"Oh. my impatient girl," he said as he stood up again. "I have more pleasure in store for you."

He slowly, tantalizingly pushed his c.o.c.k into me, farther and farther. With my knees drawn up, he was able to go incredibly deep, his throbbing d.i.c.k buried inside me. My pleasure soared. I was coming to a climax quickly.

"Now," I said. "Come now."

He increased his pace, pounded his body against mine, and I came as if red-hot sparks from a raging fire rained down on my soul. As I was coming, he came with a deep satisfied groan, and for those moments we were joined as one in the eternal dance. Our beings merged and the other became the self. We were somewhere together, far away from the place we had begun.

Then reality-the dark room, the cool air-came back. He was sweaty on top of me, but he was careful to hold most of his weight up with one muscular arm so as not to crush me. With his other hand, with strong, smooth fingers, he pushed my damp hair back from my cheek, and said, "You are so beautiful." He kissed me tenderly on the cheek, and with that he said, "Thank you."

"Thank you too," I said. Suddenly my eyes were bright with tears in the dim light. One spilled over and ran down my cheek. I had been alone for so many years, with no man telling me I was beautiful and with no healthy release for all the pa.s.sions locked up within me. In the deepest recesses of my heart I had secretly feared I might never feel myself aroused by a man again or have another lover. "It's been a long, long time," I said to Darius.

"i guessed it might be," he said, and leaned down to kiss away my tear.

He might have guessed I hadn't made love in a while. But in his wildest dreams he never could have figured out how long. Totaling up the decades and all those celibate years, it had been nearly two centuries. And what would he have thought if he knew George Gordon, Lord Byron, had been my last lover? George, wild, intemperate George, was a hard act to follow. George had been all angles, all hardness-sinewy legs and long strong fingers that teased and stroked until I screamed. Thin to the point of emaciation, he was far from muscular, his narrow chest crisscrossed by the terrible scars of a lashing.

I will never forget the urgency of his lovemaking. Even as he took me, he seemed in a hurry, as if his time were running out. And it was. He was sometimes rough. He purposely hurt me just a little, just to increase my desire. Yet always a gentleman, Byron insisted on satisfying me with his hands after he finished first. We had never climaxed together. That simultaneity is a rare gift, and Darius had given it to me. I was satisfied. I was content-for the moment.

Darius sat up and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. I lay there listening to him breathe, neither of us saying a word until Darius blurted out, "Maybe we shouldn't have done this."

I felt as if cold water had been splashed on me. "What do you mean?" I had just been thinking that we should be doing "this" again, preferably as soon as possible.

"It can complicate things if we're planning to work together. It will be distracting. Bonaventure is dangerous. If I start worrying about you getting hurt-"

I cut him off. "I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, right," he said with sarcasm dripping from his words. "Look, you're a woman, and-"

My words fairly exploded from me. "You look, Darius. You don't know me or anything about me. I'm a woman, all right, and I can handle myself just fine. I have for nearly five hun-" I stopped myself just in time. "For many years. If I couldn't, J wouldn't have sent me on the a.s.signment." I reached over to the pile of clothes and found my sweater. I angrily yanked it on. I was reaching down for my panties when Darius went to grab for his T-shirt. Our hands touched. He squeezed my fingers gently, then let them go. look, Darius. You don't know me or anything about me. I'm a woman, all right, and I can handle myself just fine. I have for nearly five hun-" I stopped myself just in time. "For many years. If I couldn't, J wouldn't have sent me on the a.s.signment." I reached over to the pile of clothes and found my sweater. I angrily yanked it on. I was reaching down for my panties when Darius went to grab for his T-shirt. Our hands touched. He squeezed my fingers gently, then let them go.

"I didn't mean to put you down. I'm sorry," he said. "And I don't want to ruin this night." He picked up his shirt and pulled it on over his head. He leaned back, staying nude from the waist down. "And, you're right. I had no basis for what I said." I looked at his muscular abs, hard thighs, and spent c.o.c.k, and he knew I was staring. He started talking again, watching me watching him. He spoke soft and low. "I'm just having doubts that we should keep doing this while we're on this mission. Wanting to f.u.c.k you all the time would make it really hard for me me to concentrate. And Daphne, if it's always this good, I would want to f.u.c.k you every chance I had," he said with a smile in his voice. to concentrate. And Daphne, if it's always this good, I would want to f.u.c.k you every chance I had," he said with a smile in his voice.

