"Debra?"

The brunette sucked down her nub of a cigarette and eyed him warily as her sisters looked on. "Hi," she said, and up close she smelled vaguely musky like old perfume and gin. He looked down and saw that a small gold cross graced the hollow of her throat, not a ring.

"I can be Debra," she told him.

"You a cop?" said one of the prost.i.tute's blonde sisters.

He continued to stare at her throat. "No. Do I look like one?"

"He's a cop, Chrissy," said the other sister.

"I'm not a cop," Alek insisted.

"Leave me alone!" said the girl, suddenly, backing away like a frightened animal, her green eyes large and shy.

Alek tightened his hand on her arm to arrest her escape.

"He's a f.u.c.king narc," said the first sister.

"Chrissy!" said the second sister. "Come on!"

Chrissy began to weep and pulled herself free of his hold. And as her disguise of cosmetic paint poured down her face to reveal the innocent beauty of her thirteen-year-old features, Alek felt his heart shrivel and die. He let her go. He pushed his way past the girls and out onto the walk that would take him like a magic carpet back to the skeletal tenement. Back to Teresa.

She had lit candles throughout the attic.

"You mustn't be so self-conscious of your brilliance."

He crept like a villain into her room.

In the dimness of the musty, claustrophobic s.p.a.ce her delicate face and hands shone like virgin lace where she stood staring up at something on the wall. "You are an artist of terrible strength." She refused to abandon the shadows for the moment. "You make her truly immortal," she said.

Alek stopped, dizzy with disorientation. And then, emboldened by that same feeling of weightless displacement, he walked across the creaking floorboards to a portrait dominating the center wall over a long- dead fireplace. He wondered why he had not noticed it until now and could conclude only that it must have been covered by a sheet. That or it was Teresa's glamour at work on him again, letting him see, but only with the blinders she created.

The portrait was of a woman of supernatural beauty, raven-haired, with predatory brown eyes so beautiful a critic might have thought the artists had exaggerated their brilliance. Her features were delicate, her skin alabaster, and yet there was an unmistakable look of power in her face. Perhaps it was her mouth, the wide lips painted red, smirking but not smirking. It would have given her an expression of bitter derision had she not been so beautiful.

It was, of course, his own face at certain times. It was Debra. And he wondered how in h.e.l.l Teresa had gotten ahold of the portrait. He'd sold it years ago on the sidewalk outside his loft. Sold it for a loaf of whitebread and a bottle of vodka. He remembered.

Teresa turned away from the portrait to look at him. Her eyes held the flames of the many candles like cages of red birds. And he thought rather absently, angel of fire.

"Angel of vengeance," she answered him.

"Whose?"

"Yours."

"I mean whose angel."

"I know." Red ghosts played over her face, gave her the semblance of life, like marble dutifully painted to seem like real flesh to the artist. Like he had meant Debra's portrait to do. She'd fed fairly recently, and now for reasons he feared to guess at, he felt no real revulsion. No fear.

"How did you get that picture?" he asked.

She looked at it. She halved her eyes like a cat. "I knew the owner. She gave it to me. I couldn't believe you would sell it."

"You were watching me? Even then?"

She didn't answer him, and he felt suddenly confused by her words, as if he were a child being made to play a game the rules of which had never been explained to him. So instead of understanding them, or wanting to, he moved closer to her and said, to change the subject, "Can you read the map?"

She glanced askance at the bed where it lay, narrowed her eyes further. She said, "Things change, they changeth not." She went to the map and touched a small odd legend high up in a corner. "We begin here tonight. I know this place--"

"Don't."

She was silent; and then she said, "'Your eyes will be mine.'"

"I'm his f.u.c.king spy," he said miserably. "Whether I want to be or not."

"There's something unnatural about him. Something wrong."

"Debra said that."

And Debra had been more than right. Alek looked away into the heat of the flames of the candles on the mantel and felt them turn his face to wax. How had he not seen what she'd seen? Was he so blind? He could glimpse the life of anyone in this city, could even touch it briefly if he so chose to, and yet he had not been able to see the darkness sunk into the eyes of the one who had known him best. How was it possible to see so far and yet remain so sightless?

