 
### Kandy Fangs

David G Shrock

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 David G Shrock

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Thanks to Carrie and Jason.

Contents

Chapter 1: Shadows

Chapter 2: Silver

Chapter 3: Sanctuaries

Chapter 4: Crime Scene

Chapter 5: Bleed For Me

Chapter 6: Payment

Chapter 7: Sin

Chapter 8: Lost In A Memory

Chapter 9: Vampire Ice

Chapter 10: Memory Thief

Chapter 11: Confession

Chapter 12: Executions

Chapter 13: My Fangs

Chapter 14: Final Dance

Chapter 1: Shadows

"Life is a memory, a blood-spattered stain on the cosmos where ghosts relive every moment."—Steve Reynolds

It looks like the aftermath of a gang fight between bottles, the victim smashed to death. Shards of clear glass litter the center of the table. Empty beer bottles, fifteen of them including the bottle on its side, surround the victim. Probably some national light beer trying to dance with the tough local microbrews. Roseland is home to some of the toughest ale in the country.

On a sofa, a clothing pile shifts. A sweatshirt covers the lamp shading the room except for the far corner where cobwebs darken the wall. More clothes form a pile between the lamp and sofa. A trail of clothing—enough for three people—leads from the sofa across the carpet onto the tile of the kitchen area. A lacy black bra hangs from the handle of the refrigerator. Back against the stove, a woman wearing only black bottoms rests in a fetal position, arm over knees and face pressed into a puddle of vomit.

The apartment unit smells like alcohol, sex, and an overused toilet after weeks of neglect.

"Hey, man." Clothing flops off the sofa, and a shirtless young man sits up. His blond hair stands up, spikes pointed in every direction. He glances around, his pupils growing large and shrinking again. He grimaces at the shaded lamp. "Some party, eh?"

This is the aftermath of a brutal orgy of overindulgence.

"What's your name?" The shirtless man holds his hand up. "No, don't tell me. I've got it." He snaps his finger. "Roger. No wait. Steve."

Steve sounds right. A hand on the table edge, he shifts around looking the kitchen over. Pizza boxes cover the stove. He looks down at the woman on the floor growing concerned about her health.

"Okay," he says, "I'm Steve. Who the hell are you?"

The shirtless man makes a popping noise that sounds almost like a laugh. Flopping back, he lays on the sofa and rubs his face. "Torx."

Standing, Steve pushes the chair under the table. Looking down, he finds black slacks and a white buttoned shirt. His clothes are spotless and free of wrinkles. Even the creases in his slacks appear sharp. His shiny leather shoe steps on a sliver of pizza crust.

Torx releases more popping sounds. "You know it was a great party when most of it is a haze."

Steve glances over at the woman on the floor. She appears no older than nineteen. Her shifting body tells him she is alive. "I don't remember anything."

"Good stuff, eh?" Torx sits up and shakes his head. He laughs, popping like firecrackers.

"I feel fine." No headache. No grogginess. He feels like a bear after a winter nap, or a newborn baby with enough energy to cry for days. "I just don't remember anything at all."

Torx bats a hand at the air.

Steve looks at the beer bottle gang fight on the table. He scans the kitchen, the floor finding more beer bottles, and the coffee table covered with more pizza boxes. No drug paraphernalia. No needles, no bongs, not even a cigarette occupies the flat. Kneeling, he lifts the young woman up into a seated position.

Dark mascara drains from her closed eyes. She groans and waves her hands at the air. Her breath smells like beer and vomit. Dried pizza sauce speckles her breasts. Steve turns her arms around searching for needle marks. Patches of freckles on her upper arms disturb the serenity of her pale flesh. Her nose appears clean.

Spotting a red dot on her neck, he pulls her hair aside and turns her head the other way. The puncture wound is under her chin in the soft place beside her throat. The wound appears too large for a needle. On her wrist he finds pink scars, two curved rows of slender gashes appearing like a bite mark.

"No drugs here."

"Come on," says Torx. He slaps his arm. "I've got a big fresh mark on my arm. Julio delivered."

"Where's the needle?" Steve looks around finding the room darkening. The rumbling fridge falls silent. Toilet smells fade. It is as if his nose stopped working along with his ears.

Ghostly forms appear, people moving about the apartment. Holding a beer bottle, the young topless woman dances in the kitchen. The apparition moves her hips in circles. The ghost takes a gulp from the bottle. Two other ghosts—men—sit at the table. One watches the young woman, nodding his head and grinning in the lustful way young men do. The other ghost opens a beer bottle, the pale cap bouncing silently onto the floor. A pair of ghosts occupy the living area. A female dances on the coffee table, lifting her shirt up, exposing her breasts. She throws her shirt down, and the other ghost, Torx, laughs silently.