Suddenly I wasn't at all mad. I felt happy and very naughty. "Darius, let me show you how good it's always always going to be." I moved toward him and gently touched his c.o.c.k, making it stir beneath my hand. going to be." I moved toward him and gently touched his c.o.c.k, making it stir beneath my hand.

Darius groaned. "Daphne, didn't I satisfy you?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. I leaned toward him and tongued his ear. "But the night is young, and as you noticed, I had been waiting a long time for what we just did. So I'm being a greedy girl and asking for more."

"And when do you want more?" he said, taking me in his arms.

"How soon can you handle it?" I said as our lips touched.

"How's thirty minutes or so?" he murmured.

"Let me see if I can convince you to make it fifteen," I whispered playfully as I leaned down to kiss his belly, and listened to him moan as I began to lower my lips toward his c.o.c.k.

"Fifteen it is," he sighed.

It was around dawn when we made love for a third time. After that Darius yawned and said he'd better get going. He left his cell phone number and told me to call after I finished up with Bonaventure that evening. We decided to meet on the steps in front of the Metropolitan Museum, which was within walking distance of Bonaventure's place.

I was sore but satisfied. After Darius left, I moved a tall bookcase away from the wall, unlocked a hidden door, and entered a small room. There I climbed into my coffin. Within moments I had tumbled into that world of dreams that lies across the boundary between existence and death. I saw a firefly swept away on a blue wind. I saw Byron walking far in the distance, climbing a green hill. He looked young and boyish. He stopped and turned around, waving at me, smiling, and as I slept, I am quite sure I was smiling too.

Chapter 5.

Let they love in kisses rain on my lips and eyelids pale.

The Indian Serenade by Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley

When I woke it was my morning, the start of an early winter evening for everyone else. I sat up languidly, pushing my hair back from my face. A strange unease possessed me. I felt as if I had either ended or just begun a chapter of my life. I didn't know how to tell the difference. There cannot be a beginning without an ending. My self-imposed celibacy was over. Would I put my memories of old love away in some recessed part of my mind like flowers pressed between the pages of a book? What in my life had begun? Had I found merely a night of desire, now over? On one level I hoped not. My senses, now reawakened, wanted more of him. On another level, I had wished for a fling with no deep emotions or commitments attached. In my circ.u.mstances, as both a vampire and a spy, an intimate relationship with Darius would be dangerous for us both.

My answer to my questioning mind was simply not to think about it. My meeting with Bonaventure was just hours away. I a.s.sembled the information I had picked up from J the day before on my dining room table and sat down with a steaming cup of black coffee. I had to become familiar with the eavesdropping devices that J had given me. That wouldn't take long. More difficult was in-ternalizing the information about the art collection and its owner. My mind began curling around the problems ahead like a snake around a stick.

How could I not only represent an art collector I had never met, but then negotiate the sale of art I had never seen? I didn't think much of J's so-called plan. His directions seemed loose and careless, hastily contrived and just as hastily thrown together. I suppose if the intelligence about the arms deal was recent and extremely urgent, it hadn't afforded J, or whoever masterminded this scheme, the luxury of time.

In my papers it said the collector's name was Douglas Schneibel. A Soho address and phone number were also listed. J said the man was real. He said the items Bonaventure wished to acquire were also genuine. I debated contacting Schneibel for about two minutes before I picked up the phone and made the call. I figured I had already broken the rules-h.e.l.l, I had smashed them-in the scene with J and then my indiscretions with Darius, so I might as well break a few more.

A man answered, his voice carrying a heavy German accent. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Mr. Schneibel?" I asked.

"Ya, who isssst this?"

"My name is Daphne Urban. I work with... um... with J. He... well, he asked me to act as your agent in the sale of part of your New Guinea collection. I'm making the contact this evening. Is it at all possible that I could meet with you first so I can see the pieces the buyer wishes to acquire?"

