. The smell that eddied up was nothing unpleasant but surely a fetor that suggested antiquity: old metal, old wood, and the scent of fabric that should be rotting but for some reason wasn’t. Paul froze, and Cristina and Jess stared when Britt lifted some unknown object swathed in old, burlaplike cloth.

“Well, I can tell already it’s not jewels or gold coins,” she said, setting it on the floor. She began to carefully unwrap the cloth, then gagged.

Everyone else gagged as well.

“That’s just great!” Jess said, repelled.

Paul muttered, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Within the emaciated cloth lay a yellowed animal’s skull.

“It looks like a dog’s skull,” Cristina said, a hand to her stomach.

“What the fuck is a dog skull doing buried in our basement?” Paul remarked.

“But there’s something else.” And Britt was reaching in again, lifting out another object padded by the ancient, crumbling fabric. “It feels like some sort of a—”

What she held up was a crude bowl—about the size of a cereal bowl—that seemed to be made of fired clay. A disturbed look touched her face even before she turned it around.

“What’s that there on the side?” Jess asked with some excitement.

“Maybe they are jewels,” Paul hoped.

Britt said nothing when she showed the feature to Cristina, who croaked, “Oh, my God,” and then fainted immediately.

Into the front of the bowl had been set three circular polished stones: one black, one green, and one red.

(II)

“O quam magnificum, o domnul …”

Father Rollin sat dejected in his heavily curtained study, nervously thumbing his pendant under which had been etched the same words he’d just muttered to himself. And then he looked at his ring, and saw the same words etched again. Paul Nasher and the other man had returned a while earlier, Rollin had seen through his window. With his binoculars, then, he watched the four of them mingle in the kitchen for a few moments; then they disappeared.

Where are they? the priest wondered, his stomach strangely tight. They hadn’t gone upstairs because he’d kept the glasses trained regularly on the steps.

Why do I have this feeling they’re in the basement?

The light was draining out of late afternoon. Rollin couldn’t guess where his surveillance might be best posted tonight: here, or his room at the Ketchum. He dreaded returning to the hotel to night, for the bawdy convention was going strong. Just don’t have it in me tonight. But he couldn’t believe what he was doing next: leaving his church on the pretense of going for a walk.

A walk around the alley.

Those homeless girls kept weighing on his mind. They’re all prostitutes, or were in their better days, he felt sure. And Canessa herself was a prostitute. Was he seeing too much into it?

He didn’t know. Sometimes he felt like he didn’t know anything.

How hackneyed. He was whistling as he walked down Dessorio Avenue—Bach’s Passacaglia. of all things—to seem inconspicuous. An old man walking his dog nodded to him; then a woman in a business dress walked briskly by without even noticing. I’m invisible to everyone but the old, he joked, but liked the idea. I wish I could BE invisible, so I could walk right into the annex house and see what they’re up to.

Ludicrous.

The old Banana Republic stood dark, which was strange for he knew there were guards there round the clock. Just before he cut into the alley, a patter of footfalls startled him. Had he heard giggling, too? He jerked around and glared back down the street but there was nothing.

A dark alley is no place for a priest at sundown, he caught himself worrying, yet he felt fairly sure that God would protect him from muggers. Fairly sure. Do I even deserve his protection? Perhaps not. Now he felt inane. He turned left down the alley, pretending to meander, until he was directly behind his old annex house. One high sodium lamp provided the only useful illumination. Don’t let your shadow be seen, he warned himself. Then he’d really have some explaining to do. If they ARE in the basement, they might see me …

He hunkered down quickly and peered in the streetlevel windows.

Did he hear voices? Just my imagination? he wondered, but for a moment he thought he’d heard agitated conversation. Then: No, he thought. The basement stood completely lightless, all that looked back at him were solid panes of black.

Rollin walked back toward the alley exit in long strides, and when he passed the Banana Republic he shivered for no apparent reason.

Back at the church, he found the door unlocked. I couldn’t possibly have, he felt sure. Nevertheless, it was. “Absentmindedness is a symptom of men my age,” he muttered next. He’d done it before, and he always reasoned that there was little to steal in a barely used church. He pushed into the murky nave entrance and turned on a few dim lights, and then locked the doors.

I don’t know what I’m going to do now but of course…I NEVER know what I’m going to do.

He had no appetite so he skipped making himself dinner, and instead elected to go back upstairs to watch some more with his field glasses. Now the front study’s murk was double what it had been before he left; he left the door open but didn’t turn on a light. Only a slant of illumination leaked in from one of the few lights in the long hall. He approached his chair and the slight part in the drapes, was about to pick up the binoculars again when—

His heart surged at a pattering of sound.

Footsteps in the hall?

Damn it. Someone DID come in. “Who’s there? There’s nothing to steal so you may as well just be on your way.”

His call was only answered by what he thought must be giggling, yet he didn’t step forward nor even turn on the light. Instead, he stood frozen, staring.

The shadow of a figure now faced him from just aside the door.

Rollin gulped.

“Who are you?”

The reply seemed to build first with a sound like blowing leaves. “You already know,” came the feminine words, lilting and accented. “You’ve been awaiting me for some time, as have your pitiful ancestors—traitors to your country’s true heart.”

Rollin couldn’t have moved even if at gunpoint. His teeth actually chattered but he managed to command: “Get out! This is hallowed ground!”

A raspy chuckle flitted about every corner of the room. “Servitor, how dull, this God of yours. As pitiful as your corroded spirit.”

“You can’t be here! This is a sanctified place, a house of God!”

More rustling, the sound like leaves, yet the angled figure didn’t budge. “Power is like faith, servitor. It fades away. It grows palsied and it dies. Like virility, and like empires.”

Rollin’s eyes couldn’t blink.

“Like you…”

The priest tore away from his stance and turned on the nearest lamp. The shadow was gone. Perhaps it had never been there at all, for now he saw that it may have merely been a queer shadow cast by the coat stand.

Christ, give me strength …

From another room, something of glass fell and broke. Rollin trotted down the hall, switching on lights as he went. His heart chugged in his old chest, then surged again and he actually shrieked.

Just as he prepared to enter his bedroom, the door burst open and out ran two dirty women with disheveled hair. A stream of giggles poured from their mouths. Rollin’s initial jolt backed him against the paneled wall and as the second interloper passed, she brazenly grabbed his crotch and squeezed. As she headed toward the stairs, the priest noticed that she was nude from the waist down, and carrying a pair of dirty jeans with her. She wore a T-shirt that read THE DAMNED, and the other one had pink sweatpants on. Their bare feet thunked down the stairs with more giggles.

Rollin knew he was too old and heart-diseased to give chase. Feebly, he shouted, “You little buggers! I’ll have the police after you!” But the warning was only answered by more mocking laughter.

One of the girls’ voices echoed from downstairs, “Sleep good in your bed to night, asshole!”

Rollin caught his breath and entered the bedroom. What had fallen was a framed picture of the Nave of Snagov Monastery, in southern Romania. Glass glittered on the old carpet like wet rock salt. He groaned when he noticed the wavy streaks of black, green, and red besmirching the white walls. His cross above the bed had been taken down and placed on his pillow. “Goddamn them,” he profaned when he picked it up.

It was wet, and the pillow and sheets were drenched. The odor he was only noticing now told him it was urine.

He heard a door slam deep downstairs, which he knew must be the back kitchen door. Those homeless bitches are long gone now, more unpriestly profanation occurred to him. He’d never felt so useless, so impotent.

He swore no further once down in the chancel. What could I expect? Blank-faced, he discovered similar desecration. The same scrawls of magic marker streaked the white altar linens. These weedy vagabonds had brought stout bladders, for another great wash of urine tinted not only the linens but the front carpet. The Communion decanter had been gulped dry, the packets of the Host torn open, their contents wolfed down. Evidently one of the wretches had forced herself to vomit, for that was what now filled the Holy Chalice.

Rollin calmly dragged the fouled linens off the altar and carried them to the laundry room.

(III)

“It’s impossible,” Cristina droned after having come to on the couch. Her eyes held wide on the ceiling.

“Honey, it’s a coincidence,” Paul countered. “Sure, a little weird, but it’s still coincidence. You’re overreacting again, right, Britt?”

They all sat close around the couch, save for Britt, who stood, smoking. Was she nervous? “Yes, it’s—”

“Bullshit, Britt!” Cristina railed. “How can it be coincidence?”

Jess held the odd three-gemmed bowl in one hand, and Cristina’s Noxious Nun doll up in the other. “That is pretty wild, the gems, I mean. Even the order of the colors are the same.”

“Yeah, but that’s the only thing,” Britt insisted. “There’s a logical explanation, Cristina—we’re just not seeing it yet. You’re freaked out because you’ve been dreaming about a nun holding a three-gemmed bowl, and today that’s what we find buried in the basement.”

“And you think that’s coincidence?” Cristina said.

“Yes. The two bowls don’t even look alike; in fact that thing from the basement doesn’t even look like a bowl, does it? It’s kind of warped.” She took it from Jess and placed it on the coffee table, rim-side down. “It’s probably some kind of old centerpiece. It’s not a bowl.”

“What difference does it make!” Cristina almost yelled.

Paul put his arm around her. “Calm down, honey. Britt’s right. There’s a logical explanation. Do you really believe you’re psychic? That’s the only other explanation.”

Cristina sighed, sitting back. “I don’t know. I just can’t believe I’m the only one who thinks this is really nutty.”

Paul spoke softly. “Honey, didn’t you say that you’ve talked to the priest several times, the guy from across the street?”

Cristina looked oddly at him. “Yes. Twice. Yesterday I invited him in for coffee. What’s that got to do with it?”

Paul swept a quick glance to the others. “He used to look after this house; the church has owned it for decades.”

“What are you getting at?”

Britt stepped closer. “Isn’t it possible that the priest told you that thing was buried in the basement? And maybe even described the color of the stones set in it?”

Cristina tensed again. “No, it’s not possible, Britt, and you know that. I’ve been dreaming about that bowl for a long time, and I didn’t meet the priest till several days ago.”

“Sure, honey,” Paul kept on, “but maybe you met him that first day I brought you by the house right after I bought it. Maybe you met him back then…and maybe he told you about that bowl. Back then.”

Now Cristina looked infuriated. “What? So I’m lying? I’m making it up to be dramatic?”

Paul hugged her and chuckled. “No, no, that’s not what I’m saying at all. But, look, your memory’s not exactly the greatest—”

“And you are a little absentminded at times,” Britt added.

“—and you have had a blackout, right?”

Paul continued, “So I’m just suggesting that maybe it was something like that. The priest told you about the bowl and you simply don’t remember. I forget stuff all the time, we all do.”

“Yeah,” Jess piped in, “like last month when I worked my ass off on the titles for the Manera deal and you forgot to overnight them.”

“And Jess forgets to put the toilet seat down every damn day,” Britt said.

Paul nodded through a smile. “We all forget stuff, honey, and I’m sure that’s what happened here. You’re getting way, way too worked up over this.”

Cristina slouched against him. “I guess you’re right.”

“Objectively speaking, what happened? We found this funky thing in the basement and it happens to look a little bit like the bowl your nun doll is holding. Big deal.”

Now it was Jess’s turn to add some levity. “And, Cristina? If you really are psychic…the lotto’s up to twenty-two million, so if there are any numbers floating around your head, how about laying them on us?”

Even Cristina smiled, now that the incident had softened. “All right, so I’m a nut job.” She rose from the couch. “Let me heat up the Chinese food.”

“I’m dying for some of the Hunan-style ostrich steak.” Britt went to the kitchen with her. “Let’s get this party started.” Paul and Jess followed them, to get more beers.

“But what do you think that thing really is?” Britt posed.

“Like you said, probably just some old church relic, a centerpiece of some kind, and the dog skull? Probably some bishop’s pet from a hundred years ago,” Paul answered.

Cristina withdrew some plates from the cupboard. “What ever it is, I guess it’s not really even ours. We should give it back to the priest.”

Paul and Jess looked at each other, brows raised.

“There they go doing their lawyer look again.” Britt asked, “It must still belong to the church, right?”

“Not in this state,” Jess said. “It’s considered abandoned property.”

“Anything the church left in the house,” Paul added, “whether by accident or intentionally, becomes the property of the buyer after thirty days.”

Jess swigged his beer. “And I’m sure we’re all wondering…what are those stones? Could be a black diamond, an emerald, and a ruby.”

“Can’t hurt to get it appraised,” Britt said.

“Ann, our secretary, sometimes dates a woman who’s a jewelry importer,” Jess said. “I have to go into the office for a few hours in the morning, and Ann’ll be there. I’ll show it to her.”

“She dates a woman?” Britt asked.

“Women,” Paul corrected, “and, yeah, I do remember her saying that. Maybe she can get it appraised for us. Wouldn’t it be funny if those stones turned out to be worth a lot of money?”

“It wouldn’t be funny to the monsignor!” Jess railed. “Ouch! Ripped off again!”

He and Paul laughed hard.

The previous mishap forgotten now, the four of them resumed their get-together, though none of them were aware that the basement door stood ajar, and if any of them had looked at that precise moment, they would’ve seen an ear in the gap…

All but Cristina had imbibed enough to get tipsy, and the Chinese food, even reheated via microwave, had been delicious. When they all turned in at about one a. m., the entire situation made Cristina think of her college dorm days—or nights, actually—when the muffled sounds of sexual frolic could be heard through the walls. She and Paul got started even before the bedroom door could be closed, though it was more Cristina’s initiation than his. Her spontaneous urges overwhelmed her, as it had been so much of late. I just can’t help it, she thought, kissing him and feeling his body through his clothes at the same time. Paul was hard in his pants at once, which delighted her; even half-drunk, it seemed, she could always rouse him. Still fully clothed, she sat him down in the chair and whispered, “That’s right, I promised you a lap dance.” And that’s what she presumed to do even though she wasn’t really sure what that was. First she straddled him, and didn’t even remove her blouse when she braced his face in her cleavage, all the while her jeaned hips squirming over his. She could feel him through the denim, his flesh beating. He kept trying to open her blouse, disrobe himself and her, but she wouldn’t let him yet. She wanted him titillated first. She held his head and urged him to suck her unbra’d nipples through her blouse, a notion that seemed kinky in some way, a forced restraint that would only make him crave her body more. “Like that, like that,” she breathed as he sucked wet circles into her blouse. Her fingers fiddled up his crotch but only in snatches. The teasing made him hold her tighter, suck her nipples harder as she let herself, too, be titillated but not relieved.

“Baby, I can’t stand it anymore,” he panted, covered in sweat. He suddenly tore her blouse open and began to crudely lick the orbs of her breasts. “You’re teasing the hell out of me to night.”

She let but one finger dawdle at his groin. “If you want me…you have to take me.” And with that he rose, hoisted her over his shoulder, and turned to the luxuriant black-sheeted bed. She squealed like a child on a carnival ride when he flung her on the mattress.

She didn’t help him; she simply lay there with the catlike grin. Evidently, Britt and Jess were in their own throes of plea sure, for Cristina could easily hear them through the walls, and for some reason that only stoked her desires further. Paul roughly rolled her jeans off her legs, then one fist yanked off her pan ties to leave them dangling off a foot. The other foot teased his crotch to deliberately interfere with his hasty effort to unbuckle his belt but when his pants were finally down, he shoved her knees to her shoulders and lay right into her.

Cristina had asked to be taken, and that’s what she next received, waves of plea sure spiraling upward with each primitive thrust. The bedposts knocked against the high-priced wallpaper, but she didn’t care. All Cristina cared about was that he lasted long enough to satisfy her own lust.

He throttled her more, as Cristina’s pants turned to something close to shrieks, and she let every lewd image spill into her head. Both were racked by climaxes nearly at the same time, and then he collapsed on her as the wet heat he’d put inside her began to trickle. It just keeps getting better, she thought. Her fingers toyed in his hair. Soon he fell asleep, so she slipped out from under him and turned off the light.

She snuck out of the room to the dark kitchen, wearing nothing more than the ripped blouse, and then opened the fridge.

“Raiding the leftovers, huh?” Britt surprised her from behind. She came through the darkened kitchen in just bra and pan ties. “You read my mind. Any of the ostrich left?”

“I think so.” Cristina found the proper white carryout box and passed it to her.

Britt sniffed the aromas from the box. “Just the way this stuff smells drives me nuts. I love classy Asian cuisine.”

“Me, too. This is just what I need after…”

Britt grinned in the white refrigerator light. “After mongo sex? Oh, we heard you in there.”

Cristina blushed. “Yeah, well you and Jess weren’t exactly low-key either.”

“It was great,” she said with a mouthful of ostrich. “He definitely got the job done.”

