She looked at me as though I were an insect flailing in a web.

"As for the pretty jogger-"

I sat back in my chair, pushing away the pastiche of death: cracked windshields, an orphaned sneaker, and always, always, the shattered pink iPod.

"There's an interesting story to that one. Her husband left his wife for her last year. This year he decided to have a crisis of conscience. He was on the cusp of becoming one of them, those blooming souls. We couldn't have that. He's an influential man."

"So you killed his wife? his wife?"

"Despite your American beliefs, there are no rules in war."

"How is killing her supposed to stop him?"

"He's bitter, throwing the blame at El's feet." She shrugged. Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion. She reached up, slid her fingers through her hair, her back arching slightly.

"Do you-does this happen often?"

"I told you. This is a war."

"Can't people see through that? Don't people know?"

"Have you seen through it?" She leaned forward, the V V of her sweater gaping. "We have other methods of distraction as well, palatable, innocuous distractions condoned by your social mores. Gratification. Success. The striving for everything your culture says is important and worthwhile: the trips to Mexico, the brandy in the Four Seasons. The Audi, the private Belmont school." of her sweater gaping. "We have other methods of distraction as well, palatable, innocuous distractions condoned by your social mores. Gratification. Success. The striving for everything your culture says is important and worthwhile: the trips to Mexico, the brandy in the Four Seasons. The Audi, the private Belmont school."

She stared at me as she pulled them from my brain like folded lottery numbers from a fishbowl. I felt my face redden. "And it works. Everyone thinks they deserve happiness, after all. It's practically written into your Const.i.tution. What a great country." She smirked.

I thought of the day in Belmont, my aspirations and vision of a house there. "And for every human you distract, deceive, or kill . . . what do you get?"

She shrugged. "Nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing nothing?"

"This isn't an incentive program, Clay. It's the principle of the matter. Haven't you understood anything? It is all about you. How carefully he formed you in your fragile mud glory. How long-suffering he has been with you, how willingly he labored with you, ultimately offering you the once-for-all atonement when you deserve it so little. No, when you deserve it not at all!"

With every sentence her palm beat the top of the table. Now it slammed down, the salt and pepper shakers rattling atop the smudged surface like loose teeth. "You again!"

Leave.

But I stared, transfixed by her anger, by the blazing black light of her eyes.

By her hatred of me.

She leaned back, instantly composed. "But not everyone wants El's great gift. It hasn't turned out as badly as I thought."

"What do you mean?" It came out barely above a whisper. Too soft, I was sure, for any human to hear.

"Because people are good. Just like you, Clay. You're a good guy. You've lived a good life. And just like you, humans aren't in the habit of accepting charity. They'd rather work for redemption. But I ask you, what is good, really, Clay? Decency? A relative state of not-so-bad? Having good intentions? Well, you know what they say about the road to h.e.l.l. And if intentions and states of relative goodness were good enough, do you think El would have gone to the trouble? You think you've suffered. What do you know of suffering?"

I wanted to strike her. Suffering! She dared speak to me of suffering? But even as I formed the thought, self-righteous and indignant, I saw the corners of her mouth turn up, and I knew that my suffering, such as it was, was pathetic to her.

"But who am I to challenge you?" Her arms crossed. Fury seemed to rise from the surface of her skin, like heat off a stove. "If you insist on being judged by the merit of your works, El will honor that. I've seen it many times. But what I haven't seen is anyone who measured up. Maybe you'll be the first, hmm?"

"Tell me about Mrs. Russo."

Lucian stared at me as though a snake had slithered out of my ear.

"She's religious."

"I don't mind religious." But she looked as though she had bitten into a bug.

"She goes to church."

"That's fine with me."

"What?"

She shrugged but appeared unsettled. "Churches are inbred, if you ask me, worshipping a radical G.o.d with conventional methods. So traditional. And so comfortable. comfortable. Mind you, the church community is no paradise. Image takes effort. And one has to appear to have things in order, or else how can they judge anyone else? I see more judgment from churchgoers than anyone. In fact, I have a theory." Mind you, the church community is no paradise. Image takes effort. And one has to appear to have things in order, or else how can they judge anyone else? I see more judgment from churchgoers than anyone. In fact, I have a theory."

She practically pounced on the table's edge. Her eyes were wild, storming. "I think they secretly delight in the shortfall of others. It relieves the pressure of having to be so holy. For a body of people who have received so much grace, they exhibit a stingy amount in return."

Her eyes flickered toward the window behind me. I turned to see what had caught her attention. "I'm bored with this. With you."

My head snapped back around. "What?"

"Go away. Go live out your gnat's existence."

"But we're not done!"

Her eyes lolled back to me. "Yes, we are."

"But-I don't know how it ends!" And now I remembered something else. "Or what it has to do with me-you said this story was ultimately about me. What does this have to do with me?"

"What does this have to do with me?" she mimicked. "Can't you do anything but think of yourself? Go home."

"But how can I-"

"Go."

"I don't know-"

"GO!" She screamed it, lunging across the table at me.

I bolted up, stumbled back, knocking over my chair.

She screamed again. "Go!"

I never saw the couple's reaction, what must have been the gaping mouth of the student behind the counter. I pushed out the door and ran to the corner of Norfolk, down the street toward my apartment, the dizziness closing over me like a hood. As I scrambled up the stairs, through the door I had forgotten to close, let alone lock, darkness overtook me like a pursuer in a black alley. I fell without feeling toward the floor, realizing as I did that something had been very wrong in this last meeting.