Teresa stepped forward out of the dark. The medieval gown was gone; it had been replaced by the lethal clothing of the day, a black little sliplike dress and fishnet stockings and a pair of battered Doc Martens. He looked at her cold little streetwalker's garb, the way the material, as worn as it was, slithered like silk over her hips and b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Candlelight played like gold across the shining twin rings in her lower lip. He reached and found her black leather jacket on the bed beside the map and held it in front of him like a shield as she approached him.

"You must be cold," he said, offering her the coat.

She shook her head, her hair falling loose and tangled like black lace across her naked white throat. She smiled ever so slightly with her smoky eyes and mouth.

He got a solid grip on the jacket.

Teresa only closed the s.p.a.ce between them, saying nothing, everything. Primitive images invaded his thoughts. Making love to her, right then and there, and then going down into the city of humans cowering in the dark to run and hunt among them like a wolf in a field of naive sheep. But it was only her glamour. Her thoughts. It was.

She grew close enough for him to smell the kill on her breath. Her lips parted daintily; her teeth gleamed white. And then she turned and gave him her back, spread her delicate arms. "Please."

Feeling ridiculous and defeated, he slid the jacket upon her like a queen's royal mantle. She took his hands, folded them around her middle, edged her head back until her rustling-thick hair brushed his bottom lip. He let his hands linger at her waist for only the shortest of moments, just until she let him go, and then he stepped back, away. She turned back around with her gifts of death and love and seduction and took his hand. She turned it over as if she would read his fate once more and kissed it, put it to her heart. "Don't leave me, Alek Knight. Never leave me."

He watched the flames caress her face and throat. There was red now everywhere in her divine image. Red in her mouth and eyes. Red reflected on her silky black jacket. Red in her touch.

She was luring him out into the center of her web, weaving the spell of her existence over him the way she had for countless others over countless centuries. He saw the years in her thoughts, the cities, Venice and Rome and Naples, the names and the faces of her kills, too many to count, heard the innocent words of her seduction. She was a woman after all, and an animal, and woman and animal, she lured the unwary to her with the sweet perfume of the pitcher plant on her skin and the venom in her deadly kiss. And there, in countless backstreets and convent cells with the moon a knife in her eyes, she had taken their dark Roman faces to her white breast, given her slender frame over to their ungentle hands, let them kiss the purity from off her cheeks. And she had willingly drunk their smoky, beery, decayed breaths on those nights, because it was what pleased them and what they most wanted from their victim and what their exotic pleasures most demanded; but always it ended the same way, not with the ecstasy of life but the exquisite agony of death and early d.a.m.nation. It was her power and her gift and she gave it willingly and asked for nothing but their life in return. The creed of the predator. Survival at all cost. But though she offered herself as the venomous fruit of Eden itself there was none that saw her soul, none who glimpsed her age and sorrows and her many painful wisdoms...

No, wait. No one but Paris, once-- "And you. You see me as I truly am," she said and leaned close so she was touching, caressing all his body with her own, the feeling so acute it was like the skipping of a pulsepoint in the dark. She rubbed herself against him, and the raw sensuality of it grew, w armin g, seething, seeming to gain a living presence all about them. And then her mouth was there like wet velvet, like an orchid, and she was kissing him with all her vengeance, and her lips seemed so frail on his, but gathering suddenly in strength, and after a moment's hesitation he kissed her back, almost desperate, the sweetness of the deadly pitcher plant and the bitterness of her venom seizing up the priest inside him. For a moment she changed, and he wasn't at all surprised that she should taste of roses and fire and the things that were red, but it was only her charms at work on him, and when he tensed at the taste and tried to draw away she changed again, and again he tasted her venom and her years and the wicked edge of hungry, unspent desire.

She kissed his mouth, her hands branding his back with fire, sliding like steel beneath his coat. He whispered to her and closed his eyes and held and worshipped her. He wanted her now with an urgency that frightened and appalled him. She had cracked the barrier of his hypocrisy. She had let in all the floodwaters of his pain and all his sweat-soaked midnight dreams. He kissed her mouth, biting her gently, urging her on, offering himself as a villain and a victim, whichever she most desired, everything if she desired it, his soul if she demanded it.

Her teeth touched the hypersensitive skin under his chin and stopped. "No."

"Please."

"No."

"I want you to."

"I can't belong to you when you belong to her."