There was a long silence. I thought the man had hung up. Then he said slowly, "I ssssuppose you sssshould." His Ss seemed to draw out in a hiss. "I sssshould have known you would want to examine the collection. When do you want to come?"

I didn't have much time before my meeting with Bonaventure. The subway downtown would be quicker than a cab, but it would still take me a good half hour just to get there. I calculated quickly. "Would six be okay? It would give us an hour together before I have to leave."

"a.s.ss you wissssh. I a.s.sume you have the street address. I am on the third floor. No buzzer downstairs. I watch for you. Stand in front of the entry door and look up."

"All right. At six, then."

"Yessss," he hissed, and then the phone went silent.

My next phone call was to Bonaventure to confirm our appointment. He didn't answer, of course. Someone-a woman, I a.s.sume a servant-did. Russian accent this time. Yes, I was expected at seven-thirty that evening. The doorman would announce me, she said, and hung up abruptly. I always confirm appointments. I learned that elementary rule in my first century of life after I appeared one too many times at a shop to discover the merchant had left for the day or met with a trader, only to find he'd already sold the object of my quest. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

My Prada boots with their four-inch heels were not made for walking. However, I was supposed to be a sophisticated art agent, so sneakers were out. I wore a slim suede skirt in loden green and a white cashmere sweater accented by a thin black belt. I topped the outfit off with a wool Davos coat made in Austria that I had ordered from the Gorsuch catalog. My hair was pulled back severely into a chignon; I added to my ears tasteful gold loops accented by diamond teardrops. I wore my favorite leopard head ring, of course. I tucked a small black Bosca handbag under my arm and also carried a black Bosca briefcase, which should be suitably impressive, as it was handcrafted in premium-grade Italian leather.

I believed that costume was essential when playing a part. For most of my life I had to pretend to be someone other than I was: I was a merchant's young widow in medieval Florence; I posed as an Amsterdam trader's daughter in the seventeenth century, a Swiss herbalist in the eighteenth, a lady in waiting in Empress Josephine's court. I was Byron's earthy Greek a half century later, then, in the uprising of Easter 1916, I was a fiery Irish revolutionary in Dublin and a friend of W. B. Yeats. I had been a spiritual seeker in India; later I transformed into a wanderer-some said a witch-through the Caucasus Mountains and into Afghanistan. I had so many other ident.i.ties, too. I never "died"; I just disappeared and reappeared somewhere else as someone else. Come to think of it. with all the ident.i.ties I had donned and all the lying I had done, I had been training to be a spy for several hundred years. I should be d.a.m.n good at it.

Barely forty-five minutes later I stood as instructed by Douglas Schneibel before the battered green-painted doors of a loft building right off Ca.n.a.l Street near the Holland Tunnel. I looked up and trained my eyes on the third floor until finally a hand extended out a third floor window and dropped a key attached to a hefty, sawdust-stuffed lozenge of cloth. "Hey!" I yelled as it narrowly missed my head, and I jumped aside as it splatted to the ground. I picked it up and opened the door. An open-sided freight elevator waited inside, the kind where a pulley opens a top and bottom gate. The area was harshly lit by a bare hanging bulb. I got in the elevator, which could have held twenty people, closed the gate, and moved the bra.s.s lever to the number three. The elevator ascended slowly with creaks and moans past one set of iron doors before jerking to a halt before another.

As I stood there, the iron doors parted, and a plump, short man wearing wire-rimmed gla.s.ses waited in front of them to greet me. I could see the pink of his scalp through his thin white hair. I opened the elevator gates, stepped through the iron doors, and found myself in a cavernous s.p.a.ce. A white rat sat on the old man's shoulder. It squeaked at me.

I like rodents. White rats make good pets if you get over the American culture's unreasonable prejudice against them. They're smart and affectionate. This one stood up, alertly staring at me with his little pink eyes. His nose twitched excitedly. The man reached up and gently grabbed him.

"Komm, Gunther, into your haus haus," he said as he removed the rat from his shoulder and deposited it in the pocket of the old tweed jacket he wore. The rat peeked out of the pocket's top, riding like a first-cla.s.s pa.s.senger, but stayed put.

