In sudden anger, she threw down the roses and ground one of the blooms under her heel.

'I wanted to see see Gessel. I could feel him. Powerful. Demanding. His everlasting rage. But I couldn't see him. That last best proof, Gessel. I could feel him. Powerful. Demanding. His everlasting rage. But I couldn't see him. That last best proof, seeing seeing, eludes me.'

Drawing quick shallow breaths, face flushed, not because the violent gestures taxed her but because her anger excited her, she approached Robert, who sat across the table from me, and held out her right hand to him.

He brought her palm to his mouth. For a moment I thought that he was kissing her hand, a strangely gentle moment for a pair of savages like them.

His subtle sucking sounds belied his tender manner.

At the window, Andre turned from the storm that thus far had entranced him. Dancing candlelight brightened his face but did not soften its hard features.

Like a mountain moving, he came to the table. He stood beside Robert's chair.

When Datura had gripped the three long-stemmed roses in her fist, thorns had punctured her palm. She revealed no pain when she had lashed the air, but now she bled.

Robert might have contented himself at her wounds until no taste remained. From him issued a murmur of deep satisfaction.

As disturbing as this was, I doubted it was the 'need' of which she had spoken. That would be a worse thing than this.

With an expression of perverse n.o.blesse oblige, the would-be G.o.ddess denied Robert further favor and offered communion to Andre.

I tried to focus on the window and the spectacle of the storm, but I could not keep my gaze averted from the chilling tableau across the table.

The giant lowered his mouth into the cup of her hand. He lapped like a kitten, not seeking sustenance, surely, but craving something more than blood, something unknown and unholy.

As Cheval Andre accepted his mistress's grace, Cheval Robert watched intently. Yearning tortured his face.

More than once since I'd entered Room 1203, the scent of Cleo-May had grown so sweet that it became repellent. Now it thickened to such a degree that it began to sicken me.

As I strove to repress my nausea, I had an impression that I don't mean should be taken literally, that was metaphoric but no less disturbing: During this blood-sharing ritual, Datura no longer seemed to be a woman, no longer a s.e.xually distinct creature of either gender, but a member of some monoclinous species that harbored both s.e.xes in the same individual, and almost insectile insectile. I expected that if lightning backlighted her, I would see her body as a mimicry of human form within which quivered a many-legged ent.i.ty.

She withdrew her hand from Andre, and he relinquished it with reluctance. When she turned her back on him, however, he returned obediently to the window, once more placed his hands flat upon the gla.s.s, and gazed into the storm.

Robert's attention focused again on the table candles. His face settled into placidity, but his eyes were lively with reflections of the flames.

Datura redirected her attention to me. For a moment she stared as if she did not remember who I was. Then she smiled.

She picked up her winegla.s.s and came to me.

If I had realized that she intended to sit in my lap, I would have exploded to my feet as she rounded the table. By the time her intention became clear, she had already settled.

Feathering against my face, her warm breath smelled of wine.

'Have you seen an advantage yet that you can seize?'

'Not yet.'

'I want you to drink with me,' she said, holding the winegla.s.s to my lips.

THIRTY-FOUR.

SHE HELD THE WINE IN THE HAND THAT HAD BEEN p.r.i.c.ked by thorns, the hand upon which the two men had suckled.

A new wave of nausea washed through me, and I pulled my head back from the coolness of the gla.s.s rim against my lips.

'Drink with me,' she repeated, her smoky voice alluring under even these circ.u.mstances.

'I don't want any,' I told her.

'You do want it, baby. You just don't know you want it. You don't yet understand yourself.'

She pressed the gla.s.s to my lips again, and I turned my head away from it.

'Poor Odd Thomas,' she said, 'so fearful of corruption. Do you think I'm a dirty thing?'

Offending her too openly might be bad for Danny. Now that she had lured me here, she had little if any further use for him. She could punish me for any insult by pushing the black b.u.t.ton on the remote.

Lamely, I said, 'I just catch cold easily, that's all.'

'But I don't have a cold.'

'Well, you never know. You might have one but not be showing symptoms yet.'

'I take echinacea. You should, too. You'll never have a cold again.'

'I'm not much into herbal remedies,' I said.

She slid her left arm around my neck. 'You've been brainwashed by the big drug companies, baby.'