And with those words she broke her fragile spell and set him free. He set her on her feet and turned away, returning to the portal-window and the dusky-greyness of the city under nightfall and put a hand to the sucking cold of the plane of gla.s.s and wept, empty and unfinished and aching for something with no name and no presence.

17.

In his dream he dreamt he was asleep dreaming he was awake. And the white face came to him then, floating, lingering above his bed, close, its breath as sharp and raw as sleet against his cheek. The quilt was drawn away and he felt a long white hand caress him, then cover his heart as if it would take it from him like a red jewel and hold it in the palm of its hand.

Sean Stone...Stone Man.

A burning cold mouth more knowledgeable than that of the most ancient prost.i.tute kissed first his cheek and then his mouth. He shuddered with the contact, could not breathe for a moment. He was being loved with such great power and control he felt himself weaken under his lover's spell. Weakness. In his dreams he was a G.o.d, always a G.o.d, more than man or vampire. And it was that thing more than anything else--the weakness and loss of will--that told him that this was no dream-- He opened his eyes.

The face above him was that of Lucifer's before the fall, lovely, alluring, with cheekbones like planes of ice and hair as brittle and beautiful as springtime frost. Eyes...not colorless as he'd somehow expected, but black, as black as uncracked mirrors of obsidian, deep and dark and crazed with life. Lidless and serpentlike.

"Father?" he said and then realized his mouth hadn't moved at all.

Stone Man...Man of Stone and Ice...come into the dark with me, to the place where truth is brewed.

The face lowered and nudged his head back. Sean complied. This wasn't like that time with Slim Jim. What had he to fear from someone who loved him so much, so fiercely? He felt a cold white kiss on his mouth more exquisite than death or the best kill. And again the kiss, on his throat this time, burning cold, stealing his breath and his words away. He gripped something enormous and smothering above him, heard it sing to his soul in languages far older than mankind. Father, he said, I don't understand.

Understand--he has betrayed me, rejected me. He lives still and he has proven himself unworthy to stand in my stead. He will be my Judas and he will try and take my head-- No!

--but you, Stone Man--you can be the one promised me, the Chosen of my fold. You can carry the mantle of Covenmaster after me...if you so choose.

Sean felt his heart throb and send blood like a delicate offering past the nursing lips of his master. The Dominato. The Dominato! Righteous horrorshow, man! He wanted so to rise up from his bed and embrace the Father, whisper words of feral love into his hair, all the secrets of his broken heart, but strong hands held him in check. He whimpered and writhed with joy and terror, triumph and frustration.

Be still, beloved, commanded the Father.

The face smiled. So white it was, with eyes so impossibly dark, like deep waters at midnight, and the mouth red now, painted, slathered like a beast after a b.l.o.o.d.y kill. Sean kissed away all the red. The flesh of the creature was all delicate crystal with veins of fire weaving beneath and a rune stone for a heart, a heart that beat in unholy defiance of its own existence, its own unnatural power.

Power.

Power freely offered.

Power for the taking.

Sean twined his fingers in the slithering, shifting ma.s.s of white hair and raised himself slowly up to the offering of power, his mouth creaking open and spiderwebbed with saliva to receive the gift of Communion, this share of power...power never to be hurt again, never pinched and struck like a stupid little boy again...the power of the earth in all its truths and its lies, its fire and darkness...

The face pulled back and his teeth clacked shut on nothing but thin air. Sean wept with the unfairness of it all. He heard laughter like dropping crystals. Not yet, spoke the Father. First you must prove yourself to me.

First you must prove your heart is pure, your spirit that of a warrior.

How?

You know how, mein Sohn.

Sean stopped crying and his mouth became the graceful cradle of the moon, a moon full of blood and laughter. He giggled. I'll wear his scalp as my battle helmet, Father, he vowed. His skull will crown your altar.

The Father smiled. Do this, Stone Man, and you will drink from the fount of eternal Amadeus and you will know his power forevermore.

Sean giggled again.

The world was full of monsters, Edna Filmore was convinced of it. They'd cut you and take your things and your body and then leave you bleeding in the dark.