Cristina’s eyes drifted to Britt’s bare stomach and legs but she dragged them off after a moment. Britt obviously noticed but didn’t say anything. Suddenly Cristina broke away and loped for the living room. “I want to look at it again…”

“Look at what?” Britt came after here.

“You know. The thing. The bowl.”

“Centerpiece,” Britt said. “Bowls aren’t lopsided, little sister, but—”

At once Cristina was frantic. The coffee table was empty save for several beer bottles. “Britt! It’s gone! I know I left it here!”

“Calm down, you nut!” Britt almost raised her voice. “Jesus, you’re always such a live wire!”

“It’s gone!”

Britt sighed. “Jess put it in the trunk so he doesn’t forget it tomorrow. You heard him, he has to go to the office for a little while.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Cristina slumped. Overreacting again. “So the secretary can show it to her jeweler friend.”

“You’re always on pins and needles, Cristina.” She padded back to the kitchen for more tidbits. “You’d think that after getting laid, you’d have simmered down.”

She’s right…as always. Again she caught her gaze lingering over Britt’s well-toned body. “But it is weird, isn’t it? Sure, maybe I did meet the priest briefly months ago, but why would I dream about that bowl to the extent that I’d incorporate it into my next figurine?”

“Because it’s all subconscious imagery,” Britt nearly snapped. She was obviously getting tired of her foster sister’s obsessions. “Everybody has fucked-up dreams.”

“And the dog skull? Come on. Lately there’s been a dog in the nightmare.”

“So what! Stop with all this! You’re going to drive everybody nuts. A fucking animal skull in a hole in the ground. Who knows why it’s there and who cares?” Britt looked at Cristina with some scrutiny. “You know, a little Prozac would do you a world of good. Stop obsessing.”

Cristina gave a sheepish nod. “And what was the design? On the cement patch? What do you think that is?”

“How the fuck do I know?” Britt flared.

“Maybe I should ask the priest.”

“Well then do that. Nobody gives a shit, Cristina. It’s just some stamp in the cement with some Latin on it. It’s some church seal.”

“Well…” Cristina fidgeted. Why can’t I let it go? “Isn’t there something that neither of us told Paul and Jess?”

Britt’s eyes narrowed as she tried to rein her anger. She whispered, “What, that we both got a wild hair last night and made out? We can never tell them that. Are you crazy?”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant last night. It was you and I who broke that cement up, and we didn’t even remember it. I’m not the only one who had a blackout. You did, too. Last night.”

Britt grabbed her shoulder and shot a fierce whisper in her ear. “I know that, Cristina. And it probably is some flashback shit from the Goldfarb days, but we agreed to ignore that. If we don’t, it’ll screw both of us up in the head. The past is past. It doesn’t matter! After what we went through, we can’t let it matter, otherwise we’ll never have our own lives. We’ve been through this and through this. So just stop!”

“I’m sorry,” Cristina offered, a tear in her eye now. “It just…bothers me.”

“Don’t let it. And we can never tell the guys about last night. It’s none of their business anyway.”

Cristina fidgeted some more. “Let’s go down in the basement, just to look around. Maybe there’s more stuff in that hole.”

Britt glared. “Cristina, if you go back in that fucking basement, I’ll kick your butt. I’m not kidding. I don’t care if Davy Jones’s Locker is in that hole. We’re not going down there. The place is bad luck.” She squeezed Cristina’s shoulder. Hard. “You hear me?”

Cristina nodded.

“Good. We’re going to have fun this weekend. No more of this bullshit. And don’t be talking to that priest, whoever the hell he is. With all the shit you read about priests these days, who knows what kind of weirdo he might be. Let’s go back to bed now.”

Cristina knew it was the best idea but, still, she hesitated.

“Look, Jess is going to the office tomorrow.” Britt put the leftovers away. “What’s Paul doing?”

“I think he’s playing golf.”

“Good. Tomorrow, let’s you and I get dressed up and go to lunch at the Four Seasons, or maybe D’Amato’s, okay?”

“I’d like that.”

“I brought some killer dresses with me, and you can wear that red dress I gave you last Christmas. We’ll turn some heads, girl!”

Cristina smiled, knowing that Britt had probably only suggested it to get her mind off these other things. Britt’s arm slipped around Cristina’s back; she urged her toward her and Paul’s bedroom.

“Sorry I’m such a pain in the ass,” Cristina peeped.

“Forget it. Now go to bed.”

In the dark, then, they joined in a “sisterly” peck on the cheek but after a moment…

Was it Cristina who refused to let go?

Cristina’s mouth drew to Britt’s, and she pressed her breasts forward. She had no awareness of her intent yet she found herself doing it anyway. Their tongue tips touched; Britt paused breathless, but when Cristina sought to kiss her more deeply, it was Britt who nudged away.

“We can’t. It’s not right.”

Cristina kept her hands on Britt’s hips.

“What happened last night was just a fun accident,” Britt whispered almost inaudibly. “But I love you. You know that, right?”

Cristina nodded in the dark.

“Go to bed.” Britt smiled, let her fingers trail down Cristina’s arm. “See you in the morning.” Then she returned to the guest room where Jess could be heard snoring.

Cristina remained in the dark hall a moment. Did she shiver? She thought of the basement again, but cringed. I have to try to be better. She went back to bed and fell into what would be a very welcome dreamless sleep, and she was happy by her final resolve. She had never burdened Britt with her final worry: that maybe the house was haunted.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

(I)

Mark Funari was the security account and personnel manager, a bristly man with dull dark eyes and steel-wool hair, short in height and temper. He didn’t like site calls unless it was an emergency. But this?

Laura Eastman stood sleek at the front glass doors, tapping her foot. “Finally,” she said when Funari debarked from his company car.

“Did you knock?”

Lines creased Laura’s pretty face when she frowned. “No, I yodeled. Of course I knocked. I’ve been knocking for a half hour.” She pointed through the glass to the security desk. “His stuff’s not on the desk, and neither is the Detex clock.”

“He probably fell asleep!” Funari barked, grimacing at the desk. “Did you call his—”

“Cell phone? Of course,” she sputtered. “Just voice mail. I think he split.”

“Split as in quit, you mean.” Funari had never liked her; she was too snooty like so many women with the right looks. He liked her even less after she’d twice had sex with him in return for a buck-an-hour raise. They’re all whores, all of them. “What about his car, brainchild? Is his car here?”

She shot him a look that could kill. “Mark, Gemser doesn’t have a car, for the same reason I don’t and damn near everyone else who works for you. You don’t pay enough.”

“Watch that.”

“Anyway, I knocked for a half hour; then I called you,” she said, and the way she stood, at a slight angle, allowed the nipple of one perfect breast to be half-seen in the loop between two buttons of her security shirt.

Bitch is doing it on purpose. Funari was so mad he could barely get the keys in the door, but eventually they opened and after a quick search of all the desk drawers, he realized that Gemser probably did quit without telling anyone. His knapsack was gone, along with his bag lunch and thermos. The site keys were gone as well but at least Funari had duplicates.

“Gemser’s got his shit together too much to quit,” Funari asserted. “He’s worked for me ten years.”

“And… how many raises?” Laura made the snide remark.

Funari leveled his gaze. “You better watch it, sweetheart. Your company record ain’t exactly setting the world on fire. You need this job.”

Laura laughed and sat down sloppily behind the desk. She put her feet up. “You’re gonna fire me for making honest comments? Go ahead. I’d sue you for sexual harassment, and you know I’d win. I’m a minority, a downtrodden woman in a man’s world, forced to subject myself to sexual debasement to keep from starving.”

Funari felt like he was broiling.

Laura grinned. “And if you want another go, for another dollar an hour…” She parted her legs on the desk and winked.

“Get your smart ass out of that chair. We have to search the building. My bet is you cock-teased him one too many times and he just got sick of it so he walked out—”

“I think Gemser’s too big of a man to do something like that.” She winked again.

Funari got the innuendo. Don’t take the bait. “I’m too busy to let you piss me off, but one thing I’m sure of, Gemser’s at least enough of a class act that if he quit, he’d leave the keys and leave a message. You take the first and second floors, I’ll take three and four.”

Funari strode off, heel snapping. Laura laughed and casually got to the task.

An hour later, they were done, and there was no sign of Gemser.

“Fuck this. That motherfucker!” Funari growled back at the desk. “I have to find a substitute fast. You’ll have to work a sixteen-hour shift.”

“You know me, Mark. I’ll do anything for triple-time.”

“Bullshit. Time and a half.”

“Have a good day.” Laura grabbed her bag and headed for the door.

“All right, triple-time!” Bitch, bitch, BITCH! Funari tossed her the keys and now he headed for the front doors. He didn’t look at her when he said, “And if that scumbag shows up here tonight with his dick in his hand, have him call me.”

Laura offered a light, spiccato chuckle. “He’d need both hands, Mark. Unlike, well…”

Funari banged out the doors and stalked to his car. He reminded Laura of a toddler about to have a tantrum.

“What a loser,” she muttered. She locked up after him. But now that her pathetic boss was gone, the empty building seemed immense, and she was alone in it. She began her first round, wondering where the hell Gemser could be.

(II)

Gemser wasn’t quite dead yet, proof of the resilience of the human body. He’d been stripped and erected on the sharpened pole and now hung there as if mounted, and in truth, he’d never even gotten a good look at the people who’d done this to him. Only a few candles lit the stench-filled room, and he could see their shadows squatting aside as they seemed to divide his lunch among the three of them—egg salad sandwich, chips, and a tangerine—chug his coffee and riffle through his wallet. He could feel his heart thumping hard and slow as the pain coursed through him like dull electricity. In deeper shadows, he saw several other figures who’d suffered the same fate. They were all macabre mannequins now.

“Suh-suh-suh…someone’ll come,” one of the figures said.

Another. “The New Mother will protect us. She protected us from him, didn’t she?”

“Yeah.” A third female voice. “But it’ll all be over soon anyway.”

“That’s right!”

More eating sounds, then:

“Francy, when will you have to leave?”

“Soon. The guy with the goatee has to go to his office in a little while, but I’ll already be there. I’ll take the subway.”

“I-I-I wish I could go instead-instead-instead—”

“Be quiet! And how could you go anyway, Stutty? You don’t talk right—he wouldn’t believe you.”

“Yuh-yeah? How do you know he’ll buh-buh-buh—believe you?”

“Because the New Mother said he would! We must have faith! We have to believe!”

“Shut up, Francy. We do. You’re too bossy.”

“I am n—”

“Huh-hey! This guy has four hundred bucks in his wallet.”

“That’s great. We’ll put it with what’s left of Doke’s money. Is there any sandwich left?”

“No.”

“Shit.” A chuckle. “It’s funny, though. He made it but we ate it!”

Crazy, Gemser’s half-firing brain managed to think.

“Wuh-wuh-we should agorn him now.”

“Adorn, Stutty!”

“That’s what I said!”

Gemser felt like he’d been shuddering for hours. When would he die? His body seemed to minutely toss around the stake each time his heart beat. Feet scuffled, and now his eyes could dimly detect the three shapes crowding around him. Gemser tried to scream but all that came out was a rough, wet rattle.

“He’s still alive!”

“The New Mother said that sometimes the Prince’s enemies would live for days on the pikes.”

“Wuh-wow!”

Madness, Gemser thought.

A sharp, familiar smell reached his nostrils, and though his nervous system was growing less and less responsive, he could feel something, too. Magic marker, came the insane thought. They were drawing lines up and down his body with magic marker.

“I think it’s cool he’s still alive.”

“Hey, I wonder if…”

Now Gemser felt a hand plying his terror-and pain-shriveled genitals.

“Sandrine, you weirdo! He’s almost dead! He can’t—”

“I…just wanna see if…” And next Gemser felt a mouth down there. Gemser blinked.

“Told you, Sandrine, you perv.”

The shadows all cackled.

I’m…in hell, was the last thought to drift through George Gemser’s mind before he died.

(III)

Jess was used to hangovers; it scarcely impeded him from getting up at eight, showering, and dressing. As he knotted his tie he paused to stare at Britt who lay asleep and belly-down on the tousled bed. The sheets were mostly off, and what Jess was musing over was her nearly bare body just lying there for him to view, the sweep of her back, the sleek legs, and her buttocks barely covered by the tissue-thin pan ties. Nope, Jess thought. I ain’t gonna do better in a million years.

“You’re up early,” he commented when he came out to the kitchen. Cristina puttered at the coffee machine, wrapped in a robe. She seemed perturbed.

“I got a coffee craving,” she said. “I didn’t sleep much but I slept great.”

“Then how come you look pissed off?”

Cristina reflected. “I guess because I sort of am. Britt and I are going to lunch later, and I wanted to wear that red Dolce and Gabbana dress she got me. But I can’t find it anywhere.”

“It’ll turn up,” Jess small-talked. He grabbed his briefcase. “Has Paul left for the golf course yet?”

“He’s in the shower.”

“Tell him I’ll try to meet him for the back nine, will ya? I have a little paperwork to do.”

“Sure,” she said, distracted. “Why don’t you and Britt stay tonight, too? We’re not doing anything.”

“We’ll probably take you up on that.” Jess chuckled. “Paul and I’ll bring back a couple fifty-dollar pizzas from Barbetta’s.”

“That would be great. Oh, and don’t forget to show that bowl-thing to your secretary.”

“Are you kidding? I’m dying to know what the stones are.” Probably paste, he figured, but the lawyer in him couldn’t resist. “See ya tonight.”

“ ’Bye.”

Jess rushed out, jumped in the car, and twenty minutes later was at the office. His eyes gave a sexist bulge when he entered the office and saw Ann already at her desk. He could see her runway model legs beneath the glass-topped desk, black leather skirt hiked up high enough to just barely betray the fact that she rarely wore pan ties. Jesus. These Lipstick Lesbians LOVE to rile up middle-aged straight guys. At least she was good at her job, too. “Here’s the rest of those lease reports you wanted,” she said. She frowned within a banged frame of blonde hair. “I’ve been at it since six.”

“What a gal.” He thumbed through the papers. “You sure it’s all here?”

“Of course.”

“Good, then you can go—”

“Serious?”

“It’s Saturday, Ann. No sense both of us being here if we don’t have to be.”

“What a guy!”

“But could you do me a favor?” He pulled the three-gemmed bowl from his briefcase. “That chick you know who has a jewelry business? Could you give her a call and get me an appraisal appointment?”

“Sure…” She dialed, then peered at the bowl. “Looks old. Where you’d get it?”

“It was buried in Paul’s basement, believe it or not. We just want to know what the stones are.”

Ann eyed the object further, then began talking on the phone. When she was done, she said, “She’ll have someone here within an hour to take a look.”

“Thanks, Ann. Now you get out of here and have some fun.”

“Oh, I’ll definitely do that,” she said, batting big lashes. She got up but paused to take one more glance at the bowl. “Yeah, it looks old, all right. And…creepy.”

Jess reglanced at it through narrowed eyes. A vertigo seemed to shift his vision, the three stones flashing. “Yeah,” he murmured.

Ann bade her grateful farewell, while Jess chose to sit at her desk to go over the paperwork. But only minutes later, there was a tap at the open door.

Jess looked up, slightly taken aback by a wan woman with medium blonde hair that looked poorly combed, late thirties, probably, and kind of pallid. Red lipstick looked overly applied, but she wore a stunning scarlet dress that must’ve cost a bundle. That’s what I call worn around the edges, he thought. The dress clashed with the rest of her, and only a smidgen of prettiness seemed to struggle beneath the weathered veneer, and to top it all off, she wore uncomely pink glasses. “Oh, hi,” he said. “You must be Ann’s friend, the jewelry appraiser.”

“Um-hmm, right. I’m Francy.” Her eyes seemed to spark when she noticed the bowl atop the glass desk. “Is that it?”

She looks more beat than a rented drum, Jess thought, but she sure got here fast. “Yes, and come in. I’m Jess Franklin.”

The woman seemed to walk sheepishly, as if unused to the classy high heels. With each step, her eyes grew wider on the bowl. “Wow,” she said, coming right around to where Jess sat and leaning over. Her bare arm rubbed his shoulder at once. This is…weird, he thought, just the immediacy with which she brushed against him. He felt vaguely uncomfortable.

As she leaned, she picked up the bowl. The three rounded stones gleamed in their mounts. “It’s…interesting,” she said, though her voice sounded as worn as she looked. “Looks like an old cistern…Eastern Orthodox…maybe, about five hundred years old.”

Another thing bothered him: the way she stalled before each group of words, almost as if reciting something. She pronounced each word slowly. Her arm rubbed him more overtly as she continued to look, half-spellbound. “We see these every now and then. They’re worth about three or four hundred dollars to collectors.”