"Mr. Schneibel? I'm Daphne Urban." I would have extended my hand, but he had already turned his back toward me.

"Thisss way," he said, his gait heavy and slow as he moved forward into the gallery.

"Is this your exhibition s.p.a.ce, or do you live here, Mr. Schneibel?" I asked as we entered a dimly lit loft.

"A private gallery. For my collection only," he said, his voice quavery and his speech a bit slurred. He stopped and flipped a light switch and bright spotlights set some areas ablaze with light and left other areas in darkness.

We were standing in a large, open s.p.a.ce filled with freestanding walls that made an octagon. In the center of the room sat a huge doughnut-shaped bloodred seat. Artwork, lit by track lighting suspended from the high ceiling, hung on the display walls or sat on pedestals in front of them. I felt as much as saw them. I had encountered such malevolent creations only once before-in North Africa, in a witch doctor's longhouse. Like the objects I saw there, these were primitive totem pieces created to cast bad spells and kill opponents. They were as much weapons as a machine gun.

I could feel the evil radiating from the freestanding crude wooden objects, squat stone figures with hideous faces, and very old ceremonial masks with huge staring eyes. There were some other items as well, pale heads and bulbous statues that appeared to be made of bones and feathers, sticks and leather... or perhaps human skin. I wouldn't call any of them beautiful, though some of the masks were exquisitely made. They were undeniably totems or magic items and, in their own way, fascinating.

"Bitte, plea.s.sse, ssssit down. Miss Urban." Mr. Schneibel gestured toward the crimson seat at the room's heart. He remained standing in the shadows. "My collection is well known among connoisseurs of aboriginal art. I can display just a small portion, but these are some of the most desirable pieces. At least, they're desirable to certain people, who know what they are and have a taste... or, shall we say, an affinity for them."

"What are they?" I said as I sat down. The seat was in the shadows, all the light in the room concentrated on the art, much like a theater stage.

"They are ritual amulets and totems. The New Guinea tribes are cannibals. Were you aware of that?"

"Yes," I answered. Talking about cannibalism made me uncomfortable, being a variation on my own practices of blood drinking and the taking on of another's life energy.

Herr Schneibel seemed to be lost in memory as he went on: "Some of these figures incorporate the victims' hair and bones. They carry powerful magic. The ones with the huge phalluses are to confer fertility. Others impart magical powers and superhuman strength. The masks were used in dances, celebrations, healing ceremonies... or their opposite, rites to bring death and disease to one's enemies."

"And do they?" I interrupted, wondering if he had real evidence that these "powers" were more than the power of suggestion.

"Yes, Miss Urban, they do. Not on their own, of course. If a tribal witch doctor uses them in ancient, traditional ways, they can affect a person's behavior or health. They can even bring death. It isn't just psychological, if that's what you are thinking. They have a force that operates whether the target is aware of it or not. Without a witch doctor, or someone else trained in magic, their power isn't as precise. But it is still there. Can you feel it?"

I shivered, but I lowered my emotional shields and let myself fully perceive the energies darting around the room like piranhas in a tank. Dark waves of evil rushed past and around me, searching for vulnerability and nearly sucking my breath from my lungs. I gasped out my reply. "Yes. I feel it. It's like the presence of death."

He walked toward me then and touched my shoulder rea.s.suringly with his hand. He said, "I thought you did. Not everyone does, at least consciously." He stood by me then, as if to offer me the protection of his presence. I wondered if he wore something to ward off the negativity of being near these objects. "Most people who view these pieces will suddenly feel sick or anxious."

"How charming."

"Charming? No. But just as Western religions use art to inspire awe or to make the viewer feel small and powerless in the presence of an all-powerful G.o.d, these items had a spiritual purpose. They inspired fear and respect for the tribe's shaman. They helped him exert control over the tribe."

"Are these what Bonaventure wants?" I said, and looked into the old man's face.

"Yesss," he answered, and closed his eyes, almost as if gripped by a stab of pain. "He wants them badly. To the point of a mad obsession." He opened his eyes and looked at me with a piercing gaze. "And, Miss Urban, I agreed to let your people make Bonaventure think he can get them. But he must never possess them, do you understand?"