An apparition leans against the door. He watches the others, head rolling against the door as his gaze moves from one ghost to another. He appears like a leather-clad rockstar with long dark hair and pale skin. His gaze pauses on Steve, makes eye contact, and drops to the table. Between two brown beer bottles, six capped vials stand within a wire tray. A white cloud floats in clear liquid.

Sounds come crashing back, and a wave of pungent odors attacks.

The ghosts are gone leaving Steve holding the young woman in his arms.

A voice booms within the apartment. "What are you? A cop?"

Lifting the young woman, Steve climbs to his feet. His gaze sweeps the table. There appears to be too much broken glass for six vials.

"Look at you with your spiffy clothes," says Torx, rising from the pile of clothes standing naked. "And your buzzed cop hair. Who the hell let your old ass in here anyway?" He swipes at the air. "Was it Sabrina? Get out of here and take that slut with you!"

Hand around Sabrina's waist, Steve holds her limp body against him. Her feet slip and stumble around the table. Torx shouts terrible words as he marches around the other side of the table. Shoving the chair aside, Steve pulls Sabrina towards the exit.

Opening the door reveals a dim hall lit by a buzzing light, the blinking sends their shadows jumping across the worn carpet and onto the wall. Steve supports the young woman as she stumbles down the hall passing closed doors marked by brass numbers. The naked man shouts from the doorway. Finding stairs at the end of the hall, Steve heads down the creaking steps.

Folding her arms over breasts, Sabrina shivers.

Nothing is familiar. The acrid odor, the peeling paint, the blinking lights tug at his senses. "How about," he says, trying to find the right words. "How about we find somewhere warm and safe?"

At the landing, he grabs the banister and swings Sabrina around the corner. Within his grasp, he feels the banister give, wood splinters, and the handrail breaks free. He falls, darkness swallowing him.

Instead of tumbling down stairs, he feels as if he plummets, his gut rising into his throat. Finding his arms empty, he reaches out. Sabrina is gone. From the darkness below, churning purple and black clouds curl around him. Gut lurches, feet touch down, and silent steps carry him through the rising violet fog.

Dark shapes appear within the haze. Swooning and swaying, the shapes surround him. They appear like smoke, their motions leaving wispy trails, and he realizes they dance in slow motion. He finds more of them, a mass of smoky forms in every direction. They dance, waving arms building smoky clouds above their heads.

Purple haze lifting, dancers increasing in speed, the smoke trails fade leaving solid forms. Clothing ripples out of the blackness. The ghosts dance, their pale forms turning and moving on a wood floor. Dark columns holding purple rods rise up into a white fog where lights spin splashing red like blood dripping from the mist.

Thunder erupts pounding into the floor. Another dull boom, and another, the increasing beat becoming alive, sharpening. The dancers stomp to the beat, their movements increasing in speed. A chorus of guitars join in, and music explodes.

Standing at the center of the dance floor, Steve glances around at the crowd. White shirts and waving colored bracelets glow in the black light. Some of the eyes glow as well like phosphorous discs floating on white orbs. The discs bounce and weave. The floor shakes to the beat of the drums and dancing feet.

Standing on a stage, a woman with deep crimson hair screams into a microphone. Her voice, harsh and demonic, shouts about blood and death. Behind her, the musicians shake their heads and stomp. A bald man pounds drums splashing sweat glistening into the spotlight flooding his bare chest decorated with a dark dragon.

Feeling a gaze piercing into him, Steve turns around finding a woman staring at him. Her hips throw her black dress swaying and shifting about her leather boots tapping the floor in time with the beat. Her body flows, twisting and swaying, her arms climbing up over her head like snakes swooning about each other. Her dark hair bounces on her shoulders. He recognizes her pale face, her cute dimples, her slender nose. Her strong gaze pulls him in.

She smiles, her glossy red lips curl deepening her dimples. "Nice to meet you, Steve Reynolds."

A wave of nausea rushes over, and he concentrates on the woman before him, focusing on her glistening lips. He watches her tongue slide sideways licking her upper lip. Smile growing, her mouth opens wider exposing glistening teeth. A red spotlight flashes over her face. Staring at her open mouth, he notices her canines are slender and long.

"I'm sweet like candy," she says. Spinning around, she gazes over her shoulder. Her thin eyebrows bounce. "With a K."

Watching her smile, her pointed teeth, he realizes her name. "Kandy."

Led by the hand, he follows her off the dance floor. Climbing a staircase, she says something about having what he's looking for. He doesn't recall asking for anything, and he feels doubtful she can help him find Sabrina or the apartment building. However, her kind smile tells him she may have something. He tries placing her face, but nothing sticks. Even her cinnamon scent is familiar. Somehow he knows her hair always smells like cinnamon.

Candles barely illuminate the leather sofas lining the dark walls of the lounge. Music drones in the floor, and Kandy bounces to the beat. Passing a bar on the right, the bartender dressed in puffy sleeves and a bow tie frowns. Hand pulling him the other way, he slips off the red carpet and onto the smooth tile of a room, music growing louder.