Damn, he thought, his greed stifled. He glanced aside, was about to speak, but noticed the woman’s small breasts almost fully visible due to the angle she leaned in. Yeah, she’s beat, all right. Rode hard and put away wet. Her broken teeth looked stained as well. But she’s got to be for real if Ann’s friend sent her …

“So the stones aren’t valuable?” he finally asked.

“Not on their own…”

Now Jess’s discomfort merged with something else when she absently put her left arm around him and pointed to each stone with her right index finger. He noticed the nails were shabby and bitten down. Ann’s friend sure sent me a piece of work. I think she’s putting the make on me …

“See. Obsidian, green garnet, and red garnet,” she said, then squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t take them out, then the bowl would be worthless.”

In the leaning gap of her dress top, Jess saw that her nipples looked raggy, as if chewed. He felt half-repulsed by her, but then something primal in him stirred. He offered a fake chuckle. “And we were thinking black diamond, emerald, and ruby…”

She laughed in a high titter, and squeezed his shoulder again. “Oh, no. The stones by themselfs are worthless.”

ThemSELFS? he thought. This woman’s something.

“But I can give you four hundred dollars for it.” And now her right hand had a wad of cash in it.

Jess winced. This is fucked-up. “It’s not even mine, I just wanted it appraised.” He blinked. “So…you’re really a friend of Ann’s?”

“Oh, yeah.” She giggled. “We make out all the time—”

Jess’s breath caught in his chest. “Uh, yeah, well—”

“You…sure you don’t want to sell it?” Now her words, however stilted, came out as a hot gush, and her right hand slipped below the desk, traced up his thigh, and landed on his crotch.

“Hey, what is this?” Jess objected. “Is this a con?”

She rubbed, brushing right against him. “Hmm?”

Jess wanted to rise and throw her out of the office…but didn’t. He seemed to melt, remaining there, and she continued. This is FUCKED-UP. Some crude lust fogged his senses but eventually a thread of reason pushed through.

“You’re just trying to work me over for the damn bowl, aren’t you?”

“Uh-uh.” She rubbed some more, started to slide her fingers under his belt.

He was about to grab her hand just as it slid beneath his shorts. “I—” A thought flashed. “I get it. She put you up to this. Right?”

“Um-hmm. Anna.”

Jess frowned. “You mean Ann.”

“Right, Ann.” The odd woman noticed the front office door open. “Come on, back here. We don’t want anyone to see.” She urged him out of the seat and back into Jess’s office.

He didn’t stop her. What am I doing? “Listen. I’m not selling you the bowl—”

“That’s okay. But if you change your mind…let…Ann know, and I’ll buy it.” She pushed Jess’s office door closed, walked right back up to him, and sat him down.

“Look. Just…stop—”

She smiled. “Let me. I want to. I like it…”

Jess didn’t move. He supposed it was the crudity of it all, and the abruptness, that pushed his resistence over the edge, the way she knelt before him and yanked his pants and shorts right down to his ankles in one pull.

“Look,” he objected yet again but before he could say more, he tensed right up when—as abruptly as everything else—she began to fellate him.

Holy shit, what am I—

“Mmmm,” she murmured through the act.

The sensation was riveting, and judging by her technique, she’d had some considerable experience. Shit, that’s the best…A dizzy glance down at the back of her head, and he half-noticed the label on her dress—Dolce & Gabbana—but the coincidence was lost by the fastidious, wet rhythm and excruciating plea sure. Another minute and he spent himself in her mouth.

“Mmmm,” she kept murmuring through the earthy denouement. His release left him tingling and lax.

The woman stood up and grinned at him. She didn’t expectorate anywhere. “If you change your mind about selling the cistern, have…Ann call me.”

Jess stared. The bizarre woman waved and left the office.

He snapped out of it a few moments later, jumped up and hauled up his pants. What the hell was that shit all about? A tinge of guilt seemed to fleck his spirit. Did I just cheat on Britt?

No. Not really.

He stepped into the restroom, got himself back to rights. Some girl who looks like a bum in a nice dress just blew me in my office, came the bald realization. A worse realization occurred moments later, when he errantly reached into his back pocket.

That ho! That thieving bitch!

Jess’s wallet was gone.

Anger mapped his face with lines. He couldn’t even think straight when he heard tapping. Someone knocking on the office door.

Furious, he barged out to the front area—

“Mr. Franklin?” asked a mousy-looking woman in jeans and a pink blouse. “I’m Daniela Agren, from Doria Jewelers. Ann said you needed an appraisal.”

Jess stood mute. He jerked a gaze to the front desk and saw that the bowl was gone.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

(I)

The same man with the absurd blond mohawk and leather vest greeted him from behind the counter. He’d called Vernon an hour previously. “One Noxious Nun coming up. You were smart to preorder.” He turned his hand toward the shelves. “We sold out the same day of their release.”

Charming. “Thanks for calling,” Vernon said. He still couldn’t figure why he’d ordered the thing. He looked at it in its box. The actual figure looked more unsettling than the ad pictures: a cute little toy nun holding a bowl of blood.

“Pretty impressive detail,” bragged the proprietor.

Vernon said nothing, just stared at the thing. He thought of a hypnotist’s totem. The tiny eyes beamed, the tiny white fangs in the tiny mouth seemed to shimmer. When Vernon blinked, he could have sworn the hardened scarlet resin in the tiny bowl rippled as if liquid. This thing really is bizarre. What unsettled him more than the rest, though, were the weaving black, green, and red lines that decorated the box.

Vernon gulped.

“Your niece’ll love it,” said the shopkeeper.

“My niece?” Vernon looked at him. “Oh, yes, I’m sure she will—”

“—and she’ll definitely want the rest of the line. I can give you a 5 percent police discount—”

“Really?” Vernon felt flattered.

“—if you preorder the next ten figures.”

Vernon winced. “Let me give it some thought,” he said. I hate the hard sell. He thanked the man and left.

Saturday morning traffic wasn’t bad. He cruised down 69th, subconsciously eyeing the street for signs of his “bum-chicks.” Still nothing more to go on, but at least there’d been no more impalements. When he pulled onto Amsterdam, he rechecked the address on his note pad, then parked illegally. Here it is.

One of the city’s many grand old rent-controlled apartment buildings hulked before him. He went up narrow stairs, huffing when he reached the third floor, and found the number. His hand paused before knocking, for the oddest of door knockers caught his eye.

It had been mounted on the drab door’s center stile, an oval of tarnished bronze depicting a morose half-formed face. Just two eyes, no mouth, no other features.

In the strangest notion, Vernon imagined that for a split second, the knocker had grown a mouth—a grin—which showed tiny fangs.

Why do I feel haunted today? He shook it off, knocked, and was welcomed by a stoop-shouldered man who had to be eighty.

“You must be Inspector Vernon,” the voice cragged. “Do come in. I’m Professor Fredrick.”

“Thanks for agreeing to see me, sir.” Vernon stepped in, his briefcase tugging his arm. At once he stood surrounded by what he might expect of an archaeologist’s abode: walls lined floor to ceiling with books and assorted statues, busts, and old stone nicknacks. Smells like a museum, he thought.

Fredrick walked with difficulty, requiring a cane. Vernon frowned when he noted that the cane’s brass head looked identical to the half-formed face of the door knocker. Its tip snapped along the bare wood floor.

“I thank God,” the old man chuckled, “the man below me is deaf. Have a seat.”

“Thanks.” Vernon sat in an armchair angled before a cluttered desk backed by huge computer screens filled with text. “I can see you’re busy, sir. I hope this isn’t too much of an inconvenience. When Dr. Aured recommended you, he mentioned you were working on a book.”

When Fredrick sat down, either his chair or his bones creaked. “Not busy enough. I’m too old to teach during the summer sessions anyway. We all must pursue our immortality, eh?” He lit up a sweet-smelling pipe. “This book on Daco-Roman Romania is one I’ve meant to write for thirty years but, lo, other things kept popping up.”

Romania, Vernon thought. He got out his notes, and suddenly felt foolish. Home of Vlad the Impaler. “Romania, yes, sir. Dr. Aured said you were an expert on Romanian history.”

Fredrick, in spite of his age, had a full head of black hair that didn’t look dyed. “Oh, I’m an expert, all right. I almost died thanks to that blasted country. Earthquake. Southern Romania lies on a fault line. They get serious earthquakes every fifty years or so. The worst one occurred in 1977, and I was unlucky enough to be there at that precise time. A rectory wall collapsed during the tremor, and crushed my leg.” He absently raised his cane. “It took years to heal.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Vernon said for lack of anything else.

Fredrick smiled aloofly, puffing the pipe. “I suppose I was lucky. My teaching assistant was killed instantly.” He pointed to an old framed picture of a chubby young woman in boots and field dress, with a burgeoning bosom. “Her name was Janice, a lovely girl. At least she died in the midst of her dream.”

“Her dream?”

“It had been her lifelong goal to see Snagov Monastery, a most unique place in the annals of fifteenth-century European history.” Now the old man’s smiled turned sardonic. “It was also the final resting place of the man we’ve come to know as the historical Dracula.”

Vernon looked back at him; he suddenly felt hollow. He cleared his throat, then showed the old man his notes and began to explain his dilemma…

(II)

“Sure, we’d love to,” Britt said in the cab. “It’s the weekend, and your house is a lot better suited for a get-together than ours. We’ll pick up where we left off last night.”

Before I screwed it all up by overreacting about that damn bowl or centerpiece or what ever it is, Cristina thought. This would be a chance to make it up to them by having them spend the night again.

Britt whispered, mindful of the cabdriver. “And there’s something about your house that lights a fire under Jess’s butt. You know. Sexually.”

Cristina smiled. “Good. And thanks for lunch. I’d never been to Four Seasons before. I just wish I could remember where I put that gorgeous dress you gave me.” Cristina had given up looking for it, and worn a nice Gianni summer dress. “I could’ve sworn I unpacked it and put it in the closet.”

“You’ll find it.” Britt looked forward, to the street signs. “I actually have to go home for a few hours, though. I want to call the office and do some e-mails. But what time to night?”

“Just come over when you feel like it. Jess and Paul are bringing pizza when they’re done golfing.”

“Which means they probably won’t be back till seven or eight. Those guys spend more time in the ‘nineteenth hole’ than on the course.”

A sudden distraction infused itself in Cristina as the cab drove on. A bright, hot day passed before her, the city bustling with life. A high billboard showed three beautiful women on a beach, an ad for Victoria’s Secret bikinis, yet the colors of the beachwear were black, green, and red. It reminded her unpleasantly of the night she’d scrawled the same colors on her own body while blacked out. What would compel me to do something so bizarre? she stressed to herself. When she briefly closed her eyes, she saw the three women but now they stood not on a beach but in a dark stone room, naked, their flawless bodies streaked with the same colors. At the corner, then, she glimpsed a black-clad figure in some kind of hood.

A nun?

Cristina squinted forward but saw that it was merely an old woman in a cloak.

“What’s with you?” Britt asked. “You in the twilight zone?”

Cristina flinched out of it, smiling as if all were normal. “No, I was just thinking.”

“Not about that damn centerpiece, I hope.”

“No, no…”

“Did you have the dream again?”

“Miraculously, no. Don’t remember dreaming anything last night, which is surprising ’cos I guess I was really worked up when we found that thing.”

“All that means is you’re getting accustomed to the new house, and your new life here.”

Yes, Cristina felt sure.

They exchanged farewells when the cabbie dropped Britt off at her townhome, then continued on with Cristina. “Just drop me here, please. I’d like to walk,” she said when the cabbie stopped at a traffic light. He seemed about to thank her for an ample tip but was sidetracked when his gaze raked across her bosom in the low-cut dress. Jeez. Drool, why don’t you? But more male heads turned when she proceeded down the street. I guess it’s just a sexist world, she thought, and then noticed more high billboards sporting attractive women with sexual glints in their eyes. Everything’s sex these days.

Why was her mood being mauled? Maybe I SHOULD take Prozac, she considered. She should be looking forward to to night instead of wilting from the glances of others. It only means I’m attractive, so I guess I should be grateful.

“A beautiful woman for a beautiful day,” cracked a voice, and suddenly a hot dog was thrust before her.

“Thank you,” she muttered, halfheartedly, “but I just had lunch.” It was the vendor she saw so often now, who always had a cigar stump crimped between his teeth.

“Have a wonderful day,” he offered, “because it’s a wonderful world, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” she replied and hustled away. Maybe it’s me, she considered next. Maladapted—that was a word Britt used sometimes to characterize most of her cases at social services. Maybe I’M the maladapted one. That vendor was just wishing me well, but I immediately think it’s just lust.

The bleak self-analyses collapsed when she spotted a big poster in the comic shop window. Now THERE’S something to be happy about! The poster bragged of the release of the first four Evil Church Creepies, while a piece of tape informed: SOLD OUT! MORE ON ORDER. Suddenly her day felt reborn. I’m pretty successful for someone so…maladapted! A brisker pace took her down the street, and just as her happiness grew to full awareness, she slowed at the corner and—

Is that Father Rollin?

Another figure in black caught her eye, though not a woman and not becloaked. A priest with the same looks and build as Father Rollin approached the elegant front doors of the Ketchum Hotel. She stared after him as pedestrians swept by on either side. When the crowd cleared, the priest was already inside.

Why is he going in there when he lives right across the street?

A giggling sound, almost like chirping, caused her to spin around. Another throng of pedestrians were crossing the street but between the intermittent gaps, Cristina thought she saw two girls peeking at her from an alley entrance. Those homeless girls? she wondered. She stood on tiptoes, glared between heads, but then the crowd cleared and no one remained in the entrance.

This day keeps tipping up and down. She took off her high heels and power-walked back to the house.

Once inside, she felt yet another distraction: the house’s silence seemed all-consuming, a great dead space, and in spite of the air-conditioning, her skin prickled with heat. She stepped out of her dress right there in the foyer, then glimpsed herself in the bar mirror near the hall. She looked back at herself, noticing with a slight shock that she was naked. I never leave the house without pan ties on! Yet she couldn’t remember making the decision not to wear them. Sweat glistened on her face, breasts, and stomach. I must be under the weather, she concluded; now she felt burning up. When she checked the answering machine, she didn’t even smile at Bruno’s enthusiastic messages declaring that the first four figures in the Evil Church line were out of stock via preorders, and even after only a day or two reorders were pouring in, especially for the Noxious Nun.

Cristina walked listless to the bedroom, closed all the drapes to make it as dark as possible, and collapsed on the bed.

(III)

Laura “cooped” in the middle of her shift. Cooping was security-guard parlance for sleeping on the job. But why not? Her rounds were all made. Just a nap, she told herself, stretching out on the couch in the old employees’ lounge. Half-drowsing, she smiled at the knowledge that not only had she gotten a lot of shut-eye on this couch, but she’d made love with a number of men. All on the clock. Each time she nodded off, however, some dream-snippet would shove her back to wakefulness, along with a jolt in her heart.

Was it a naked woman she saw in the flash, with fangs?

Jesus …

And in the next drowse—

Shit!

—she bolted wide awake because she thought she heard a voice.

Just more dream shit, she concluded. The words had sounded foreign and accented, whispered by a woman.

Get a catnap. I’m working a sixteen-friggin’-hour shift …

Her eyes slowly closed again; she felt fogged in darkness, then saw a great white wash of blood behind her eyes and—

“Singele lui traieste …”

“Damn it!” She sat upright, her attempts to “coop” ruined. What the hell is this? Had she heard the words in her head, or for real?

She looked immediately at the old boiler room door…

Sounded like it…came from there.

When she pushed herself off the couch, her hand accidently slipped between two cushions, and touched something metallic. Couldn’t be, she challenged herself when she flipped the cushion up.

There, amid nameless food crumbs, petrified french fries, and an old porno novel that looked thirty years old, lay a metal ring full of keys.

No way, she felt convinced; then her jaw dropped when she saw one key marked BOILER ROOM.

“I do not believe this,” she said aloud when she turned the key and heard the bolt release.

She pushed the door open and almost gagged at the sour stench that drifted out. Probably dead rats. She’d smelled that on many different job sites. She flicked the wall switch but nothing happened, then checked the circuit breaker near the couch. How do you like that? All of the circuits for the building were on, save for one slot—BOILER ROOM—whose breaker had been removed. Laura grabbed her flashlight out of her bag, snapped it on, and stepped into the black doorway.