In the half-light of the subway car, Edna shifted her packages around under her seat so her legs could brush them and she could know they were there. Her grandchild sat on the shredded vinyl seat beside her, her legs drawn up under her as if she was sitting safely in her bedroom and not here in the belly of this steel worm shooting blindly through its dark tunnel.

Roxy wasn't frightened; she was studying the paperbacks she'd bought at Borders with a scowling concentration. Edna could see the cover of the one she had now--a grinning skull with worms through its teeth like dental floss. Disgusting stuff. Really, she didn't know why her daughter-in-law Marilyn let Roxy read all that c.r.a.p about vampires and werewolves and G.o.d only knew what else. It was her son Brady's fault, Edna decided, for marrying that nitwit Marilyn in the first place.

The sub lurched and one of the violet florescent lights decided to catch and hold, buzzing like a nest of irate wasps. The dark pulled itself into its corners and Edna could see, really see now. And somehow that made it all the worse. She figured she'd rather be cut in the dark where at least she couldn't see the instrument or the dirty face of madness above it. She reached for Roxy, tugged her close by the sleeve of her denim coat.

"Gram," she whined.

"You shut up. Come here."

Lord, she hated the sub. She wished they'd been more careful with their money and had had enough for a cab. She wished she hadn't had the d.a.m.nable pride not to call Brady for a ride home. It was awful. She could smell h.e.l.l, the soot and dirt, the hot sweat and electricity and the ozone. The workers behind the bleary windows wore Glo-red coveralls like devils or prisoners and were busy clicking maintenance coils together, handling the great vacuums snails hungry for asbestos milk or banging the rails back into obedience like tommyknockers tapping with their last strength through eternity for the rescue that would never come.

Horrible, all of it. Evil as a book cover.

And it was worse inside. The temperamental lighting illuminated placecards and ancient posters, left when the money ran out and there was no one to buy the s.p.a.ce or no one to care. Ovaltine. Beeswax. Jergen's.

Skipping, smiling girls. Pigtailed girls cradled on the moon and swinging from the stars. Ancient girls faded to thin, gaunt ghosts and forced to look out with absurd gaiety on a changing world, a changing people.

And the people. Men in watchcaps and coats of burst nylon, women in machine-get faux fur, fake coats for protection against a real world, coats held together by surviving b.u.t.tons or twine or only sheer luck. Nothing at all like the tailored fashions of the fifties that even the lowest cla.s.s owned. Even the perfume of caste was different: bad colognes and hair oils and the cloying stench of newspaper blankets. Cheap whiskeys and the dank smell of fear, distrust.

Edna watched it all. It was late and the brave ones slept. Mostly they watched or pretended to read, or read, pretending to watch. She didn't meet any of their eyes. Especially not the eyes of the character across the aisle from them with the black coat and long hair and the eyes that looked funny under the florescent lights.

The kid in the seat behind her and Roxy, the one with the skull tattoo on one cheek and the concert T-shirt, stood up under a moment's inspiration and pelted the character's shoulder with a wadded-up ma.s.s of soggy brown paper bag. "Yo, Count Dracula, man, you're out early tonight!"

No one laughed. They looked away into laps which cradled newspaper and those that did not. The kid sat down, sulky and disappointed with the general appeal.

But Edna had no sympathy for the character. He was an idiot. He had boarded two stations back with his young woman, yet now he sat alone. His girl was at the back, curled up on a seat and asleep, it looked like, all wrapped up in her leather jacket. She was a lovely young thing, like Snow White in the books Roxy used to read before she got into all that horror c.r.a.p. And she was alone. Who'd leave their kid unattended in this h.e.l.lhole of a city? Edna's hand bunched around Roxy's sleeve, despite the agony of her arthritis. A fool would, that's who.

The car jerked, screamed. Steam frosted their window in an intricate, lacy web. Edna heard Roxy's m.u.f.fled curse as she lost her armful of books. Edna got up. "We're getting off."

Roxy fumbled with her books. "Wait, Gram, one got under the seat."

Edna waited impatiently, plastic package handles biting into her forearm, as Roxy squirmed under the seat.

"Don't go touching anything under there," Edna cautioned. "G.o.d knows what's under there."

The car was emptying and taking on, bodies against bodies, apologetic, not meaning to touch. Tattoo lurched against Edna's shoulder as he pa.s.sed, either pushed from behind or just feeling her pockets.