Kandy slams the door closed. One foot in front of the other, hips rocking, she struts over to a leather sofa sitting against a wall of glass. With the red lights spinning through fog beyond the window, Kandy is a dark silhouette. One hand on her waist, she stands there waiting, tapping her toe to the beat.

Raising his hand, Steve finds dollar bills in his grasp. His feet shuffle taking slow steps.

Lashing out, Kandy grasps his shoulder jerking him onto his toes. His elbow cracks, and her jaw crushes his wrist. Pain shoots up his arm into his head cracking into silence, a scream fading into the background.

Chapter 2: Silver

"Like I told you." Leaning back in the chair, Steve Reynolds folds his arms. "I don't remember."

Sitting behind the desk, the detective peers up from his notes. His bushy eyebrows scrunch down. He appears to fall into deep concentration, his head bouncing as if considering different options.

Growing tired of the scrutinizing stare, Steve gazes over the detective's shoulder and through the window. Police officers sit at desks, some of them writing and others talking on phones. From somewhere at the far end, a radio squelches and a scratchy voice mumbles an announcement about an incident on Tenth Street. Whatever it is, nobody responds.

Eyebrows bouncing up, the detective nods. He swipes a hand through his dark wavy hair ruffling the silver flecks matching his name. "Amnesia, then."

"Yes, Detective Silver, or so it seems."

"I'm very sorry." Silver leans back, and the chair groans. "For someone at your age." He shakes his head. "I mean, you're at the prime of your life. You might have a family. Someone worrying about your absence." His eyebrows clamp down as he leans closer. "You don't remember anything at all?"

"Not my childhood." He feels as if he has been over it a thousand times, at least five with the detective after hours of pouring through his thoughts back in the waiting room. "Not last week. Yesterday. Nothing until that apartment."

Silver waves a hand motioning his acceptance. "I'll do everything I can to help you find your identity, but I need you to think."

"No." Steve stands sending the chair smashing against a cabinet. "I don't know anything about that street."

"Washington."

"The last thing I remember is a club."

"Necropolis."

Falling back in the chair, Steve slumps over and buries his face in his hands. His memories are not here. They are out there somewhere. Maybe with Kandy.

"The nightclub," says Detective Silver. "My crime scene."

Rubbing his face, Steve takes in a deep breath. He sits up, and continues in a calm voice. "I blacked out. I'm uncertain how I even arrived at that club." Falling. Dropping through purple clouds. "I was helping a young woman. Sabrina. I helped her out to the stairs, and I lost her."

Silver glances at his notes. "From the mystery apartment. An old building you don't recall the location of."

"That's correct."

"Help me understand, Mister Reynolds. Minutes after forensics packs up." Silver grabs his pen and taps the end on the table. "Among a dozen officers. You somehow stumble into a crime scene area and lose consciousness between the officers and the exit."

"No." Steve shakes his head. "Like I told you before, people were dancing. There were no officers."

Folding his arms, he meets the scrutinizing gaze. He has had enough. The last thing he remembers is Kandy taking a bite out of his arm, a detail left out of his statement. His arm is free of injury, not a mark. It's as if it never happened.

Breaking the gaze, Silver lowers his head. He scribbles something on his paper. "Fair enough, Mister Reynolds. Without an address of this apartment, we don't have much to work with. My team is going back over the crime scene. Something will turn up."

Detective Silver opens a desk drawer and tosses a small notepad on his desk. Turning to the first page, he writes. "Directions to a shelter. I'll contact you there."

Steve takes the pocket-sized notepad and reads the directions. None of the names mean anything to him.

"And here's a pen in case something comes back. You can write it down."

Taking the pen, Steve slides it into his shirt pocket along with the notepad. He promises to stay in contact and exits the office. The radio squelches, and this time two officers respond climbing to their feet. Finding the main entrance, he pushes on the glass door.

The cool night air reminds him he has no jacket. He wonders how many hours have passed inside the station. He supposes without any memories, a day is forever like a child with nothing behind him and a lifetime to imagine.

He listens to the sound of his shoes clicking down stone steps onto the sidewalk and the cars rumbling on the street, all familiar as if he knows them without really remembering the sounds from anywhere in particular. Even the dampness in the air seems familiar. The names on the street signs and buildings are new. He recognizes a coffee shop as a coffee shop, but the name on the glass door means nothing. He considers going inside. Hunger should have taken him by now, but he feels fine. Of course, he has no money to pay for food.

Spotting a woman on the others side of the glass, Steve grabs the handle and opens the door releasing warm air and the scent of coffee. He stands to the side and flashes a smile. The woman returns the smile and strides away, her heels clicking on the sidewalk. Steve breathes in the coffee aroma and releases the door listening to the squeak of the hinge and the smack of the frame. Scents and sounds are all recognizable and familiar. If only his home address would materialize with the same clarity.