Were her batteries weak? It seemed that with each step, the surrounding darkness sucked away at the flashlight’s beam. The smell was revolting. She saw boxes filled with garbage and stubby candles burned down. Hypes, she guessed. Heroin addicts would sneak into closed buildings just to heat up their works and shoot up. But if so, how would they get in here? There’s no exterior door.

She turned the corner, then, and the door slammed behind her.

Laura held her ground, even as the flashlight beam grew undeniably deficient. Keep cool. Don’t freak out. Now the light’s intensity seemed to pitch up and down. She grabbed her Mace with her other hand. Get out of the room, there might be someone in here, was her first thought.

Her second thought, less than wisely, was to proceed.

She took several more steps, then turned a cinderblock corner.

Laura was a gutsy girl, but not this gutsy. When the meager thread of the flashlight beam crawled upward—

“Singele lui traieste…”

—she screamed, staring right into the face of the woman whose image had marauded her sleep. The woman stood gloriously naked, full breasts thrust forward. Her hands, first, bid the rest of the filthy room, then extended toward Laura.

Oh my God oh my God oh my God! her thoughts shrieked as she swept the flashlight to turn but saw slivers of more faces: pallid women grinning like the nude woman, then the faces of corpses somehow mounted in the darkness.

One of the faces was George Gemser’s, besmirched with streaks of black, green, and red…

A piece of rebar knocked Laura’s Mace away, and then the atrocious room’s darkness exploded with a cackling as dirty hands shot forward, grabbed her, and dragged her down.

Accented words fluttered: “Me enamourer…for infinitum.”

Laura was being mauled, bitten, beaten about the head with the rebar. Her struggles didn’t last long. Just before her consciousness would be knocked out of her, she saw the nude woman’s face closer this time, her grin wider and sporting long, thin fangs.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

(I)

“Man, Paul, I’m sorry,” Jess babbled at the golf course. “I fucked up, I really fucked up.”

Paul smiled cockily. “What are you talking about? Those lease arbitrations?”

“No, no, man.” They walked into the bar at the nineteenth hole, Jess having arrived too late to play at all. “The bowl.”

“The—oh, the centerpiece our nutty girlfriends saw fit to dig out of the basement?” Paul laughed and ordered drinks at the bar. “What, you dropped it?”

“No, man.” Jess worriedly pushed his hair off his brow. “It…got ripped off.” And then he explained the bizarre encounter with the woman who’d masqueraded as the jewelry appraiser. “The cunning bitch even stole my wallet.”

Paul sipped his drink. “I’ve heard screwy things before, Jess, but not that screwy. How would this woman even know you’d called for an appraisal? She would’ve had to know in advance since she arrived before the real appraiser.”

“You got me.” Jess downed his beer in two slugs, then ordered another. “I figure she was either standing right outside my office when Ann called, or maybe she overheard the information from the jeweler’s office.”

Paul frowned at him. “That’s ridiculous, Jess.”

“Don’t you think I know that? But I can’t think of any other way she could’ve known about it.”

Paul chuckled. “So, what, you were sitting there and this ‘woman who looked like a bum but in a fancy dress’ picked up the bowl and walked out with it? And your wallet? With you sitting there?”

“Not…exactly.” Jess shook his head. “She kind of…tried to seduce me, I guess ’cos I refused to sell it to her.”

“And?”

“And, well, she took me back in my office—the bowl was on Ann’s desk—and, well, you know, she, uh—”

Paul stared incomprehending.

“She blew me,” Jess whispered.

Paul almost spat out his drink.

“Then, uh,” Jess continued, “she left. I went to the bathroom, and—”

“She ripped off the bowl while you were getting your Johnson back in your slacks,” Paul finished.

“Yeah.”

“After hearing that, I need another drink.” Paul gave Jess the eye. “If I didn’t know you better I’d say you sold the bowl for a bundle, and are bullshitting me about the rest.”

“Hey, I’m a lawyer, not a thief.”

“Meaning?”

“I’d never steal from a close friend.”

Paul just laughed out loud and shook his head.

Jess looked dismayed. “Man, I thought you’d be pissed at me.”

“About that dumb-ass thing? I’m glad it got ripped off.”

“Glad?”

“Sure. There was a bad vibe about it—whatever it was. Cristina’s off-balance enough as it is, that thing just made her worse—I don’t need something else twisting her out of shape. For a while I think she believed she’d dreamed about the fucking bowl before she actually saw it for real.”

“Women,” Jess muttered.

“Like they say, can’t live with ’em…”

“I’ll drink to that,” Jess said. “But what should I say when they ask about the appraisal?”

“I’ll bet you the pizza tab they’re both at the house now half-plastered on mimosas. They’ll forget all about it.”

(II)

“Well,” Vernon said after explaining the case and augmenting it with Dr. Aured’s less-than-serious insinuations. “You’re not frowning, you’re not laughing, and you haven’t thrown me out yet.”

“It’s…interesting,” Professor Fredrick remarked. He had the habit of sometimes making comments with his eyes closed and face raised, as if in a muse. “Fascinating, actually.”

“Come on, Dr. Aured said the same thing, but he did laugh at me. Vlad the Impaler?”

“It’s not that uncommon, is it, or have I watched too many murder movies? Copycats. That’s what you call them, right?”

“Over the past few days, I’ve been forced to think along the same lines, sir,” Vernon chuckled. “I feel a little bit more assured now.”

“Why?”

“Because, like I said, you haven’t thrown me out and dismissed me as a nut.”

“There’s nothing ‘nutty’ about the historical figure known as Vlad Tepes,” Fredrick intoned, serious and also at odds with something. “And part of his name really was Dracula; he actually signed his name as such. Vladislaus Dracula is the phonetic equivalent. As for your copycat murderers, however, I’m a little mystified. Homeless women, you say? Inspector, it would take someone who’s quite adept at historical research to perpetrate these crimes to such detail. Not the impalements themselves—everybody knows that Vlad engaged in this atrocity quite without restraint. But the colors—your average ‘Dracula fanatic’ would have to dig deep for that accuracy, not just the colors but the order of the colors. And then the words themselves—they’re even more disturbing.” He looked back at Vernon’s notes, toking his pipe. “I’m sure the good Dr. Aured informed you that these sentences seem to be Vulgar Latin peppered with Saxon, Old English, Finno-Ugris, and others.” And then the professor paused. “Tara flaesc Wallkya,” he uttered under his breath. He seemed coerced by a studied enthusiasm. “Molested aspects of Latin.”

“Dr. Aured used the word bastardized,” Vernon volunteered, “but I get it. Someone writing things without much actual knowledge of the languages.”

“Um-hmm. And the attempts at Romanian. I’d be interested in knowing Aured’s reaction to that.”

“Along the same lines. Words not quite right but right enough. Sentences not accented—something about an International Phonetic Alphabet.”

Fredrick nodded, eyes closed.

“As if these homeless girls, or whoever really is doing it—”

“Are half-faking it,” Fredrick finished. “Doing the best that they can with the available information source.” He looked at the next line and smiled. “‘Singele lui traieste…’ And if the impalements weren’t alarming enough, that line, ‘His blood is alive,’ most certainly smells of Vlad Tepes and his subsequent occult legend. Nor can we ignore the colors of the markings left at the scenes. Add all these elements together and you simply must have some sort of…” His words trailed off along with pipe smoke.

He doesn’t want to say it, Vernon presumed. “A gang of homicidal Dracula fanatics. A cult. It sounds too far-fetched until you look at the possibility more-more—”

“Concretely. Throughout history there have been many cults that kill in the name of what they believe in, devil worshippers and the like. Mostly just as a systematic rebellion against an oppressive church order. Today, on the other hand, it’s almost become a cliché: disgruntled youth with no direction in life, and defected by antisocial environments, drugs, and what have you—sacrifice animals and sometimes even people to the so-called devil. They’re delusional, of course. That boy in Oklahoma, and that group in New Hampshire, for example. And more clichés abound, the ‘Goth’ movement, an obsession with dark clothes, gloominess, pale skin, and last but not least, vampirism. It’s very true that there are vampire clubs and cults and social coteries that exist today and always have existed. There are people who believe not only that vampires exist but that they are vampires themselves. Where some men get together on Friday nights and play cards, and some women have their Tupperware parties, these people have gatherings where they drink each other’s blood. But of course…” Fredrick smiled.

“They’re all whackjobs.” Vernon got the gist. He’d read of such things many times.

“So why couldn’t such a group take the next logical—and psychopathic—step? In this day and age, it’s not at all outlandish that sick individuals obsessed with this topic could become killers, thinking of their murder as an offering that will bestow upon them good fortune in some dark afterlife.” Now Fredrick looked back at Vernon. “All these quotes, the details of the desecrations, and then the impalements themselves are, for lack of a better term, Draculian.”

Vernon let the strange word slip around his head. “I don’t quite follow you about the colors, though. You mentioned a specific detail that would require some historical research.”

The old man’s brows rose and fell; then he looked again at the morgue photos of Virginia Fleming and the black, green, and red lines streaking up and down her pallid body. “Well, in the vampire legend, Dracula wore a black cape but the real Dracula wore three capes: black over green over red. They’re specifically the colors of an order of knights—the Order of the Dragon—which is well known. But these colors? Not so well known. Red stands for the blood of Christ, green the color of the Holy Roman Empire, and black over it all to actually hide the first two colors: these knights were to operate incognito, so as not to solicit the sin of pride.”

“Now I see what you mean,” Vernon admitted. A haphazard glance to the shelf made him flinch, when he spotted a small bronze statue of a woman with multiple arms. Vernon shuddered once. “Vagabonds wouldn’t know that.”

“Unless somebody else told them, I suppose,” the professor added. “Cults of this nature often have a ringleader, so to speak, don’t they? ‘Jonestown,’ for instance, from the seventies, the Echols tragedy in Arkansas, that multiple-murder group in San Diego not so long ago. It’s mostly sheep who follow such leaders.”

Sheep. The figure of speech jolted him. Homeless women who are mentally unstable…following a leader …

The nun?

Vernon felt inept for not having thought of it so concisely. “That suggestion is very helpful, sir. ‘Sheep’ following a homicidal leader who is clinically obsessed with all this Vlad stuff.”

“It’s a thought,” the old man remarked. He retamped his pipe.

“And these women were seen once…with a nun.”

Fredrick’s eyes leveled in an inexplicable way. “You don’t say?”

“There’s also this odd coincidence,” Vernon continued, “that I really can’t explain but can’t help but think isn’t a coincidence.”

Fredrick smiled. “The fabled gut-feeling of the veteran investigator?”

Vernon laughed. “Sure. You’d be surprised how often they ring true in this business.” Again, he felt foolish. “Take a look at this,” he offered and reached into his briefcase.

He placed the boxed Noxious Nun on the scholar’s desk.

“This is a bit odd,” the old man admitted, noticing at once the weavy black, green, and red lines decorating the package. “The lines are quite like those found at some of the crime scenes.”

“Yes, sir. I still don’t know what the connection might be, but it does make me think. A nun witnessed with vagabond girls just before a desecration that involved black, green, and red lines drawn up and down on an altar cloth, similar lines on an impaled body, and now this novelty toy of a nun.” Vernon smiled. “Sounds like I’m reaching for—”

“Shit?” The professor smiled. “Maybe, maybe not. Why couldn’t the lines be the coterie’s emblem, the same way the Zodiac Killer left his own emblem?” Fredrick creaked back in his seat. “No, Inspector, it’s not that which rubs me the wrong way. It’s the nun.” He picked up the box for closer scrutiny. “This vampiric nun.”

Vernon was duped now by the expression on the man’s face. He seemed bristled by something.

“Dracula’s membership in the Order of the Dragon was inherited from his father,” the professor began. “Much has been written of this—too much, in fact. But just to give you some background, Vlad initially participated in the Order not so much for religious reasons but to potentially benefit his dedication to fighting the Turks and driving them out of Romania. Keep in mind, the Order was sanctioned by the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, neither of whom Vlad was keen on since they were Catholics and Vlad was Eastern Orthodox. Nevertheless, Vlad converted to Catholicism, more than anything to support his own agenda.”

“I don’t understand,” Vernon said.

“There are a number of explanations behind the Vlad legend; in other words, his vampiric curse. And one involves a nun…”

(III)

Father Rollin’s heart seemed to drop into his guts when he watched Cristina enter her studio. Good Lord. She’s found the cask. It’s all happening …He’d kept the hotel window’s drapes parted only wide enough for one binocular lens, and just as he’d been focusing on the rear studio window, his entire soul seemed to rust.

She was naked and glassy-eyed. She’d placed two objects down on one of the desks, one just out of view but the other all too visible.

The dog’s skull.

The identity of the other object he’d missed just as he was focusing in. Rollin knew now beyond a doubt that Cristina—as he’d feared—was growing more and more subject to the black, paramental will that had targeted her. She’s doing its bidding, just as was written. And of course she’d be naked, and highly sexualized, to mimic the blasphemer herself.

But…what was the other object?

It must be the cistern, and if she’s found that she may also have found—

Another woman entered the room, pausing in a mild shock before Cristina’s dull gaze and brazen nudity. The dark-haired one again, the friend, he knew. Now she was yelling at Cristina, shaking her bare shoulders to snap her out of the hold that seized her.

It’s all happening. It’s all for real. And then the priest lowered the binoculars and fell to his knees to pray.

(IV)

Britt emotionally exploded when she stepped into the studio and found Cristina sitting naked in her work chair, staring at the wall. Is she catatonic? she feared at first but then, thank God, the eyes blinked and recognized her. Britt nearly shrieked when she saw what her foster sister had brought up from the basement: that yellowed dog skull, which she’d placed on a shelf right next to the Noxious Nun figure.

“Cristina! What the HELL is going on?” She grabbed Cristina’s shoulders and shook her till her head wobbled. “Are you drunk? Are you on drugs? What IS it?”

Cristina drooled, then blinked several times. Next, Britt slapped her in the face.

“Cristina!”

Cristina rubbed her face, took a deep breath. “Jeez…”

“Yeah! Jeez! You’re all fucked-up!” Britt shoved a blouse at her. “Put that on! The guys could be home any minute!”

Cristina roused as if from anesthesia, but eventually complied.

“It’s either booze or drugs, so just tell me. And no bullshitting!”

Cristina frowned. “Stop yelling. I don’t take drugs and I didn’t have anything to drink.”

“Then explain. You looked like you were in a vegetative state when I walked in here. Now I want an explanation, and it better be good ’cos if it’s not, I’m checking you in for a psych evaluation right away.”

The threat braced Cristina. “I’m all right. I just—”

“Just what?” Britt’s temper continued to boil. “You obviously went into the basement”—she pointed to the detestable skull—“and brought that thing up here! Why?”

Cristina sat up straight, buttoning her blouse. “I don’t know, it just occurred to me—”

“It occurred to you? It occurred to you to go back down into that goddamn basement—nude—and bring that gross skull up here? Cristina, do you know how crazy that sounds?”

“Stop yelling!” she whimpered. “I’m not sure what happened exactly.”

“Did you black out again?”

“No, no, this time—well, I remember feeling weird, after the cab dropped me off. And I was hot, so I took off my clothes and took a nap. Then I remember going down into the basement, and-and…it was because I just felt impelled to. I can’t explain it beyond that, Britt. It’s like something told me something else was down there.”

Britt sat down, still fuming. “Jesus Christ, that damn basement’s got you delusional. Something else down there? Cristina, you already knew that dog skull was down there. We all found it together, remember?”

Cristina thought through a stasis. “Not the dog skull. Something else. I found something else, and…you probably won’t believe it.”

Britt sighed. “Cristina, go ahead and try me. After all this, I think I can handle anything. So you found something else? Where? In the hole?”

“In the iron barrel. Something didn’t seem right about the depth so I looked at it closer and found a false bottom.”

Britt stared at her.

“Go look if you don’t believe me. There was a false bottom in it, to hide this.” Then Cristina reached into her desk and withdrew a foot-high object that looked like an old stoppered decanter.

Britt fell silent. She wasn’t quite sure how to assess this, or her friend. At her job she saw unstable women gradually become delusional all the time, but this?

“Didn’t you tell me a couple days ago that recently your recurring dream has taken on new details?”

Cristina nodded. “Yes, first it was just the nun with the bowl, and the colored lines. But then I’d notice other things in the dream that weren’t there before: a man on a stone slab, a”—she glanced to the skull—“a barking dog, and…some sort of a flask or decanter. Like this one.”

Impossible, Britt thought without saying it. But then so was the bowl. She either knew those things were down there in advance, or she has a psychic sensitivity. She decided to deliberate on that later. Instead, she picked up the decanter. It felt heavy. Full, she thought at once. But full of what? “Show me this false bottom,” she ordered. “Then I might believe you.”