'You're right. I probably have been.'

'Big drugs, big oil, big tobacco, big media-they've gotten inside everyone's head. They're poisoning us. You don't need man-made chemicals. Nature has a cure for everything.'

'Brugmansia is really effective,' I said. 'I could use some brugmansia leaf right now. Or flower. Or root.'

'I'm not familiar with that one.'

Under the bouquet of Cabernet Sauvignon, her breath carried another scent, an astringent odor, almost bitter, that I could not identify.

I remembered reading that the sweat and breath of certifiable psychopaths have a subtle but distinctive chemical odor because of certain physiological conditions accompanying that mental disorder. Maybe her breath smelled of craziness.

'A spoonful of white mustard seed,' she said, 'protects against all harm.'

'I wish I had a spoonful.'

'Eating wonder-world root will make you rich.'

'Sounds better than hard work.'

She pressed the gla.s.s against my lips again, and when I tried to pull my head back, she resisted my effort with the arm that she had slipped around my neck.

When I turned my head to the side, she took the gla.s.s away and surprised me by giggling. 'I know you're a mundunugu mundunugu, but you're so good at pretending to be a church mouse.'

A sudden shift of wind threw shatters of rain against the windows.

She wriggled her bottom against my lap, smiled, and kissed my forehead.

'It's stupid not to use herbal remedies, Odd Thomas. You don't eat meat, do you?'

'I'm a fry cook.'

'I know you cook it,' she said, 'but please tell me you don't eat it.'

'Even cheeseburgers with bacon.'

'That's so so self-destructive.' self-destructive.'

'And French fries,' I added.

'Suicidal.'

She sucked a mouthful of wine from the gla.s.s and spat it in my face. 'Now what did resistance get you, baby? Datura always has her way. I can break you.'

Not if my mother couldn't, I thought as I wiped my face with my left hand.

'Andre and Robert can hold you,' she said, 'while I pinch your nose shut. When you open your mouth to breathe, I pour the wine down your throat. Then I bust the gla.s.s against your teeth, and you can chew the pieces. Is that what you'd prefer?'

Before she could press the winegla.s.s to my lips again, I said, 'Do you want to see the dead?'

No doubt some men saw an exciting blue fire in her eyes, but they mistook appet.i.te for pa.s.sion; her gaze was that of a cool and ravenous crocodile.

Searching my eyes, she said, 'You told me no one but you could see them.'

'I guard my secrets.'

'So you can conjure, after all.'

'Yes,' I lied.

'I knew you could. I knew.'

'The dead are here, just like you thought.'

She looked around. The shimmering candlelight shivered the shadows.

'They aren't in this room,' I said.

'Then where?'

'Downstairs. I saw several earlier, in the casino.'

She rose from my lap. 'Conjure them here.'

'They choose where they haunt.'

'You have the power to summon.'

'It doesn't work that way. There are exceptions, but for the most part, they cling to the very place where they diedor where they were happiest in life.'

Putting her winegla.s.s on the table, she said, 'What trick do you have up your sleeve?'

'I'm wearing a T-shirt.'

Her eyes narrowed. 'What does that mean?'

Rising from the chair, I said, 'Gessel, the Gestapo agent-does he ever manifest anywhere but in the bas.e.m.e.nt of that building in Paris? Anywhere but the very place where he died?'

She thought about that. 'All right. We'll go to the casino.'

THIRTY-FIVE.

TO FACILITATE THE EXPLORATION OF THE ABANDONED hotel, they had brought Coleman lanterns, which operated on canned fuel. These lamps would press back the darkness more effectively than flashlights.

Andre left the shotgun on the floor near the window of Room 1203, which convinced me that both he and Robert carried pistols under their black jackets.

The remote control remained on the table. If my conjuring act in the casino failed to please Datura, at least she wouldn't be able to waste Danny at once. She would have to return here to retrieve the device that could trigger the blast.

As we were about to leave the room, she realized that she had not eaten a banana since the previous day. This oversight clearly concerned her.

Picnic coolers packed with food and drink were in the adjacent bathroom. She returned from there with one of Chiquita's finest.

As she peeled the fruit, she explained that the banana tree-'as you know, Odd Thomas'-was the tree of forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.