The directions are easy to follow, and Steve finds a brick building with large black letters spelling out the name, Roseland Sisters of Sorrows Sanctuary. Roseland is a city resting in a valley between two mountain ranges. The area is known for its microbrews. Why recall such a silly thing? He knows the city like he knows mathematics, the value of a dollar, and the basics of a combustible engine propelling the cars on the street. The real mystery: who is Steve Reynolds?

Chapter 3: Sanctuaries

As he opens the door, Steve imagines a number of possibilities waiting on the other side: standing in line for evening soup, waking up from a dream and telling his wife about his strange adventure, a woman at the front desk recognizing him, or angels descending the staircase to guide him home. Even someone smacking him across the head with a bible shaking his memories back in place seems more likely than what he finds. Somewhere in his groggy state standing before the arched doorway, stumbling into the shadows between the cool outside and the warm indoors, the world swirls around him sending his head sloshing. Then everything orients within his thoughts, and he finds the unexpected.

Three apparitions occupy the room. In the back, lounging on a sofa, a ghost smokes a cigarette held between her fingers. She wears a white top and matching short skirt. She sits at an angle, legs crossed, foot kicking the air. White boots hug her legs all the way up to her thigh. On the right, a bartender wears a white vest barely hiding her breasts, and white bow tie clenches her bare neck. Hand held out, she serves a martini to an apparition dressed all in black. Like the first, the third ghost wears boots that are too long and a skirt too short.

High on the wall, the lamps within red glass cylinders cast an eerie glow within a haze of smoke. On the left, a curtain of beads hangs in the doorway. Sparkles dance down the beads catching light and movement beyond the curtain. The black-and-white tiled floor reminds Steve of a chess board. The two women, one in all black and the other all white, are chess pieces.

Two queens command the battlefield in dark smoky ruins, a sanctuary of sin.

The apparitions move in slow motion, the black queen taking her martini glass and the bright red lips on the bartender's face curling into a smile. Even the smoke spewing from the white queen's sparkling pink lips moves against time.

Steve steps inside, his shoes silently meeting the tile. Taking in a deep breath, he notices the lack of a cigarette scent. Stopping in the center of the room, he spins around. The hands on the clock above the bar indicate three minutes before ten. His watch shows nine minutes after nine. The second hand on his watch leaps ahead at the normal beat. The second hand on the sanctuary's clock turns at a constant rate, nearly half his watch. Not constant, he realizes watching the slender second hand pass the twelve. Movements increasing in speed, the pair of ghosts at the bar come alive, less transparent. The black queen's hips rock to each side as she lifts the martini glass to her lips.

The floor shudders, and shakes again. The beat increases tempo, and he realizes it is a drum, music from the room beyond the beads. The black queen's hips move with the beat as she dances in a circle, holding her glass up, spinning around, appearing less like a ghost. The bartender fades away along with the white queen. Dirt shifts across the floor, smudges appear, and the light dims. Completing the circle, the queen's skirt grows into a flowing dress twirling about her boots.

Sound crashes the room, music pounding into his head. He breathes in the heavy cigarette smoke and coughs.

The black queen looks like Kandy.

Her face darkens, a predator spotting easy prey. The sinful smile reveals terrible teeth, two fangs on top and a smaller pair on the bottom. In her left hand, she holds a sword. Her right arm rises aiming a gun at him as the music fades. The trigger moves back in slow motion. Behind the gun, the killer glares back. There is no anger on her face. No hatred. Determination fills her smoldering eyes, and red breaks through the hazel iris like cracks of molten lava breaking through rock. The room grows darker. Kandy becomes transparent as her movements slow.

Darkness creeps over the room eating the furniture and the walls. The shadows eat away at the floor. The ceiling disintegrates, a storm of dark purple clouds erupting in its place.

Steve races for the fading exit. Without reaching for the knob, he runs through the unsubstantial door.

Sounds attack his ears, a nearby car engine and the background roar of the city. A chill settles upon him, and he shivers feeling streams of sweat slide down his face. Headlights glare then fade, a car passing on the street.

Looking back, he finds the building as before. Hanging on the bricks the sign reads, Roseland Sisters of Sorrows Sanctuary. He touches the door feeling the rough wood. Kandy knows him. He wants to go back inside and demand answers, but his stomach churns from the disorientation of time in slow motion. Opening the notepad Detective Silver gave him, he reads the directions verifying this is the correct address.

"No way in hell I'm staying here."

Steve marches on the sidewalk leaving the sanctuary behind. He sees Kandy in his mind, a memory consuming his thoughts. Her grin reveals her serpentine fangs. Can a forgotten memory come back into reality, experienced for the first time?

Pedestrians occupy the sidewalk, but Steve ignores them. He marches on barely aware of others leaping out of his way, or the cold night air biting at his flesh. His surroundings become a haze at the edge of thought while he sorts through recent events.