Without a word, Cristina took Britt back down into the basement. The hole remained as they’d left it when the men had pulled the barrel out. Britt knelt and studied it, and saw a circular plate of rusted metal lain aside. She hefted it up, placed it in the barrel, and saw that it did not go all the way to the bottom. It left a good six-inch gap.

She’s not lying, Britt thought, uneasy now. “All right. I believe you. But Paul and Jess won’t. They’re going to think you knew about this in advance. They’re going to think you made it up to bring attention to yourself.”

Cristina looked down solemnly. “Do you believe that?”

“No.”

Britt didn’t know what to think now. Her eyes tracked along the floor without any forethought but stopped.

Most of the cement patchwork now lay in pieces; one piece, however, retained that odd imprint: the dragon strangled by its own tale, a warped cross branded on its back, and the words, O QUAM MAGNIFICUM, O DOMNUL.

Britt flinched from a chill, then rose and grabbed Cristina’s hand. “Come on. The guys would go ape-shit if they caught us down here.” What am I going to do with her? she worried. And what the HELL is going on here? Back on the first floor, she urged Cristina toward her room. “Get dressed, sis. They could be home any minute.”

Cristina nodded meekly and disappeared into the bedroom.

Britt let out a long sigh, then poured herself a drink. That’s great. She’s nuts and I’m a drunk. Thank God for positive environments. But the alcohol softened her cynicism with the first sip. She strode back upstairs and looked quizzically at the decanter. Did she REALLY dream about this before she found it? Britt was well versed with liars but…Cristina’s never been a liar. What, then?

The decanter felt creepy with its dull clay surface, which felt similar to the clay that covered the bowl. Worse, though, was the decanter’s fullness. Was it wine? Old holy water? She squinted, then, and noticed tiny scratchlike writing around the decanter’s base.

KANESAE, ENAMOURER OF WLAD, CNIHT OF DRWGLYA

An inexplicable queasiness came to her stomach. Drwglya, she thought, and felt even sicker when she realized what that resembled. She gulped, put the decanter in a desk drawer along with the animal skull, and went back downstairs.

Cristina had dressed in jeans and a different blouse, and now sat quietly in the kitchen.

“I don’t know what to make of any of this,” Britt broke the silence.

Cristina couldn’t have looked more forlorn. “You said Paul and Jess would think I’m lying if we told them about this…”

Britt patted Cristina’s shoulder, then sat down. “They probably would. They’re men, Cristina, and they’re lawyers. That usually means they’re stubborn, intractable, and very close-minded. They only think inside their own box.”

A hopeful glint showed in Cristina’s half-teary eyes. “Then…let’s just not tell them.”

Britt nodded. “Maybe we will one day, but not any time soon. It wouldn’t do anybody any good. I put the decanter and that creepy skull in your desk. We won’t tell them anything.”

Cristina seemed relieved.

“When they get home, they’ll probably be half in the bag already, and that’ll work to our favor. We just have to act like everything’s normal, okay?”

Cristina nodded.

“You see, Cristina. Guys like Jess and Paul live in a black-and-white world. They can never see the gray…”

Some kind of cognizance came to Cristina’s face. “What is the gray? That’s really what we’re talking about, isn’t it?”

Britt sipped her drink and nodded, but didn’t look at Cristina.

“Britt? There’s something in this house, isn’t there?”

“I think…maybe. Yes,” Britt admitted her deepest thoughts. “And that, honey, is what we’re really talking about. It’s affected me several times, not to mention that it’s put you through a wringer. Let’s just not worry about it for now.” She gave Cristina a morose look. “Let’s treat it like we treat our childhood. Pretend it never happened, and who knows? Maybe we’ll figure it out some day.” Next, she uttered a humorless chuckle. “Yeah, it just might be that this dream house of yours is haunted.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

(I)

“A nun, huh?” Vernon questioned.

Did Professor Fredrick smile? “Oh, yes, but to understand her role, you must understand Vlad’s conception of the Order of the Dragon. The only reason he wore the Order’s colors was to appease the Holy Roman Emperor, who— after Vlad’s repeated victories over the Turks—promised additional troops to reinforce Vlad’s depleting ranks. But it was a false promise. No reinforcements were ever dispatched, and Vlad suffered a catastrophic defeat just south of Bucharest. His army was all but wiped out.”

The ultimate screwjob, Vernon thought.

“Hence,” Fredrick continued, eyes closed again, “Vlad felt so betrayed by the emperor and the pope that he maintained the pretense that he was still a knight of the Order while secretly despising what the Order stood for.”

“Catholic doctrine?” Vernon guessed.

“Exactly. Like the late Templars who continued to wear the cross but engaged in atrocity, sexual abandon, and— some say—Satanism. Now here’s where history becomes besmirched by myth. Vlad had two legal wives, though he had little to do with them—his true love was a concubine and prostitute named Kanesae, who was quite diabolical in her own way. Vlad was so incensed by the emperor’s betrayal that he supposedly cursed God so vehemently that God condemned him. This is where Kanesae comes in; not only did she urge Vlad to become a heretic, she would assist him. Vlad would have her masquerade as a nun and actually commit sacrifices in the devil’s name. She would recruit other prostitutes to help her, and they would impale Christian women of childbearing age. There were rumors of rituals as well.”

“When does the vampire angle come in?” Vernon was curious.

“At the same time, toward the end of Vlad’s life. The favorite legend is that Vlad became a vampire by being bitten by one, but one of the older explanations from codices of Orthodox Romania claim nothing of the sort. It implies that on the night Vlad cursed God, he was visited by the subcarnate spirit of the succubus, who came bearing the blood of Lucifer himself. Vlad consumed the blood and then became the prince of the undead. The codices also bear out that the succubus was Kanesae. She was actually sent to Vlad, to do the dev il’s bidding.”

“A succubus masquerading as a nun.” Vernon tried to get it straight.

“Whose duty was to assist Vlad in becoming one of the most evil men in history.” Fredrick picked up the boxed figurine again. “Which brings me to this.”

“A vampire nun,” Vernon said.

“Um-hmm. Quite like Kanesae, especially when you consider the object in her hands.”

“Oh, the bowl with the three gems in it,” Vernon remarked.

Fredrick grimly appraised Vernon. “That’s not a mere bowl…”

(II)

Cristina didn’t ask the men about the bowl. Britt’s right. Don’t bring it up, and don’t mention the decanter. It made sense but she was curious. She wondered if they’d gotten the gemmed bowl appraised yet.

She could hear the others downstairs, laughing, digging into the fancy pizzas. Cristina had said she’d join them after doing a little more studio work but this was a lie. I need to get my head straight, she told herself at her desk. It was the decanter that bothered her most of all…

There’s no way I knew about it before it appeared in the dream—Another message appeared on her answering machine: Bruno again, but not to rave about preorders this time. His voice sounded strange. “Cristina, dear. I just received a peculiar call—regarding you. Call me as soon as you can.” But Cristina only sighed. I’ll call him tomorrow. Don’t feel like dealing with it now.

She opened the drawer, wincing right off at the macabre dog skull. Why would anyone do that? Then she reached past it and withdrew the decanter.

Dusk seemed to slip into the room as she looked at the odd object. Was it really wine? She held it up to the light, to discern some writing on it.

KANESAE, ENAMOURER OF WLAD, CNIHT OF DRWGLYA

Drwglya, she tried to pronounce the word in her head. Sounds like Dracula …The first word, though, disturbed her more.

Kanesae. Did I hear that word in a dream, too?

She turned quickly at the sound of a hiss. Was it just the air-conditioning blowing against the drapes? She revolved on her chair, then found herself staring into an open closet.

Her mouth slowly drooped as the darkness within seemed to form an outline—a figure.

An angled shape like a woman in a nun’s habit.

“Cristina!” Paul called out. “You better get down here before the pizza’s gone!”

The closet, of course, was empty. Just my screwed up imagination again, she knew. “Coming!”

She checked the closet more closely, then put the decanter away and headed downstairs.

(III)

“If it’s not a bowl, then what is it?” Vernon asked.

“It’s a relic, very rare, and only referred to in the codices I previously mentioned,” Fredrick said. Now he seemed puzzled and intrigued simultaneously. “Which is the oddest part of all. Very little has ever been written of this particular angle of the legend. It’s all the Bram Stoker stuff these days, which were just hearsay exaggerations from Romanian monks who’d fled to England during one of Vlad’s religious scourges. But the myth I’m referring to? It’s never even been translated into English.”

I’m losing him again, Vernon realized. “You mean this Kanesae woman, and this thing that looks like a bowl?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Then how do you know about it?”

“Because I read the actual codices myself, after I’d recovered from my injuries during the earthquake. My point is, their contents is hardly common knowledge, Inspector. They’re archived in a convent in the town of Dobruja.”

“In other words, it’s not like these texts are available at the public library,” Vernon speculated.

“Heavens no,” Fredrick replied. He kept eyeing the sinister figurine. “That’s why this is so surprising.”

Vernon tried to contain a rising aggravation. “I don’t understand, sir. The bowl is what’s so surprising?”

“Yes, yes, but not a bowl—it’s a chalice, or I should say the representation of a very evil relic mentioned all too rarely in the Romanian registries. It’s supposed to be the chalice that Vlad drank Lucifer’s blood from—a perversion of Christ’s Communion to the Apostles. Just as Christ gave his blood to the faithful, so did the Devil. The bowl was said to be the skullcap of Adam, set into clay from the Tigris River; hence, its talismanic power. And it was Kanesae—the subcarnate—who came to Vlad bearing the chalice.”

“Subcarnate?” Vernon queried.

“A demonic incarnation only half-flesh—only able to become palpable at night, and it was this entity, Kanesae, who then brought Adam’s skull as a mock chalice, filled to the brim with the blood of Lucifer himself. Just as God had abandoned Vlad on the battlefield, Vlad would abandon God in his heart…and he drank the blood. He sold his soul to become undead.” Now a partial grin came to the old man’s lips. “At least that’s how this version of the legend goes. Now, of course, you’re wondering how so many relative similarities can be not only found on your crime scenes, but who exactly is the person who designed this doll? How did he become privy to such obscure legend?”

“Not he, she,” Vernon said. “One of my investigators is trying to locate her through the manufacturer’s data on the box.”

Fredrick steepled his old fingers. “Would this woman be Romanian?”

Vernon shrugged. “I have no idea, sir. But a toy dealer did tell me she lived nearby.”

The old man paused. “This just gets stranger and stranger, doesn’t it? Ultimately, then, what do we have as far as you’re concerned? We have homicide evidence as well as an unrelated doll, which both reflect details of this myth.”

“A myth that almost no one knows about,” Vernon added. “But I wouldn’t even say the doll is ‘unrelated.’ I found another doll by the same designer at the first impalement.”

Fredrick sat through a timely pause. “It seems that your perpetrators are pulling an exceedingly well-researched series of copycat killings, and at the same time this bizarre doll seems equally well researched. They’re creating symbols that the boyar registries say will signal the resurrection of Vlad Dracula.”

Vernon felt thrown for a loop. “Pardon me?”

Fredrick eyed him, then winked. “Here’s how it works, if you believe the legend, and I’ll reiterate for clarity. Since 1476, Kanesae, as a subcarnate vampire, has been prowling the earth, protecting Vlad’s secret. What’s the secret? No one knows exactly, but we do know bits and pieces. It is said that upon the thirteenth lifetime of Vlad, Kanesae will initiate a series of sacrifices—your murder victims, for example. This will prime the rite of resurrection that Vlad orchestrated on the day of his death, and when this has fully occurred, Kanesae will bestow Vlad’s blood—secreted so long ago in a clay flagon—”

“A what?” Vernon frowned.

“A flagon—it’s like a flask, a decanter. A vessel for liquid. And Kanesae will bestow the blood upon a worthy successor. This blood—partly the Devil’s blood, remember—will revive Vlad’s spirit in the body of the heir. Then Vlad will walk the earth again in a new body, with Kanesae at his side, to resume his reign of vampirism and atrocity upon mankind.” Fredrick chuckled minutely. “That’s—like I said—if you believe the legend….”

Vernon winced. “How did his blood get in this flagon?”

Fredrick labored to rise, got a book off one of his shelves, and photocopied a single page. “For your interest, here’s a xerox of the only portrait ever produced of Kanesae, the mistress of Dracula.”

Vernon looked captivated at the reproduction of a crude wood-block print. One corner read NURNBORG 1498, the other: KANESAE, ENAMOURER OF WLAD, CNIHT OF DRWGLYA. I’m not liking this, Vernon thought. In the print’s center stood a fanged nun suspiciously similar to Cristina Nichols’s figurine. The likeness proffered a bowl with three small circles on it.

Not a bowl, Vernon reminded himself. A chalice.

A headless man lay on a stone slab in the background and at its base rested what appeared to be the severed head of a dog. Further off a crude castle could be seen, but surrounding the entire scene were dozens of impalement victims.

“What’s with the dog’s head?”

The old man sat back down. “Vlad’s body was said to be decapitated when it was discovered by a monk near Snagov Monastery but when the grave was dug up the bones of a headless dog were found instead. Vlad’s actual body was probably cremated nearby or dumped in Lake Snagov.” The professor pointed to the print. “And you’ll note the flagon containing Vlad’s blood.”

Vernon caught the detail: the modest carafelike vessel sitting beside the slab. “And the guy on the slab is Vlad?”

“Yes. His head was probably traded by the monks to Turkish soldiers in exchange for protection. The sultan of the Ottoman Empire—Mehmed II—had quite a bounty on that head. He needed to prove to his people that the dreaded Vlad the Impaler was dead.”

“So the monks who found the body cut off his head?”

“More than likely, and the reports that Vlad had been assassinated or killed in battle were invention.”

More confusion. “So the monks really killed him?”

“No, no. Vlad was already dead when the body was found. According to the legend, it was Kanesae who killed him. She bled him to death on the slab. She cut his throat.”

“So she put his blood in the flagon.” Vernon finally got it.

Fredrick nodded. “But to make things even more complicated, Vlad whispered a secret to Kanesae, with his last breath.”

Terrific. The block-print made Vernon’s eyes hurt. “Earlier, you said the legend tells of an orchestration, some supernatural strategy that would resurrect Vlad’s spirit after his thirteenth lifetime.”

“That’s right.”

“When is that?”

Fredrick leaned back again, obviously fatigued. “Well, since you asked…It’s right about now.”

(IV)

Please, no, she pleads but she knows that most of her means yes. The phantom faceless women stroke her glistening body as the all-but-nude nun holds the gemmed bowl. “Tara flaesc Wallkya.” The words crawl around the stone-lined undercroft. The colors, like vertical snakes of light, squirm and churn, and their movement seems to escalate as her passions rise.

“Serveste pe domnul!” The words fly batlike out of the dark while hot hands and mouths press more closely. A sound echoes amid the chamber: a barking dog …

She convulses as her orgasm quakes. Delighted squeals rise. Through slit eyes she sees the nun’s grin, the pink tongue tip between narrow fangs, and behind the churning light, she sees the stone slab and the decanter but this time no sign of the man in leather boots and strange armor. A streak of blood stains the stone where the neck would be.

“It’s time, it’s time!” voices chatter.

“Look!” And a finger points.

She rises, not knowing why, and suddenly she’s somewhere else. When she turns to look back at the nun and her wanton suitors, she only sees tiny white fangs—four sets of them— dissolve away in the dark.

Now she’s standing in a dense forest. It seems that between every tree is a tall wooden pole on which someone has been impaled, some through their hearts, some through their groins, some upside-down through their mouths. Some of the bodies are rotten, yet others still twitch with life, and the sound of moans fills the forest like the wind.

She walks naked between trees and pikes, moonlight shivering through the branches. Then she hears—

thwack! thwack! thwack!

—and in the moonlit drear she sees a monk wielding a sword, cutting the head off of a prone body. He grabs the head by its mane of dark hair—a man’s head, with a great black mustache—and he hands it to some men in turbans and long-handled axes. The men walk off in the other direction, steely-eyed, solemn-faced.

The monk looks up, looks directly at her.

She wants to scream but then realizes that the cloaked man doesn’t see her. He stoops and begins to drag the headless corpse toward the edge of a vast lake beyond which looms a walled monastery, and then she blinks—

—and—

“Kanesae!”

—she’s back in the dank undercroft, hypnotized by the churning black, green, and red light, and three wan faces hover above her as her body spasms and their grins fill with fangs, and then the faces plummet with glee and she can feel those long, narrow needle teeth sink into her neck, and the nun, now in her black habit and white wimple, says, “Blessed one, the wonder is nearly upon us but before you rejoice, you must take that accursed seal and break it to pieces,” and the words grow dimmer and dimmer as her blood is sucked and sucked and she prays, It’s a dream, it’s a dream, it’s just a dream!