She hadn't been wearing a watch.

29.

White Shoulders. It was the same perfume my grandmother had worn. I knew this only because I had once chased the cat across her backyard with that gla.s.s bottle as a boy, spraying it in the animal's eyes-a feat that had landed me a sound spanking.

Something brushed my face, soft and furry. For a moment I thought it was the cat, back from boyhood, its tail teasing my nose.

"I think I'd better call an ambulance, dear."

Mrs. Russo knelt next to me in her wool coat and gloves, her scarf brushing my cheek as she felt my head.

"You didn't b.u.mp it too badly, at least, as far as I can tell."

"I'm fine," I said, only now understanding that I was laid out on my floor, the front door hanging wide.

She reached back for a chair, slid onto the seat with a creak of her knees. "I still think we'd best call 9-1-1."

"Please, no." I made myself sit up, slowly, mortified. "I'm fine. My blood sugar dropped-I came running up the stairs."

And then I remembered why.

I had never seen Lucian like that. And I had run home, like a child back to his mother's skirts, to the protection of a building inhabited by religious Mrs. Russo.

No, it wasn't the religion that made her so fearsome to them. I knew that now. I thought of the day in the church.

It was the prayer.

I sat up, wiped blood from my chin onto the back of my hand. At least my growing beard would hide the scab.

"I'm going to get you something to eat. I want you to leave the door open while I fix it."

I nodded and moved onto the sofa.

WHEN SHE RETURNED, I made my way through a bowl of homemade noodle soup-"It's from the freezer, but it's homemade," Mrs. Russo said-a sandwich, and three cookies. She watched me eat, telling me about her grandson's part in the school play, the Debussy he had recently learned to play on the piano. "Oh no, dear"-she didn't miss a beat-"finish that sandwich."

I finished, and I had to admit I felt better. Better, and tired.

As she studied me with kind but troubled hazel eyes, I thought the wrinkles around them seemed more prominent, somehow more human than ever. She looked like she wanted to say something, but I a.s.sured her that I was fine, that I was just extremely worn down.

I promised to come knocking if I needed anything. I started to pick up the dishes, but she swatted my hand and carried them to her apartment.

She returned for a moment to tell me to come get her if I needed anything, and then left, closing the door behind her. As I got up to lock it, I wished I could close out the memory of the demon's scream, the pernicious smile. For the first time in months I wished I could delete the memory of Lucian altogether, erasing him from the story of my life.

I SLEPT AND DREAMED of sandwich wraps, of blonde, wavy hair, of that smile, that terrible smile, of the jogger and her faceless husband.

I woke with a start. It was well past 3:00 a.m. I walked on steady legs into my living room to fumble with the lamp, wanting to banish the dark.

At my desk I woke the laptop, bypa.s.sed my calendar, and began my search for Jake Salter. It took me a while to find him, finally, on my high school alumni page under Pa.s.sings. Deaths were listed by year.

"Jake Salter '86. Youth pastor, Our Savior's Church, Independence, MO."

I STAYED UP UNTIL dawn exorcising the conversation in the sandwich store onto the page. When it was done, I determined I would not add it to my account. It was out of my system and that was all that mattered. I could sleep now-for days, if I wished. I could find a new job. But I was determined that I would not go back to the story. That I would leave it like a poisonous thing, a horror story come to life, a demon game that kills its human players like a bad B movie.

But by six that morning I was writing, adding my reactions to the belated revelations about Jake Salter and the jogger in the Garden, the shape of Lucian's mouth as she screamed at me . . . waking up under the scarf and care of Mrs. Russo, White Shoulders and angora fuzz in my nostrils.

Some time after ten o'clock, I pushed back from my desk. I went to the kitchen for a snack and one of the bottles of juice Mrs. Russo had left in my refrigerator along with sliced turkey, provolone cheese, and a quart of milk. Cans of vegetable soup, a loaf of bread, and an a.s.sortment of fresh fruit sat on my counter. She had done it in spite of my protests, saying it was a privilege to serve me, that she had been "burdened" for me, as she put it, for months now.

I was just returning to my desk with a partially eaten apple when I stopped and stared at the screen.

It was the Is Is that jumped out at me. The first-person narrative. The story encasing the story. that jumped out at me. The first-person narrative. The story encasing the story.

I sat down slowly, my fingers sticky, the chunk of apple like Styrofoam in my mouth.

And I saw, as I had that day in Belmont, the deconstruction of everything on that page-not as a pile of wood and metal rubble, of furniture legs and earth-but of two stories: Lucian's . . .

And mine.

My story is very closely connected to yours, he had said. he had said. My story is ultimately about you. My story is ultimately about you.

And then, just yesterday: My story has given way to yours. My story has given way to yours.

As I stared at the narrative I I on the screen, at my every fear, incredulous amazement, and myriad questions, I realized that indeed, it had. on the screen, at my every fear, incredulous amazement, and myriad questions, I realized that indeed, it had.

I had written a tale, the main character of which was not Lucian, the demon, but I.

I SPENT ALL DAY rereading it, the entire thing, with new eyes. Each word from Lucian's mouth imbued with new and sinister meaning. I saw myself no longer floating along the eddies of Lucian's story as I had thought, but caught now, dead center in the current.