He knows little about Kandy besides that she is not human given her fangs and iridescent eyes. She is Itoril, a descendant of Ithuriel. And her hair smells like cinnamon.

His name, Steve Reynolds, feels as strange as the interior of the sanctuary—ghostly. It is the name Kandy mentioned, as did the young naked man, Torx, at the apartment. What brought him to the apartment? Who was the rockstar leaning against the door? There is no memory between the nightclub and the police station. Logic tells him that he likely blacked out.

Bright yellow catches his attention, and he finds police ribbon taped over dark double doors set in a brick building. Peering up, he spots a sign extending out from the building displaying a skull above the name of the establishment, Necropolis. Inside is Detective Silver's crime scene where someone found an unconscious Steve Reynolds after the forensics team finished their job.

Glass shatters against the doors, fragments fly in different directions. Laughter explodes, an engine roars, and a car speeds off down the road. Steve watches the tail lights of the car disappear around a corner. The scent of alcohol rises, a cheap national brand. He has no memory of his past, but somehow he recognizes the brand of beer by scent.

Nothing about the building stirs his memory. Made of gray stone and brickwork, it appears much like the other buildings in the neighborhood. The bottom two floors are windowless, and the windows in the upper six floors are all dark. Or blackened. The lowest windows reflect the streetlamps like dark mirrors. Looking at the skull in the sign, he notices the fangs. The sign is unfamiliar.

Realizing his teeth chatter, his arms shivering, he grunts at the cold. He continues searching for shelter, somewhere warm and without ghosts. The street seems too quiet. Even the background roar of traffic has fled the city

Turning the corner, he notices the streetlights dim. Like walking into a black fog, the world darkens with each step. Stone stairs lead up to glass doors with brass handles. The same skull-with-fangs design hangs above the door. Light beyond the glass reveals red stairs climbing up to black curtains.

Glancing around, Steve finds an empty street. The silence is unnatural, but not disturbing. It feels like the quiet after a heavy snow storm; peaceful. He claps his hands. Hearing nothing, he claps again noticing not even the air moves through his fingers. The cold is gone as well. Watching blackness eat away at the sidewalk, cracks of darkness chomping away at the cement, he fears his sight is next to go. His beating heart reminds him he is alive. He listens to his heart thumping in his chest, the sound traveling up into his head where the double-patter finds his inner ear. The thump followed by the double-patter is familiar music—comforting. His heart slows as he watches the darkness creep beneath his feet. Peering up, he finds a sky filled with raging purple clouds, the deepest violet crashing with the lightest amethyst. The buildings still stand around him, but they appear nearly transparent.

Climbing the steps, he watches the building fade out and back in like a passing shadow. He reaches for the brass handle, and his fingers pass through. Shadows eat the door, the brass frame crumbling into a dust before disappearing. Somehow this ghostly shadow world feels natural. He enters Necropolis.

The red carpet on the stairs intensifies, vivid red, the shag standing up removing imprints from passing feet. Cracks in the black painted walls smooth over sealing themselves. The room at the top of the stairs is nearly empty. An aluminum ladder leans against the wall on the left, and a pile of plastic gathers at its feet. In the far corner, a light hangs from a hook in the ceiling. Beneath it, three paint cans stand on a plastic tarp. Half the room is black, the other yellow. On the far side, streaks of black paint extend into the dingy yellow half. The evenly spaced doors, three on each side, give the room an appearance of an office lobby, except for the black curtain hanging in the center of the opposite wall.

The remodeling might hide old memories. The crime scene resides deeper inside, closer to the other entrance. Stopping in the center of the room, he gazes at the curtained doorway. Beyond the black drapes, metal stairs lead down to the dance floor. He remembers this from when Kandy led him up the stairs. Turning around, he studies the empty room. A doorway catches his attention, the one between two others on one wall. Masking tape splattered by black paint runs around the doorframe. The light reveals the shape of door hinges within the varnished wood. The darkness within the room calls to him.

Light cuts across the room to a pile of tarp in the corner. The entire back wall is dark glass reflecting the doorway. Shadows creep up from the floor, hazy blobs taking shape. An ethereal sofa rests before the glass and another on the left against the wall. Between them, the shadow-shapes become a round table and two ghost-like wine glasses sitting on top.

His arm tingles, a glimmer of recognition. This is the place where Kandy bites him on the arm. Kandy is not here, not even her ghost, only the memory of her consuming his thoughts. There is no mark on his arm, not even a scar. He looks at the ghost-table and the ghost-goblets. Are these memories? They seem to be, but not his memories. These ghosts belong to the room. Even rooms have memories.

Approaching the glass, Steve stops short afraid that touching the ghost sofa might extinguish it. Peering through the glass, he finds a large room illuminated by a purple cylinder running from the ceiling down to the floor nearly a dozen meters below. Eyes adjusting, he realizes it is a strip of black light connected to a stone column. Other columns appear within the shadows. At the bottom, the wood floor stretches out to a stage. He searches for crime scene tape or anything that might mark the investigation. Nothing but dust lit by a single strand of purple.