Cristina stood tensed, on tiptoes, as if about to fall from a highwire. Just a dream, just a—Her hands felt desperately at her throat where she was sure she could feel a raging, raw pain.

But there was nothing. No wounds. No blood.

Just a dream, came the allaying thought. Just that damn nightmare again.

She expected to find herself in the bedroom, but—

Oh my God …

She was in the basement. She crept up the steps, peeked around. Stillness. Dark. The mantel clock read just past midnight. Everyone must be asleep …Just to make sure, she put one eye to the gap in the bedroom door and saw Paul fast asleep. An ear to the guest room door revealed Britt and Jess moaning in unison. Good. No one’ll know.

Her nightgown felt drenched, strings of her blonde hair slicked to her face by sweat. I’m losing it, she thought. Britt’ll want to check me into a hospital…and I guess that’s what I should do.

Only then did she realize that she had something rough in her hand…

Several flat chunks of cement. She put them on the kitchen table, like puzzle pieces. What did I do?

It didn’t take long to recompose the strange seal that had been imprinted in the cement patch downstairs. She’d obviously fractured it with a hammer. Reassembled, she could barely make out the dragon strangled by its own tail, and the words O QUAM MAGNIFICUM, O DOMNUL.

Cristina dropped the pieces in the garbage…

(V)

“And you said Vlad was forty-five when he died?” Vernon asked.

“That’s right,” Fredrick affirmed.

“And this…reincarnation is supposed to occur after this thirteenth lifetime?”

The professor smiled. “Noting an irregularity, hmm? You must be a math whiz.”

Vernon had been, but that was a long time ago. He took out his cell phone and turned on the calculator function, fumbling with the tiny keys. “I knew that sounded a bit off. Thirteen times forty-five is two thousand sixty-six, Professor. That’s a ways off.” Vernon looked at him. Is this old guy pulling my chain? “Why did you tell me the time was now?”

Fredrick smiled like a wise grandfather. “You’re correct, thirteen times forty-five is indeed two thousand sixty-six…but not on the Diocletian calendar.”

“Huh?”

“That was the calendar used in Orthodox Romania back then. They’d always rejected the Julian calendar, and they didn’t accept the Gregorian calendar either, because of Pope Gregory’s use of mathematics by the astronomer Charles Rommes. Rommes was not just an astronomer but also, allegedly, an astrologer, which was considered sorcery by the Orthodox. Hence, many Eastern European states used their own pre-Gregorian calendar based on Diocletian—the first Roman emperor to ease persecution of Christians and also because he conquered Persia in the 300’s. Remember, Turkey—part of what was known as Persia—was Christianity’s greatest enemy eleven hundred years later in Vlad’s time.”

“Jesus,” Vernon muttered. “The Diocletian calendar. I knew you’d have an answer.”

Fredrick nodded. “So, based on that calendar, the thirteenth lifetime of Vlad is right around now. It seems your ritual murderers are apprised of this, and that’s why these crimes have occurred.”

“Because they think that Vlad’s spirit will be reborn,” Vernon said, more to himself. A pause. “You don’t believe it, do you?”

“Inspector? Do you mind if I have a glass of wine?”

Vernon laughed. “Of course not, sir. It’s your home.”

“And please join me. You can’t still be on duty at this hour…”

Holy shit, Vernon thought when he looked at his watch. It’s past midnight. I’ve blown this old guy’s entire day. “I’m terribly sorry, sir. Time got away from me.”

“Oh, believe me, Inspector. Your indulgence is my plea sure.” Fredrick awkwardly brought two glasses to the desk. “I seldom get a chance to talk about these things.”

Vernon looked at the dark wine. I never drink before ten o’clock, and…it’s past ten o’clock. “Thanks very much.”

“Did you know that Romania is the ninth largest wine producer in the world? This one’s from the Tarnave vineyards…in Transylvania.”

Vernon paused before taking a sip, then thought, Fuck the French. That’s damn good. “I just have a few more questions, if that’s okay.”

Now the old man seemed lulled. “Please…”

“It helps me to know what our killers actually believe. But I’m still not clear on Vlad’s death.”

“Understandable, since there are so many versions. Vlad’s vampirism and heretical atrocities were reported to the pope and the emperor. Vlad knew it was only a matter of time before he’d be assassinated by them, or by contractors hired by the Turks. So he circumvented it all by planning his own death, allowing Kanesae to bleed him to death. Think of this as the very beginning of a chain of events, the last of which—your killers think—are taking place now. But, remember, Vlad’s last words on earth were the words he whispered to Kanesae as his blood was drained into the flagon—the secret.”

“What was the secret!” Vernon raised his voice.

“Well, that’s subject to interpretation. Monks who had remained loyal to the true Order of the Dragon seized Vlad and cut off his head, to end his reign of evil. They were dumbfounded, though, when Vlad’s body didn’t bleed upon decapitation. They presumed that this was a symptom of his vampirism…but they were wrong.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“They never knew that Vlad had already set an occult rite into motion. The monks buried the flagon, along with the chalice, in the monastery’s stream, which served as the property’s water supply. Since this was consecrated ground, the stream ran with holy water, and this would prevent any malign entity—such as Kanesae—from absconding with it.”

Vernon frowned. “So this stuff is still beneath this stream in Romania?”

Fredrick shook his head, a grimness now in his eyes. “The flagon and chalice had been secured in an iron keg, but this keg was upheaved during the 1977 earthquake. Some men ran off with it, and I know this to be fact because I saw it with my own eyes.”

That’s right. His leg was crushed during the same quake, Vernon recalled. “Who were the men?”

“I’ll never know for sure but they may have been descendants of the original Order of the Dragon, since the rumor abounds that the Order never dissolved. Keep in mind, when I saw this I thought I was going to die; it could’ve been a near-death hallucination or something.”

Vernon thought things over. Impalements. Desecration involving the colors of the Order. And homeless women who believe in the spirit of a vampire nun …“You said that Kanesae recruited prostitutes?”

“To be her acolytes, yes. To assist her.”

Virginia Fleming and Scab both had rap sheets for prostitution, Vernon reminded himself.

Fredrick continued, “Allegiance in return for reward— an age-old symptom, Inspector. They believed that they would be granted immortality, as vampires. Supposedly, as Kanesae’s power peaks, and as she becomes more and more flesh and less and less spirit, her acolytes would become vampires as well.” The old man sipped more wine, relaxing. “Over the years, I’ve researched every angle of the legend, more by default than anything.”

“Sir?”

“Before the earthquake I had no professional interest whatsoever in fifteenth-century Romanian history. But after an experience like that?”

Of course. He was almost killed at the same place all this supposedly happened, Vernon realized.

“And so not to fully avoid your question of a while ago,” the professor began and smiled. He fired up his pipe again. “No, I don’t believe the legend myself.”

Sure, but somebody does. And that’s my biggest lead. They both jumped a little when Vernon’s phone rang. It was Slouch.

“Oh, good, I was beginning to think you’d been impaled.”

“What are you talking about, Slouch?” Vernon frowned.

“Well, you never signed off-shift, and nobody’s heard from you for about twelve hours.”

“I’m in the middle of a consultation with an expert on…” Vernon stalled. Forget it. “But I’m leaving soon.”

“So I can go home now?”

“Yes, yes! Did you get that—”

“—current address for Cristina Nichols? What do you think I am, a slouch? Of course I got it. Finally reached the company owner, a guy named Bruno von Blanc. He wasn’t too keen on giving up the info but then I sweet-talked him, you know?”

“Yeah, like you sweet-talked me for your last promotion,” Vernon said.

“She lives with a hotshot lawyer named Paul Nasher.”

“Yeah, but where does she live? That’s what I need to know.”

Slouch paused for effect. “Are you ready for this one?”

“Yeah.”

“No, I mean are you really ready?”

“I’m ready to transfer you to motor-pool duty. How’s that?”

Slouch laughed. “Cristina Nichols lives four doors down from the corner where all our bum-chicks have been seen.”

Vernon stared.

“You there, How?”

“That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?”

“That’s a big hell yeah, boss.”

“Give me Nichols’s address.”

Slouch did so, then Vernon recited the information as he jotted it down: “1387 Dessorio Avenue…Jesus. That’s right down the street from that hot dog vendor.”

“Um-hmm. Strange, huh? But you’re not going there now, are you? It’s past midnight.”

“No, but I might drive by just to see the place, and see if any of these homeless women are out.”

“Okay, boss. But watch out for sharp sticks.”

Vernon hung up, intrigued. Another link, however inexplicable.

Fredrick had overheard. “So this Nichols woman is—”

“A novelty toy designer,” Vernon said. He held up the plastic nun again. “The creator of this.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

(I)

All the pieces are coming together, Rollin thought miserably. He trudged home from the hotel, eyes wide open in a dreadful contemplation. He pulled the pendant out from his shirt and touched its surface, then touched the silver ring.

I’ll have to enter the house myself, with a gun if need be …

His surveillance of the annex house had amounted to nothing to night. Through the binoculars, he’d seen Cristina Nichols come in and out of her studio several times later, but that was all. Were those two friends of hers staying the night again? Rollin had only seen the dark-haired woman once. I’m spying on the place from two directions, he thought, and what good has it done me?

Again, he faced the fact: he’d have to enter the house himself, and without the owner’s knowledge. I don’t suppose priests fare well in jail, he chuckled to himself.

The hotel behind him now, full dark stretched down Dessorio Avenue. Traffic and pedestrians seemed strangely scant. When he passed the alley, though, he thought he heard the faintest voice, then a scuffling.

One of the homeless girls?

He squinted in the grainy sodium light. Two wan figures stood by some garbage cans, then—to his disbelief—one of them seemed to disappear. He could tell they were women. Where did she go?

Rollin walked along the edge of the alley, using the shadows to conceal himself. Yes! he thought. He could see the second woman now: greasy-haired, and a T-shirt that read THE DAMNED. It’s them …He froze in the dark and watched, fascinated. Now she was lying on her belly. After a moment she, too, seemed to disappear between the garbage cans.

So that’s where they’ve been hiding the whole time …

He quickened his pace. When he arrived, he could see that the garbage can had been dragged back. From inside the building? It must be. Very carefully he moved the can back and saw the hole in the brick wall, about a foot in diameter.

Rollin was delighted that he’d finally found their hiding place, but…

What now?

He looked at the hole without much confidence. I’m probably too fat to squeeze in there.

Calling the police made the most sense but then that would only bring undue attention in proximity to the house. A lifetime of service to God may well be boiling down to this moment, he considered.

He whispered a brief prayer, then got down on his belly and began to crawl into the hole…

(II)

Vernon didn’t know what induced him to glance down the alley at that precise moment, but when he did he saw what appeared to be a portly figure in black fidgeting on the pavement. Oh, for God’s sake, I guess I better …

He pulled the unmarked into the alley, just one turn before the road that Cristina Nichols lived on. He didn’t know why but he wanted to look at the place, figured he’d stop by and question her tomorrow. But now this…

It is my job, he reminded himself. He parked in the alley and got out. Probably some wino having the D.T.’s, but then he looked close and saw that this person was wearing decent black shoes and slacks. A man, obviously. Vernon shook his head.

He’s crawling into a hole in the wall…

Vernon nudged the man’s leg with his shoe. “Police,” he announced. “Crawl back out of there or I’ll pull you out.”

Amid grunts and scuffs, the portly figure shimmied back out and stood up, clearly embarrassed.

Vernon slumped. It was a priest.

“Uh, uh, good evening, Officer,” the man bumbled in a slight accent that sounded European. “I’m Father John Rollin, of St. Amano’s Church on Dessorio. I can imagine how this appears.”

“Why is a priest crawling into a hole in the wall of an abandoned building at twelve thirty at night?” Vernon tapped his foot. He didn’t smell alcohol, at least.

The priest seemed to ruminate, obviously nervous. “My church was vandalized recently, by several homeless women—”

Suddenly Vernon was all ears.

“—and I just spotted two of them, right here, crawling inside the building.”

Vernon suddenly felt overenergized. He all but grabbed the priest and dragged him to the car. “Really, Officer, I—”

“Bear with me, Father.” Vernon grabbed his flashlight from the car, along with an envelope. “Have you ever seen these homeless women?” He shined the light while the priest examined the photos.

Rollin looked right into Vernon’s face, deadpan. “This is uncanny, Officer. Two of the women in these photos are the same two I just saw crawl into this building. I’m 100 percent certain.”

Vernon suddenly felt weak-kneed.

“And this third woman here”—the priest pointed at the next security picture—“the one with the pink glasses. I’ve seen her in this area many times as well.”

I may have just solved the fucking case, Vernon thought, incredulous. The killers have been using this old Banana Republic as a place to squat…and two of them are in there right now …

“Pardon me, Officer, but is there some reason that you look overjoyed right now?”

Vernon gaped at him. “You wouldn’t understand, Father.” He took out his gun. “Excuse me.” He stepped past the priest and got down on his belly.

“You’re…going in?”

“You were going in, weren’t you?”

“Well, yes…”

“Look,” Vernon said over his shoulder, “if I’m not back in ten minutes, call the Twentieth Precinct, will ya?”

“I’d like to follow you in, if you don’t mind,” Rollin asked uncomfortably.

“Fine, fine. Come on.”

Vernon’s slender build didn’t impede him. He slipped through the hole into a maw of malodorous darkness. Another hole could be seen only a few feet ahead. He plowed the flashlight beam forward, saw distant clutter, then shouted, “Police! Identify yourselves and come out of there!”

There was no sound in response. He waited a moment and listened some more.

Nothing.

This is really stupid, he thought, then crawled through the next hole.

Good God! he thought, gagging. The stench was overpowering. Something dead in here, he knew. The flashlight beam seemed dimmer for some reason. He turned it back to the wall and saw the priest laboriously squeezing his way through.

“What an awful stench…”

“Tell me about it,” Vernon said. Looks like an old boiler room, he noted. A pile of trash filled one corner, while boxes of more trash seemed to partition the room. Smaller boxes and milk crates sat arranged on the floor around a broken television, and there were unlit candle stubs everywhere. Vernon took a step forward and—

Shit!

—almost fell flat on his face. He’d stepped on something that had rolled. Pay dirt, he thought when he shined the light down.

What he’d slipped on was a red magic marker.

“There’s no one here,” the priest said.

“We don’t know that. They could be hiding in the boxes, so be careful.” Vernon slowly nosed around, gun forward.

“I really don’t think there’s anyone here, Officer.” The priest was looking around behind him. “And if they’re not here—”

“Where did they go?” Vernon’s gut clenched when he looked behind several more boxes and saw several broom handles whose ends had been whittled to sharp points. A few whittling knives lay beside them.

“There must be some other access, which makes sense,” the priest said.

“What?”

“Just because…” Rollin’s next words faded as he began to pad around the wall.

But Vernon was already staring. What he’d noticed first were two plastic figurines sitting on the floor. More of Nichols’s dolls …He picked them up without thinking, tainting any fingerprints, and read their bases. Hypothermia Harriet, Leprosy Linda …

Then he turned into another area sectioned off with more boxes. The stench trebled, and when he shined his light toward the wall he felt his heart stop a moment.

“Officer? Could you bring your light over here?” Father Rollin requested.

“No,” Vernon croaked. “I need you to look at this.”

Careful footsteps scuffed.

“God Almighty…”

The flashlight beam hovered across six corpses impaled on broomsticks: two men, four women. Pools of blood congealed at each base, the telltale Christmas tree stands. Two had been impaled upside-down, and all were nude. Most of them had been scrawled on with black, green, and red markers.

Vernon and the priest backed out of the cubby, hacking. Rollin muttered prayers in Latin, in spite of being half in shock, while Vernon reached into his pocket and swore.

“Father, I left my cell phone in the car. I need yours.”

Rollin blinked out of daze. “I—I’ve never owned one.”

“Let’s get out of here so I can call this in.”

“Yes, but…Look at this first.” The priest guided Vernon around more clutter to the wall. “They must’ve left through here.” Vernon held the light while the priest showed him an area low on the wall where two cinderblocks had been prized and pulled out.

“They’re in the house next door,” Rollin said. “Cristina Nichols’s house.”

Vernon’s eyes widened. “You know her?”

“Oh, yes, and I also know that these homeless women have been sneaking in and out of her house for some time now. They’ve been…preparing for something.”

Vernon out of impulse grabbed Rollin’s black shirt. “Is there a nun with them?”

Rollin stalled. “She’s not really a nun. She merely poses as one. Her name is Kanesae.”