I heard the urgency in his words and said, "It would help if you explained."

"Bonaventure-and his name carries with it a terrible irony, since it means a good or great arrival-wants their power. He is a man who likes being an instrument of death, although he prefers to let others kill and terrorize. It's more than a profession to him. It has made him very rich, but it's more than the money. He relishes being feared."

"I've known others who liked it," I said, and thought, much to my shame, including myself including myself.

"Yesss, Miss Urban, history has seen untold numbers of tyrants and monsters. Bonaventure is one of many. But I won't aid and abet him. I will destroy these pieces before I'd let him have them." His voice was loud and the quaver gone. An iron will was in his tone. I caught a glimpse of the young man he had been once. He nearly shook with rage.

"Herr Schneibel," I asked, "how did you come by these things?"

He paused a moment, as if to collect himself. In a calmer voice he said, "It is a long story, too long for our short time today. It would be good for you to know some of it, however." His earlier outburst seemed to have exhausted him. He sat down heavily, near me, to tell his story. I could hear the rat squeaking in his pocket. Schneibel himself smelled of Scotch.

"I was never a soldier, merely a secretary to one of Rommel's officers in Africa. I hated the n.a.z.is, but it was hardly safe to say so. Much to my relief I was taken prisoner by the Americans, and, in the course of my internment, I met a GI who had been previously stationed in the Pacific, in New Guinea. We struck up a friendship. He told me of the things he had seen. I come from a family who owned many art galleries in Germany before the n.a.z.is took over. We had a large collection of African art, which was very popular in Europe early in the century. Pica.s.so, Matisse, the Fauves, they all were influenced by the art we displayed. Our business was soon gone once the war started. The n.a.z.i elite simply took what art they wished for their private collections, and no one else had money for luxuries. Some of my family relocated in Switzerland. So I had the experience, you see. When I heard about the art of the Western Pacific, I thought, correctly as it turned out, that aboriginal art would also become immensely popular.

"After the war, I made my way to the islands and began shipping native art to New York. Spirit figures. Hunting charms. Shields, woven masks, wooden yam masks. They are extremely beautiful and interesting. Ja Ja, so interesting. I befriended several tribal leaders. I stayed mostly with the headhunters of the Papua. Even though they liked me and allowed me to come and go freely, it was a dangerous thing to do. I had many close calls. Michael Rockefeller, the son of Nelson Rockefeller, disappeared there, you know. He was visiting the Asmat tribe. The official report was that he drowned. It was easier for the family to believe that. But these are tales for another time."

Schneibel sighed heavily. He removed a handkerchief from inside his jacket and wiped his brow, then noisily blew his nose. He slowly returned it to his pocket and went on.

"I was able to settle here in New York. I became a citizen. Because of my background I have had what you might call an a.s.sociation with U.S. intelligence people. In the beginning I dealt with the OSS. Then it became more complicated, with so many agencies, each operating with its own staff. Yet over the years I have been able to be of a.s.sistance to your government. Recently my contacts in Malaysia and the Philippines have had information that I pa.s.sed on. But I am old and getting tired. I cannot deal with Bonaventure. He is too slippery. And he is Russian. I am German. There is already an antagonism there. And I have had dreams recently... Never mind." He fell silent for a moment. "I feel the end is coming for me. But what of it? Few will miss me except my little friend Gunther. And death is inescapable. Everyone dies, Miss Urban."

I didn't respond, but I thought, Not everyone, Mr. Schneibel Not everyone, Mr. Schneibel.

I made it to Bonaventure's by seven thirty, but just barely. I decided to take a cab uptown from Schneibel's gallery. My feet were already aching in the boots. The thought of clomping up and down subway steps made me risk hailing a taxi and getting stuck in Manhattan's unpredictable street traffic. During the ride I did my breathing exercises, trying to shut out the lurching of the cab. I prepared myself for the performance ahead. I didn't think my physical being would be in jeopardy, but I did fear not being able to accomplish my mission, or, if discovered, that I might have to kill. That would not be a good thing. My karma is damaged enough. Should I ever pa.s.s over to the other side and then return to earth, I no doubt have a wretched life of penance and suffering to look forward to.