He searches his memories finding them nearly as blank as before. No childhood events come to mind, not even a birthday party. He knows of cakes, candles, and gifts. Laws, religion, rules of conduct arrive on command. Murder is a sin. There is no memory of learning about such things. Has he ever broken a law? Detective Silver would have informed him of a criminal record, but there is no record of him. Even the police station feels more like a dream, but he feels certain it is a memory much like sitting in the apartment finding a table full of beer bottles and broken glass.

Movement catches his eye. At first it appears like a reflection on the glass, an illuminated fog. Individual shapes rise up out of the haze. Ghosts, hundreds of them, move about on the floor below. A collective mass, they writhe near the stage where speakers surround a band of ghosts playing instruments. The apparitions dance in slow motion. Their hands wave above their heads as they twist at their hips. Heads bounce sending hair into a blurred fibrous ethereal fans. The apparition behind the podium nods his head to the silent beat. Movement draws his gaze up to his reflection in the glass and another figure behind him.

Spinning around, Steve finds a woman standing in the center of the room. She wears a short dress made of steel rings, like armor but with rings far too big for protection. Her smile reveals a pair of sharp teeth. The slender fangs barely extend beyond the row of teeth, but there is no mistaking them. Her blue eyes light up with recognition. Looking over her long blonde hair and pale face, he tries to place her.

Gliding up beside the leather sofa, she purrs. Placing a hand on the backrest, she gazes through the window at the dance floor below. No longer ghosts, people dance at normal speed to the music pulsing through the glass, the walls, and the floor. The woman taps her fingers to the beat. Circling lights cutting through the mist strike the window. Between red and white flashes, the woman's eyes glow like firelight splashing off the eyes of a nocturnal predator. A red ember burns within her iris, the unmistakable characteristic of an Itoril.

"I bought this club recently," says the Itoril woman. "I renamed it Necropolis."

"City of the Dead." He tries to pull his gaze from her, but her near perfect breasts peeking through the steel rings prove too much for his willpower.

"Can I get you anything?" She speaks with a purring whisper. "A drink? A dancing girl?"

"No." He realizes he stares at her nearly nude body, but what else is he supposed to look at? The woman dresses for attention, and she has it. "Thank you."

"We added the special lenses." Lifting her hand from the sofa, she motions out the window. "Most of my employees are human. The black light on lenses causes their eyes to glow."

Tearing his gaze from flesh, Steve peers through his ghostly reflection. Some of the dancers wear glowing bands around their wrists. White shirts glow near the slender purple rods. He spots a pair of glowing green eyes on a man in black. He stands with his arms crossed near one of the purple strips on the side of a column. A woman carrying a tray full of beer bottles over her head has glowing red eyes. He finds other colors.

"Blue glowing eyes?"

"Marketing, says the woman, shaking her head. "I wanted only red and gold. It's all part of promoting vampires."

"You're trying to become accepted." The Itoril people maintain a secret life. Unusual eyes and sharp teeth tend to encourage violence.

Spinning around, she leans against the glass. "When it's cool to be a vampire, we will be the rockstars." Her grin appears cruel, the sort of smile a child makes after getting away with something sinful.

"Careful you don't become lost within your own fantasy," says Steve. He watches a woman dancing within an oversized birdcage hanging from the ceiling. Her hands grip the bars, and her hips throw her skirt around.

"You don't remember me." She turns to the window and places a hand on the glass. "I was just a girl. A teen with attitude. You wore a dark suit with a blue necktie."

Steve looks at the side of her face, at the strands of hair pulled back over her ear. He has no memory of her. Nothing. Is this what amnesia is like? He thinks he should feel lost, like a part of him is missing, but instead he feels normal. Yesterday is there as it always has been. He needs to find his past.

"Yasmine," says the woman. She touches her head to the glass, and gazes down. "My birth name was Jasmine, but Auntie pronounced it like Yasmine."

Leaning closer to the glass, Steve peers down. He sees the top of a woman's head bobbing as she dances, her arms swinging. She stands on a black pedestal above the dance floor. Even from this angle, he recognizes Kandy. The woman is everywhere.

"Excuse me," say Steve, stepping back. "I need to meet someone."

"Decided to enjoy a dancing girl, after all?" Yasmine remains at the window, watching her patrons.

The back staircase twists within a narrow shaft, a door blocking the floors above. The steel groans under his weight as he spirals down.

The music seems to run away. Steve chases the beat down the stairs and into a hall lit by red strips running high in the corners. The lights fade leaving near darkness. Spotting a green glowing exit sign, he storms the hall hearing his footsteps growing louder until the clomping thunders in his ears. He reaches out and pushes on the release lever opening the door. The short hall opens up to a large room, Club Necropolis. Somewhere within, Kandy holds his memories.