Vernon leaned against the wall, to think. “Listen. I have to go in there. I want you to crawl back outside, get my cell phone, and call 911.”

Rollin sighed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist on coming with you, Officer. Your 911 won’t help you, believe me.”

Vernon was about to shove him back outside but his eyes flicked to something around the man’s neck. There was a cross on a chain; behind it, though, was pendant, a small disk showing a dragon strangled by its own tail, and the words:

O QUAM MAGNIFICUM, O DOMNUL

Rollin absently touched a ring on his finger, with the same emblem and words. “Let’s go now, both of us. You don’t know what’s happening here.” He crossed himself. “I do.”

(III)

Did Britt hear a voice?

“Singele lui traieste …”

It was more like a dream-sound behind something else: the wind rustling through a dense forest.

And a dog barking…

Britt tried to open her eyes but the dream kept her pinned behind its caul of sheer black. At the same time, though, the lewdest sensations began to crest. What was happening? Her back arched, her hands came desperately to her breasts, and then a ravenous orgasm broke as what could only be a mouth tended to her most private place. Still, there was only utter darkness, and for a moment she received the ghastly impression that she’d just had her orgasm in a closed coffin.

When her hands reached down to run her fingers through Jess’s hair, her eyes finally opened. It took a moment to remember where she was: Cristina’s guest room. That’s right, we spent the night again. She looked down and smiled, still playing with Jess’s hair. “Oh, Jess, honey, that was lovely. You know how much I like it when you surprise me like that…”

“My name’s not Jess, it’s Sandrine,” came a sharp female voice.

Britt sucked in a long deep breath to scream when she saw the dirty face rising from between her legs, some vagabond girl with crusty hair.

When the girl grinned, two narrow fangs flashed.

A hand slapped across Britt’s mouth, stifling the scream. Suddenly two more unkempt, naked women were on her, both grinning with similar fangs.

“You can join the convent, too,” said the one with her hand over Britt’s mouth. Dirty blonde hair, clunky glasses.

A third giggled, “It’s the Nuh-Nuh-New Mother’s time. She’s almost fluh-fluh-fluh-fluh-flesh!”

“Look now,” said the one with the glasses, and she shoved Britt’s head to the right, where Jess lay asleep.

But he was more than asleep, she saw. His skin was pale bluish white, and he lay drained, fang marks pocking both sides of his throat.

“We have the power now,” said the one between her legs, “just like she promised.”

“We-we-we-sucked him dry!”

“Just like we’re gonna do to you,” whispered Glasses, and then all three of them converged, their fanged mouths gnawing Britt’s throat like a dog chewie. She convulsed as she felt her blood being sucked straight into their bellies, and as her vision dimmed, she noticed the figure standing in the doorway.

A nun. A grinning nun.

(IV)

Paul woke in a lurch. Had there been a noise? He sat upright a full minute before his eyes could acclimate. Jesus…His heart was hammering, but…why? Must’ve had a nightmare. Moonlight leaking through the blinds showed him that Cristina wasn’t in bed.

She was acting weird again to night. With my luck she’s going off the deep end. All that crap from her childhood? Who knew what effect that could have on someone years later? He pulled on his robe and went out to the kitchen.

“Cristina?”

He’d half-expected to find her out here with Britt, doing their girl-talk. But the kitchen stood dark save for the light over the stove. Something’s not right, he thought without knowing why the notion came to him. He padded to the guest room, where the door stood open. Jess snores like a polar bear, he realized, but the hall was dead silent. Paul stuck his head in…

He stared for a while at the motionless shapes atop the bed. They’re sleeping, he told himself. Right? But something seemed to drag him in. He felt colder with each step toward the bed, until he was staring down, mouth agape.

“Jess? Britt?”

He nudged Britt’s shoulder in the near-pitch dark, then turned on the light.

What he saw there shoved him out of the room where he collapsed in the hall, but the image followed him: Jess and Britt both naked and pale, their eyes and mouths locked open. Both of their throats had been gnawed deep.

Instinct more than reason shot him back to the kitchen. “Cristina!” he yelled. “Get out of the house!” He picked up the phone to call the police but—

“Shit!”

No dial tone.

The next series of minutes proceeded as a mad blur. His cell phone wasn’t to be found, and neither was Cristina’s. Get out, came the next impulse. Whoever killed them could still be here …But as he raced for the front door, he stopped in his tracks.

I can’t leave without Cristina …

“Where are you?” he bellowed. His mind was a tumult; he couldn’t fix on a single thought. Next, he was staring up the stairs.

A light was on.

The studio…Had she fallen asleep, or had another blackout?

Is she even still alive?

He ran up the stairs, however terrified, and bolted into the room.

Cristina stood in front of the windows, nude. She didn’t move.

“Cristina! Come on! Someone broke into the house and killed Jess and Britt!”

Lying on the floor were several broom handles whose ends had been sharpened to points.

“What the hell is that? Cristina?”

She remained standing utterly still. She didn’t seem to hear him. Paul simply stared as she turned and walked toward her work desks. Her eyes looked glazed.

“What’s wrong with you!”

Paul’s stare was drawn deeper when Cristina opened a drawer. She pulled out a yellowed dog’s skull, kissed it, and set it down.

What on earth …

Her blonde hair dangled when she leaned over again, this time removing a strange stoppered bottle that looked old. She clutched it to her bare bosom, then walked slowly out of the room, never once noticing Paul.

I don’t know what the hell’s happening but …

He had to get out.

Then his eyes widened more. Had it been Cristina who’d killed Britt and Jess? A psychotic episode or something. A schizophrenic break …He went out to the dark hall, and saw Cristina’s white body moving slowly up the stairs, to the unfinished rooms.

Paul screamed when he turned, almost fell over.

Britt and Jess stood before him, both smiling with drawn, white faces. They looked skinny now, sapped. Their gnawed throats had clotted up, and both of them had been scrawled on: wavy lines of black, green, and red trailing up and down their nude bodies.

“She’s getting ready, Paul,” Jess said. “You don’t understand.”

Britt stepped forward. “We didn’t either, until we were brought over by the New Mother.”

Paul’s mouth fell open.

“It’s going to happen tonight…” Britt’s nipples and lips were blue. “But it’s something that was planned a long time ago. All we needed were the chalice and the flagon, and we’ve got them both now.” And finally she grinned openly, showing two long white fangs.

Jess bared fangs as well. “It’s the flagon, Paul, don’t you see? It contains the blood of the Prince, and when Cristina drinks it, the Prince will live again, in her body…”

“It’s miraculous, and we all get to be a part.” Britt’s eyes seemed to burn. “You do, too…sort of.”

Britt and Jess stepped closer.

Britt lifted something off the floor and passed it to Jess. “Submit willingly, and you’ll be held in a higher favor.”

The object she’d given Jess was a sharpened broom handle.

Paul backpedaled, then fell down again. Britt lunged on him, her hands pinning him to the floor; he couldn’t budge against her impossible strength. “Let us take your blood first, then we’ll mount you as a homage to the Prince.”

“You’ll get to live forever, Paul, with us. We’ll all live forever in hell…”

Britt’s mouth opened so wide it seemed as though her jaw came unhinged.

“It only hurts for a minute,” Jess promised.

Paul pushed up, squeezing Britt’s throat as hard as he could, his legs kicking wildly. All the while, though, Britt’s mouth continued to lower. He tried to squirm out from under her, but to no avail. A desperate glance behind him showed him a figure standing in the darkness, as if watching in approval.

The figure looked like a nun…

The tips of two fangs touched Paul’s throat—

“Save some for me,” Jess chuckled.

A voice boomed up the stairs: “O quam magnificum, o domnul …”

Britt hissed, her pale dead face suddenly stamped with disgust. She rolled off Paul and looked up. Jess dropped the broom handle, gagging.

Another hiss sounded from the dark end of the hall.

A thin guy in slacks and a tacky sports jacket came first up the steps, holding a pistol. Behind him came a grayhaired priest.

“Strigoi,” said the priest. “Get thee hence.”

Jess and Britt looked sickened, and when the priest raised a circular pendant of some kind, they both vomited blood, then scurried into the studio. The priest hung the pendant on the inside doorknob, then closed the door.

Paul didn’t know which end was up. “Who are…you?”

“Never mind,” snapped the guy with the gun. “I’m a cop. Where’s Cristina Nichols?”

“I—Upstairs…”

“What did those two tell you?” the priest asked in a faint accent. He pointed to the studio door.

Paul shook the terror out of his head and got up. “Something about…a chalice and—”

“Where is it? It doesn’t look like a regular chalice—it’s just a bowl, a clay bowl.”

The recollection bloomed. “We found it in the basement, then—”

“Then what?” the priest snapped.

“Some woman stole it.”

The cop looked bewildered while the priest looked grim.

“They also said something about a flagon,” Paul added. “They said it had blood in it that they wanted Cristina to

drink.”

“Where is it?”

“She took an old bottle upstairs a few minutes ago.”

“That’s it.” The cop looked up the stairs. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait,” the priest advised. Were his hands shaking? “We have to…think about this.”

The cop raised his gun. “Let me do the thinking.”

“That will do you little good, Officer.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it…”

“Listen to me,” the priest insisted. “We can’t let Cristina consume the contents of that flagon. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?” Paul asked.

“We’ll have no choice but to kill her.”

“Why!”

“Because it won’t be Cristina anymore.” The priest stared off. “It’ll be someone else.”

And that’s when they heard a voice calling them from downstairs…

(V)

Cristina felt jubilant, eyes wide open as the dark colors swirled. Black. Green. Red. She’d set the flagon down in the first empty room. The figure waited for her.

Kanesae.

“I must show you now. You must see your glorious destiny…”

She was standing in the dream as it whirled around, a dark yet radiant maelstrom. The shimmering lines of black, green, and red churning against the bare walls and her bare skin. When the nun kissed her, Cristina sunk deeper into the evil muse…

“Look. And see…”

Again she’s in the dripping, rock-walled chamber. The man is no longer on the stone slab, and then she remembers that he’d already been dragged out, yet Kanesae remains, bloody-mouthed and enraptured as she carefully pours the blood from the crude chalice into the flagon.

“His blood is alive,” Kanesae whispers.

(VI)

Vernon couldn’t possibly calculate all that he’d seen in the last few minutes, so he gave up trying. We have to find Cristina, he realized, and Cristina was upstairs. But now someone had just called out, from downstairs.

“I should’ve known there’d be detractors in wait,” Rollin muttered and fingered his cross.

“What do we do?” Paul asked without much confidence.

“We go down there,” Vernon said. He thrust his gun forward. “Follow me.”

They crept down the steps, eyes peeled. Most of the lights had been turned out, leaving the foyer and living room plunged in darkness, and from that darkness a thin figure stepped forward after she’d said, “Come down here. I want to make a deal with you…”

One of the homeless girls, Vernon recognized.

Dirty shoulder-length hair looked like black noodles on her head. The farther Vernon proceeded down the stairs, the more details he could make out. She was emaciated and naked, her skin streaked by the multicolored magic markers. In her hand she held a sharpened pole.

“Listen to me,” she said. “You can leave now, just leave. We won’t follow you, we won’t kill you.”

“I’ve got the gun, honey,” Vernon pointed out.

When the woman’s barely visible face smiled, the fangs glittered. “Shoot me, and you’ll see.”

To hell with it. Vernon squeezed the trigger—

BAM!

—and watched a bloodless hole appear between the woman’s sagging breasts.

Then he fired five more shots into a tight group over her heart.

“So just leave. Right now,” she said, and took another step forward. “Don’t interfere. You might even be rewarded someday.”

“In hell, you mean,” Rollin voiced and stepped ahead of Vernon. “We’re not interested.” Then he raised his cross.

The woman only smiled wider. “What I can’t see can’t offend me.” And now she was close enough that Vernon could discern the crucial detail: she’d dug her own eyes out.

“The New Mother says that the most powerful force that exists is faith. Watch me.” The fangs shined in the blinded face. “I’ll show you my faith, but if you go upstairs, this will be done to you.” And then she held the sharpened pole above her head, opened her mouth, and began to slide it slowly down her throat.

“God in Heaven…”

Vernon closed his eyes but could still hear it. The woman stood with her feet apart, and continued to shove the pole down in increments. When it exited her crotch, she continued to shove, until the point hit the floor.

She stood for a moment, in perfect stillness, then fell over.

Fuck this, Vernon thought, reloading his gun.

“She was distracting us,” Rollin said. “Time’s running out if it hasn’t already. We have to go upstairs and prevent Cristina from consuming the contents of the flagon.”

Vernon gulped, looking at the impaled woman. “Uh, well…”

“We have to go upstairs,” the priest said. “We must.”

When Vernon turned back around, he stopped short. The landing was empty.

“Where the hell did Paul Nasher go?” Vernon asked.

(VII)

Was it his lawyer’s morality…or something in the house? Paul thought he understood what was going on here. Power, for one thing. A power timeless and everlasting. Why should I let someone else get it? came his reasoning.

When the priest and the cop had gone downstairs, Paul had slipped up to the third floor. The air felt thicker up here for some reason, as if it were alive with something. Moonlight tinted the dark corners of the hallway and unfinished rooms. Got to find her, he thought. Can’t let her drink the blood …

He froze in the next doorway.

There she was—Cristina—kneeling naked in the middle of the vacant room. Was she muttering under her breath?

Or praying?

Paul stepped back to conceal himself, and watched.

There was a soft grating sound when Cristina twisted the stopper out of the flagon. Instantly, the moonlight in the room seemed to darken; Paul wasn’t sure, but he thought he could also see churning lines of light in the back of his mind, lines that were black, green, and red. After what he’d seen Jess and Britt become, Paul could believe anything now, even the prospect of immortality. As a lawyer, he’d always gone for the gold and had gotten it every time, via brains, bravado, and ruthlessness. Survival of the fittest. That’s how it’s always been, since men were apes …

Now Cristina was slowly pouring the contents of the flagon into the clay bowl they’d found in the basement. The blood inside was black now—The Prince’s blood, Paul reminded himself—and it dripped as slowly as old motor oil.

Cristina gazed at the filled bowl as though it were a crystal ball. What did she see in it?

Paul bounded into the room.

“What are you doing here?” Cristina screamed, her eyes feral. She reached for the bowl—

THWACK!

—but Paul kicked her in the head.

“Change of plans, Cristina,” he said.

She leaned up, groggy. “Get out! You’ll ruin everything!”

“Depends on your point of view, honey.” And then, as she lunged for the bowl again, Paul easily grabbed her hair and yanked her to the corner. She kicked and shrieked. “Guess we all have a bad side,” he added. “Now you get to see mine.”

Still holding her hair, he hauled her up and began to bang the back of her head against the wall. Five thuds. Ten. When he was done, the wall showed dents. Cristina collapsed to the floor. He hoped she wasn’t dead. She’ll be the first one I feed on…

Paul turned and stared at the bowl. Very slowly, then, he leaned over and picked it up…

(VIII)

On the next landing, Vernon put his gun away and picked up the sharpened broom handle that Britt had dropped outside the studio. This is fucked-up, he thought, when he realized exactly what he was doing. Behind the studio door, he heard a hissing and a gurgling.

“Up the next flight,” Rollin urged. “I’ll go first.”

What ever you say, Vernon thought.

Only moonlight lit the third floor from the unshaded windows. A noise from the first room signaled him.

“She must be in there,” Rollin whispered. “Remember, if she’s consumed the blood, you must kill her—” He looked at the pole. “With that.”

Vernon nodded.

The priest stepped ahead of him and entered the room.

But it wasn’t Cristina who stood there. It was Paul.

“Stop!” Rollin shouted. “You don’t know what you’re doing! You don’t know what you’re bringing back!”

Paul stood poised, with the bowl inches from his lips. “You’re wrong about that, priest. I do know what I’m bringing back. That’s why I’m doing it.”

Paul gulped down the contents of the bowl, and when he tossed the bowl aside, it shattered on the floor, revealing that the clay had been merely a surface, covering what appeared to be a human skullcap.

“Now!” Rollin yelled to Vernon.

Just as Vernon would charge into the room, a thin figure grabbed him from behind. “Yuh-yuh-yuh-you can’t!” exclaimed the emaciated woman suddenly on his back. She, too, was nude and scrawled with the black, green, and red lines. Dirty nails clawed at his face; the pole fell from his hands. “Yuh-you don’t belong here-belong here-belong here!” Vernon yelled when the fanged mouth began to snap open and closed an inch from his face. “I could use some fuckin’ help here, Father!” he bellowed, but the priest was absent. Had he fled? Ninety pounds or not, the pallid woman fought like a gang member. Vernon thrashed on the bare floor; it was all he could do to keep the woman’s snapping mouth off his throat.