When I arrived at Seventy-fourth Street, I was accompanied through the lobby to the bra.s.s birdcage of an elevator by the white-gloved doorman. He respectfully held it open for me, pushed the b.u.t.ton for the penthouse, and allowed the door to close. As the car slowly rose upward, my emotions were mixed, excitement with an undercurrent of anxiety. I was entering the unknown, where I could influence but not control events. Control is of tremendous importance to me on many levels, and the paradox of my life is that when I am the most powerful-in vampire form-I am also the most out of control, operating on a knife edge between reason and blind desire. That realization made me shiver. My hands were like ice. I silently repeated an affirmation that often helped me bolster my confidence: I have the willpower and discipline to do anything I desire I have the willpower and discipline to do anything I desire.

I had repeated that like a mantra ten times by the time the elevator stopped. As the door opened, I presented myself as a self-a.s.sured professional woman whose imperious manner and straight posture bordered on arrogance. A maid was waiting. I treated her like the servant she was, handing her my coat before she asked. She took it and indicated that I follow her. Two doors opened into the small s.p.a.ce where we stood. One, drab green on the left-hand wall, was clearly a service entrance. A service elevator paralleled the one I had just used. The other door was part of a painted trompe l'oeil of a medieval town that covered the entire wall. I thought I recognized the cobbled street that led into San Gimignano, in Tuscany. The whole effect was quite clever. The door, painted in faux stone, opened into Bonaventure's lavish penthouse, its brightly lit interior gaudy in the extreme. The last time I saw so much gilding and satin was in Donald Trump's apartment. Obviously the message being delivered was, "I have so much money I don't know what to do with it all."

The maid was a middle-aged Slav built like a refrigerator. Her thick ankles, wrapped in support hose, peeked out from beneath the skirt of her black maid's uniform. She led me through the apartment and into a back room, evidently a library. The books looked purely decorative; the conference table was in an ersatz French style, white and gilded. The chairs were also white and gilded, with pink satin seats. Not to my taste, but definitely pricey.

The maid gruffly told me that "the master" would be in shortly. She pulled out a chair for me to sit at the conference table. As soon as she left, I opened my purse and took out a lipstick and a mirrored compact where I had concealed the listening devices. I flipped open the compact and slipped two of the devices into my hand as I applied a coat of lipstick. Then, having practiced my rusty skills of sleight of hand, I planted a listening device under the edge of the table as I returned the compact to my purse. Even if I was being electronically observed, and I a.s.sumed I was, what I had done was imperceptible unless someone replayed the recording tape in slow motion. Under a table was not the most original spot for a bug, but the only instructions I had were to avoid placing the tiny dot near a heat source.

I opened my briefcase and took out a folder containing photographs of Schneibel's collection. I pretended to spot a book of interest and stood up, casually walking over to the bookcase. As I reached up to pull down the book, my other hand grabbed the lip of a shelf, and I was able to plant another bug. I took down the book which looked as if it had never been opened. It was Butler's Lives of the Saints Lives of the Saints.

As I stood there, book in hand, the door opened and Bonaventure walked in. Two men accompanied him. One of them, Caucasian, bulky, huge in size, with oily slicked-back hair and a pockmarked face, stared at me with frank interest. The other was an African, bald-headed, dark-skinned, sour-mouthed, and poisonous. Sungla.s.ses covered his eyes, but they didn't hide the look of pure hate he sent my way. We disliked each other on sight.

Bonaventure, a toad in a tuxedo, gave me a wide, toothy smile. "Miss Urban, it is a pleasure. Come, let us sit!" His appearance had changed considerably from the figure I had seen in the photo. He had shaved off his beard and had gained some weight, giving him a paunch. He swept his arm expansively, then pulled out my chair and waited for me to cross the room. His two companions took their places standing on either side of the room, observing.

Having hastily replaced the book and radiating my best smile, I said, "'Likewise, Mr. Bonaventure. May it be both a pleasant and profitable evening for us both."