The thunderous beat, stomping feet, wiggle the wood floor in waves rattling lights. The blue-haired vocalist screams about love and pain while the band thrashes about working their instruments into furious fits. Before the stage, the human sea writhes into a torrent, arms waving glowing bracelets, bodies splashing together, bounding and waving in currents. Piercing through the heavy fog, red spotlights splash the crowd like a rain of blood.

Carried by the beat, Steve bounces and weaves into the dance. He tries to ignore the lovely young women pressing against him as he pushes against the current, fighting his way to the pedestal beside the band stage. Working his way around a stone column, he spots his shirt glowing purple radiating like a beacon in a dark sea splashing pink and green bracelets. Breathing in the perspiration, leather, and musty fog, he gazes over the bobbing heads searching for Kandy.

He spots her on the pedestal, dancing close to another woman. Dressed in black lace, hips locked together, they move as one, wriggling like dark fire. Gazes locked, their faces taken by sensual bliss, they dance to Gothic rock.

Fighting the tide, Steve pushes into the crowd. He reaches out for Kandy, but the tide throws him back. Elbowing a man aside, he works his way closer. Arms smack against his head. Squishing between two men, he reaches out and touches the edge of the platform. Pulling himself to shore, a black cube rising from the sea, he gazes up at the women.

Turning in a circle, Kandy tosses her dark hair back and rests her chin on the blonde's shoulder. Like gravity, gazes connect, and Steve peers deep into her orbs finding burning embers. Hell erupts, her face turning cruel. The predator's eyes freeze him in place, sound fading into the background, the music a dull thunder, the floor shifting under the beat. Somewhere over the raging sea, the blue-haired vocalist howls about dancing with the dead.

Bending at the knees, Kandy slinks down wrapping her arms around the blonde, hands searching and grasping. She tugs at the blonde's black skirt, lifting lace, exposing bare flesh. Howls erupt from the men gathered around the platform. They pump their fists in the air in celebration of the performance. In the background, the music works into a frenzy. Squatting, Kandy grasps the exposed thigh, her claws digging into flesh. Opening her mouth wide, saliva dripping from fangs, the predator rears back.

As the music rages into a scream, Kandy bites into the dancer's inner thigh. Blood gushes out, red splattering cream, and a river races down leg onto black pumps. The blonde howls as the music climaxes, drums and cymbals exploding into a crash. Both hands grasping the woman by the rear, Kandy lifts the woman up and slams her down on the platform, blonde hair cascades down over the edge, head falling back, eyes smash shut, mouth opens wide, the scream pierces the music.

Frozen, he watches Kandy crouched over her victim. As she bites tender flesh, heat flees his legs. Music fades. The crowd dissipates into cloudy vapor. Even the victim, writhing in pain, fades into an apparition. Crawling closer, Kandy licks her lips, blood dripping form her tongue.

Steve throws his hands up in defense and slams his eyes shut like a child wishing a nightmare away.

Chapter 4: Crime Scene

Silence.

Opening his eyes, Steve finds the club dim and empty. Dust covers the floor. Towering speakers stand alone on the stage. The pedestal is empty, but he pictures Kandy licking her lips. Glancing around, he finds two spotlights on tripods bathing the floor between stone columns on the far side of the dance floor where yellow cones stand scattered about.

The crime scene.

He reaches into his shirt pocket snatching the notepad Detective Silver gave him. The first page contains directions to the sanctuary. On the second page he adds a note about the owner of Club Necropolis, Yasmine. Glancing up, he spots the shimmer on the dark glass of the upstairs room. He jots down a note about Kandy dancing on the pedestal with the other woman, possibly hired dancers performing for guests.

Looking around at the empty dance floor, he imagines the waving currents of bodies. Perspiration sticks to his forehead, the scent of their sweat and clothes lingers in his nostrils. The ghosts are gone, and time has moved on.

"Memories," he says. A shiver rushes down his spine. "The ghosts are memories."

Striding across the dance floor, he looks around memorizing the layout. At the edge of light, near where he entered, tables stand within an alcove. Within the darkness, a mirror reflects the shapes of bottles lined on shelves. Stairs lead up to the balcony above the dance floor. Stopping near the first yellow marker, he studies the crime scene.

The floodlights reveal an unmistakable bloodstain on the wood dance floor near the edge meeting the asphalt walkway along the wall. On the near side of the marked area, dried splatter extends towards the yellow tags including an elongated splash stain beside the marker at his feet.

He circles the area, his tapping shoes disrupting the quiet, and a scuff crunching onto the asphalt. The walkway is wide enough for a crowd of guests to navigate, enjoy a beer between dances, but not large enough for an unconscious person to go unnoticed during an investigation. Steel stairs lead up to a short hallway where the black double doors stand in the gloom of the red exit sign. If the forensics team found him between their work and those doors, they would have had to nearly trip over him on the way in.