“Gonna suck you-suck you-suck you dry…”

Vernon’s strength began to falter; her foaming mouth drew so close he could feel the sour breath gusting on his throat.

He wasn’t thinking when he fired four shots up into the woman’s chest. It hadn’t worked before, so why had he done it now? The woman paused to chuckle, then leaned harder toward his throat.

One more shot: BAM!

“You can’t hurt me with that-with that-with—”

BAM!

The sixth shot blew the woman clean off of Vernon like a catapult. She lay lopsided against the baseboard, con vulsing.

“Fuh-fuh-fucker…” And then she fell dead.

Vernon had fired four shots in a straight line down her chest, then a fifth to the right, and the sixth to the left, the bullet holes forming the configuration of the cross.

He dragged his gaze to the middle of the room.

Father Rollin was on his knees, exhausted, while Paul Nasher twitched on the floor, the sharpened pole rammed fully through his chest, puncturing his heart.

Vernon glared at the priest. “Is it Miller Time yet?”

“I killed him before the transference could take place,” Rollin wheezed. He pointed to Cristina who lay in the opposite corner. “See if—”

Vernon rushed to her, felt for vitals.

“Is she—”

“She’s got a pulse. We’ve got to get her to the hospital. Looks like Nasher damn near beat her to death.” Vernon groaned when he put her over his shoulder. Rollin was already in the hall but something stopped him in his tracks.

“What now!” Vernon yelled.

“Is it my imagination…or do I smell smoke?”

Vernon labored to the stairwell, looked down. The crackling was undeniable, and so was the roaring light. “Somebody set the fuckin’ house on fire!”

“Hurry!”

They rushed to the second-floor landing as smoke began to pour up in volume. The living room was engulfed in flames. We’ll have to jump from a window, Vernon thought, but then the priest bulled down the stairs.

“Are you nuts!”

“Come on, we can beat it!”

Vernon followed, Cristina getting heavier on his shoulder. The front door of the house was already behind a wall of flame. “Now what?”

“Here!” Rollin shouted. “The way we came in!”

That’s right. The basement …

He thunked down more steps into the basement, wondering how long it would take before the floor collapsed on them, bringing down rafters of fire.

“Hurry!”

No, YOU hurry, Vernon thought. I’m the one carrying someone …

Now the house was shaking from the conflagration. Rollin was already on the floor, backing into the narrow hole. “I’ll pull, you push!” he yelled.

Makes sense. Vernon knelt as he fed Cristina’s limp body into the hole. Rollin could be heard grunting his exertion; Cristina disappeared in increments. “Any time now!” Vernon exclaimed, hearing the fire upstairs roar.

Vernon pushed on the unconscious woman’s legs until she was all the way in. Would the fire spread to the next building before they could get out? He could hear fire alarms going on at the adjacent condo. Vernon began to crawl into the hole, to fully exit the house.

When he was halfway in, two hands grabbed his ankles and pulled him back.

Vernon yelled the whole way.

“What happened?” Rollin shouted from the other side.

“Just get her out! The fire’s spreading!” He reached for his gun but realized he was out of ammunition. When he rolled over in the darkened basement, he saw a figure high above him.

The third and final homeless woman. The one with the glasses, he recalled from the pictures.

She sat naked atop a stack of high boxes, her pallid skin streaked with the familiar lines of homage.

The moonlight lit her face and her fanged grin.

“You should stay here with me,” she said, her feet rowing back and forth.

“Why?”

“Then we can go to hell together. We’ll live forever, just like the New Mother promised.”

“The nun,” Vernon croaked. “Kanesae. Where is she?”

“Nowhere, and everywhere. Like all evil. Come with me and all your questions will be answered.”

Fat chance. But then Vernon remembered what Professor Fredrick had mentioned. “The thirteenth lifetime is over. You blew it. But…what was the secret that Vlad whispered to her as she was draining his blood?”

The woman grinned. “If I told you…then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.”

From the first floor, he heard the stairs collapse. The fire’s roar now sounded like a blast furnace. I have to get out of here. Now.

“Let me impale you,” she said. “An offering to the Prince. You’ll be smiled upon in hell.”

“I’ll pass,” Vernon said.

The woman shrugged her bony shoulders. “Suit yourself. I guess someone should live to tell the tale.”

Vernon stared as the temperature vaulted.

“Singele lui traieste,” the woman whispered. She hitched forward on her perch. Only then did Vernon notice that she’d positioned a sharpened pole mounted on a Christmas tree stand just below. She hopped off the box, bringing her crotch right down on the point. She wriggled and fidgeted, then, as her body slowly slid down. She still showed the fanged grin when the point halted at the roof of her mouth.

Vernon dove back in the hole and crawled out just as the ceiling collapsed amid an avalanche of flame.

CHAPTER TWENTY

(I)

“I”m realizing just now that I’m way too old for this,” Rollin said in the passenger seat. Sweat beaded his adrenaline-pinkened face.

“You and me both, Father.” Vernon floored it to the nearest emergency room: Mt. Sinai, his suction-cup cherry ball pumping red and blue light into the city’s labyrinthine darkness.

Who’s gonna believe this? he thought, but then realized it didn’t matter. He would tell no one. “Check her, will you?” He glanced into the backseat, where Cristina lay. Her head had been lacerated pretty significantly. God, I hope she doesn’t die…

Rollin labored to lean into the back. “Her pulse feels strong. Breathing looks regular…”

Vernon squealed wheels around a corner. “So…what exactly happened? Kanesae had—”

“Kanesae had been growing stronger and stronger,” explained the exhausted priest, “as tonight got closer. With her strength came not only her ability to corporate—or become flesh—but her ability to influence her target: Cristina. Once Kanesae’s strength had peaked, she was able to fully overcome Cristina’s will, and I’m sure she’d been gradually doing that all along. It was Kanesae’s goal to manipulate Cristina into drinking the blood in the flagon, but—”

“Paul got to it first, and damn near killed Cristina getting it.”

The priest nodded wearily. “Once Paul had pilfered the flagon and consumed its contents, Vlad’s spiritual agency came into Paul.”

“And then you killed him with the pole.”

“Yes, and not a second too soon.”

“So what happens now?”

Rollin stared out the window, into the throbbing dark. “I don’t know. Kanesae has discorporated. Since the vessel for Vlad’s spirit is gone, I suppose she’ll have no choice but to go to hell—and stay there.”

Vernon let the words sink in. Jesus. What a night. He’d 911’d the fire department as he’d sped from the scene and at least saw that the adjoining condo seemed to be evacuating safely.

He skidded to a halt at the ER entrance. “Meet me inside,” Vernon ordered and jumped out. “And don’t talk to anyone.”

Rollin nodded, rubbing his eyes.

Yeah, I’m too old for this, all right, Vernon agreed as he huffed Cristina’s unconscious form through the sliding doors. Just as two male nurses got her on a gurney, Cristina’s eyes fluttered open.

“Hey. I’m Howard Vernon, I’m a cop.” He squeezed her hand.

Confusion filled her eyes, and she tried to speak but couldn’t.

“Don’t worry,” Vernon said. “You’re going to be okay.”

Finally she uttered, “I…can’t remember.” Then her face paled. “That woman…that nun…”

“She’s gone now. We’ll talk later—”

A nurse shouldered Vernon out of the way. “Step back. We have to get her to x-ray right now.”

“I want to go,” Vernon interjected.

“No way—”

Vernon flashed his badge. “Come on, man.”

The nurses agreed and pushed off, Vernon hustling to keep up. In the elevator, Cristina looked at him again.

“Who did you say you were?”

“I’m a friend of Father Rollin. Do you know who I mean?”

Concentration; then she nodded.

“We brought you here.” But Vernon didn’t want any more talk for now. I don’t think she’s quite ready to learn that her boyfriend’s dead, her friends are dead, and her house is on fire. “Just relax for now.”

“Okay.”

One nurse pushed the gurney through double doors, but Vernon grabbed the other nurse. “Is she going to be all right?”

“How do I know?” the man snapped. “She could have a concussion, acerebral hemorrhage, a skull fracture.”

“Sure, but—”

“Her vitals are good and so’s her dilation, and that’s all a good sign.” He turned toward the door. “This is as far as you go. Ask reception for updates.”

The doors swung closed in Vernon’s face.

Only now did the totality of his exhaustion fully hit him. Holy shit. In the elevator down, two more nurses peered at him, sniffing.

I must smell like a backyard grill, he realized.

He didn’t see Father Rollin in the waiting room. Old bastard probably fell asleep in the car, Vernon guessed. He got two coffees in the vending room, was about to go outside with them when some heated talk was heard from the reception cove, then—

“Everybody out of the way!” a voice barked. Suddenly lights flashed outside, tires screeched and sirens drew close. A half a dozen uniformed cops rushed through the sliding doors, and raced for the elevators.

What the hell?

Vernon flashed his badge as another cop entered. “What’s going on?”

“Multiple assaults reported from the second floor, sir,” the officer answered without stopping. “X-ray.”

Vernon’s mind blanked. He followed but missed the elevator so he trotted up the fire stairs.

An odd silence filled the hall. No cops were in evidence, but both doors to the x-ray lab were now propped open. Two cops walked out, hands to foreheads.

Vernon rushed in.

Holy Mother of God …

The two male nurses he’d seen earlier lay twisted on the floor. Both of their throats had been gnawed open, torn veins and arteries showing. Their faces looked wizened, a pale whitish blue. The ends of two snapped-off broomsticks had been rammed through their chests, yet almost no blood had leaked from any of their wounds.

“Where’s Cristina Nichols?” Vernon demanded.

“Who?”

“These two guys brought her in here a few minutes ago for x-rays!” Vernon’s eyes darted around desperately. “Where is she?”

No one answered, but then Vernon noticed two more cops looking perplexed out a nearby window. The window had been smashed from the inside out.

Vernon turned and ran. Rollin …He almost tripped going down the stairs. More cops were pouring in when Vernon bulled out through the ER doors into the driveway.

No, no, no, he thought.

An intern whispered to a nurse, “Must be a full moon or something. I just heard there were two murders upstairs…and now this right at the same time.”

Vernon walked in a daze to the scene. Before his car, several doctors were rising from their knees. An EMT was carrying away a portable defibrillator.

Father Rollin lay stretched out on the pavement, unmoving. Another EMT put a sheet over his face.

A physician’s assistant leaned against the car, writing on a clipboard.

“What happened?” Vernon droned.

“Multiple heart attacks, big ones. We did everything we could.” The P.A.’ s eyes flicked up. “Is your name Vernon?”

“Yes,” Vernon croaked.

“Before he lost consciousness he asked me to relay a message to you. I wrote it down.” And then he took out a small note pad. “But keep in mind, he was delusional at the time, it doesn’t make sense.”

“What…did he say?”

The P.A. squinted at the pad. “‘The flagon was fake. She fooled us.’”

Vernon chewed his lip. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. But you knew the man?”

“Yes…”

“Do you know the nun, too? We’d like to talk to her.”

Vernon suddenly felt as though he were standing on a 100th-floor ledge. “What did you say? A—”

“A nun,” the P.A. repeated without a lot of interest. “Couple people said they saw a nun talking to him just before he collapsed, but”—he glanced around—“I don’t see any nun.”

Vernon stared.

“Oh, almost forgot. The priest asked me to give this to you.” The P.A. pulled something out of his pocket and dropped it into Vernon’s hand.

It was Father Rollin’s cross and a ring with the crest: a dragon strangled by its own tail, and the words, O QUAM MAGNIFICUM, O DOMNUL.

EPILOGUE

“Do you remember your name?” her accented voice echoes.

You pause. “Cristina Nichols…”

The brick walls drip, the torchlight flickers. You stand half in and half out of this final vision as the luminous black, green, and red lines churn over the dungeon’s rough-hewn bricks.

Kanesae is showing you, and now you understand that this is what she’s been doing all along…

She’s never looked more real, more flesh, than at this moment. She’s dressed fully in her black habit now, her face aglow in the white wimple, her fangs shiny as diamonds.

“Do you remember back at the house?”

You slowly shake your head.

“The ruse worked,” Kanesae informs. “Thanks to selfishness and greed—the hallmarks of humanity.”

You see now, the upper room. Paul drinking the flagon’s precious blood himself.

“It was not the blood of the Prince in the flagon. That was the secret.”

Your eyes widen, and you see…the past.

You see Kanesae in this chamber so long ago. On the stone slab she is cutting the head off of a dog, and draining its blood into the flagon.

“Then…where did you hide the Prince’s blood?” you ask.

Kanesae grins. “In me, and that’s where it’s been, for thirteen lifetimes. Until now.”

You look down at your belly, which feels full and hot inside. The two men at the hospital were but tidbits, while your first meal proved the most paramount.

More of the vision pours into your mind. You see Kanesae so long ago gashing the throat of the man on the slab, letting his blood flow into the chalice, then gulping it down. Then she shows you what you did at the house: Kanesae cutting her own wrist and filling the chalice with what gushed out.

And handing the chalice to you.

“The diversion succeeded,” she says, “just as the Prince whispered it would so many centuries ago…”

You stare at her.

“The past is done.”

The weaving colors fade—

“All that awaits is the future, its darkness like ripe fruit set out for us…For you.”

—and then the vision dissolves and you’re back on the streets of this monolithic city in the middle of a hot, star-filled night.

You can hear every heart beat.

Kanesae leads you through alleys and byways, through black streets and across rooftops, and then…up a stairwell.

She pauses at the landing and smiles. Is there a tear in the nun’s eye? “Me enamourer ad infinitum …”

You look back at her. You suddenly feel strong, audacious, and without fear.

“Do you remember your name, my love?”

“Drwglya,” you breathe.

“Let us begin…”

You turn to face the door in the hallway that reads FREDRICK, and you raise your hand to knock.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Above all, I need to thank Jess Franco, Amano de Ossorio, Paul Naschy, and Jean Rollin, whose macabre and brilliant films have enthralled me for years and whose manipulation of imagery and atmosphere have proven a polarizing influence. Also, very special thanks to Dallas Mayr for NYC data and fifteen years of friendship. And, in no particular order: Tim McGinnis, Dave Barnett, Don D’Auria, Bob Strauss, Monica Kuebler, Tony and Kim, Mary Tutty of Mary’s Cabin, Julie Ahrens (for the very cool shirt!), Thomas Deja, John Mahoney and his parents, Nanci Kalanta, Mark Justice, Michael Lohr, Nick Cato, Chris from Insidious, Tom Weisser, Tom Moran, Charlie Meitz and Nina Zwaig (for Romanian stuff), Tim Shannon (for crab-infested water), and Anda for med stuff, Rich Chizmar, Tess, Pam, Ashley and Trey, Crystal and Alicia and Gus, Stephanie Shiver for Cadaverettes, Megan Dipo (for the wonderful Infernal Angel illo), Robert from Sweetbay (whom I hope likes this book), Dave and Liz Bolter, Kathy, Kirt, Tony, and Audrey, Sascha Mamczak, Ian Levy, and Ioana Mitea.

Lastly I must acknowledge the excellent and indefatigable historians Radu R. Florescu and Raymond T. McNally for their superlative book, Dracula: Prince of Many Faces. This book provided much historical data crucial to my novel. Any historical inaccuracies are solely my fault.

E.L.

HIGH PRAISE FOR EDWARD LEE!

“The living legend of literary mayhem.
Read him if you dare!”
—Richard Laymon, Author of The Woods Are Dark

“Edward Lee’s writing is fast and mean as a chain saw
revved to full-tilt boogie.”
—Jack Ketchum, Author of Old Flames

“He demonstrates a perverse genius for showing us a Hell
the likes of which few readers have ever seen.”
—Horror Reader

“Edward Lee continues to push the boundaries of sex,
violence and depravity in modern genre lit.”
—Rue Morgue

“One of the genre’s true originals.”
—The Horror Fiction Review

“The hardest of the hardcore horror writers.”
—Cemetery Dance

“Lee excels with his creativity and almost trademark
depictions of violence and gruesomeness.”
—Horror World

“A master of hardcore horror. His ability to make readers
cringe is legendary.”
—Hellnotes

Also by Edward Lee

Other Leisure books by Edward Lee:

TRIAGE (Anthology)
HOUSE INFERNAL
SLITHER
THE BACKWOODS
FLESH GOTHIC
MESSENGER
INFERNAL ANGEL
CITY INFERNAL

Copyright

A LEISURE BOOK®

September 2008

Published by

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
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New York, NY 10016

Copyright © 2008 by Edward Lee

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