Leaning against the stone wall, he looks at the crime scene from the angle of the attacker. He pictures the assailant standing on the asphalt and the victim on the wood floor. Flipping the page, he makes a crude sketch of the blood stains in relation to the edge of the dance floor and nearby stone column. On the column, beneath a vertical rod of dark black light, bright yellow tape outlines a streak; castoff from a sideways blow. Finished with his sketch, he returns the notepad to his pocket and heads for the exit.

"If officers guarded the door, nobody could have stumbled in during the investigation." His shoes clang on the steel steps. "They must have found me near the back. Near the other entrance." He pushes on the release bar popping the door open.

Chapter 5: Bleed For Me

Crimson skies hang over skyscrapers. Glancing in both directions, Steve searches the street finding two parked cars and a handful of people going about their business.

He walks the streets of Roseland. Passing faces ignore him. He is a ghost haunting sidewalks filled with musicians pounding plastic buckets, beggars holding cardboard signs, shoppers lugging bags. Discarded paper cups litter the street. The sky darkens, street lamps spark, and lights fill the windows of the buildings.

Ghosts walk the streets, not the memory ghosts from Necropolis or the specters from the Sanctuary of Sin, but children wearing bed sheets. They carry sacks filled with treats. A man in a gorilla suit waits in line behind a woman wearing a negligee and bunny ears at a door to a nightclub spilling music onto the street.

Is there a daughter somewhere waiting for her dad to take her out for trick-or-treat? He remembers Halloween, but not his childhood or if he has a family. Maybe somewhere in Roseland, his daughter wears a princess costume while holding her empty bag. She sits on the porch waiting for him to come home.

Looking around, Steve finds a quiet street lined with old apartment buildings and cars parked beside the curb on both sides. The decorative stonework appears like something from an age when craftsman cared about their work. The building across the street includes gargoyles gazing down from high perches.

A herd of goblins scurry down the steps scrambling onto the sidewalk, and turn racing for the next building. Chasing after, a woman waves a flashlight splashing a person dressed in a long black coat. Steve watches the parent scurry around the pedestrian, and returns his attention on the pedestrian in black finding her familiar face yet again.

Kandy glances back at the woman chasing after the children. Unbuckling belt, she loosens her coat falling open waving behind her like a cape as she turns and ascends the stone steps.

Stepping onto the road, Steve waves his hand. He tries to call out, but his dry throat burns. Watching Kandy disappear inside the apartment building, he scurries between two parked cars and onto the sidewalk. He takes the steps two at a time. At the top, his heavy feet stumble, and he crashes into the door. Pulling the door open, he dives inside.

Fresh deodorizer attacks his nose, and the carpet appears recently vacuumed. Keeping near the wall, avoiding creaks and groans, he climbs the stairs. Among the snapping of the cooling building, he hears muffled voices and music. On the first floor, he gazes down the hall finding closed doors. Turning the corner, he climbs to the next floor, his breath puffing at the exertion. If Kandy is on the top floor, he may have to give up his pursuit.

On the third floor, he leans on the banister and takes a deep breath.

An explosion, bits of wood shower the hall. Emerging from the dust, a man wearing only boxer shorts runs bouncing off the wall and back into the center. Appearing behind him, Kandy holds a shotgun in one hand and a sword in the other. Twisting around, Steve watches the man run past. Gazing down the hall, he spots Kandy already midway to the other end. Glancing over-shoulder, he confirms the empty hall. It is as if Kandy teleported.

The man in the boxer shorts looks back over his shoulder unaware of the woman crouching down in his path. Leaning a shoulder low, Kandy trips the man lifting him up over end falling on his backside and rolling over head smacking against the wall. Spinning around, she jams the shotgun against the man's nose and pulls the trigger, and the gun fires, the boom rattling the foundation.

A white dust cloud swallows Kandy.

Teeth clenched, Steve fights the ringing in his ears. Reaching out towards the cloud, he stumbles down the hall. Concern over the man, the residents, the building, and Kandy twist and turn within as his shaky legs carry him. The dust clears revealing Kandy standing over the man's legs. She holds the shotgun pointed at the man's chest. Where the victim's head should be, there is a hole in the wall at the center of blood spray.

Kandy turns around, her cruel gaze bearing down. As she slips the sword inside her leather coat, she says something lost to the ringing.

Knees weakening, Steve reaches out at the air searching for balance. There is nothing he can do for the headless victim. Feeling helpless, he stares at the killer holding the shotgun. His life is hers if she wants it.

"Steve," says Kandy. She holds her hand out. "The quiet place!"

In that instant he realizes precisely what she means. Like in Necropolis, like in the Sanctuary of Sin, and perhaps like in Torx's apartment building, he steps into the shadows of the world. He grasps Kandy's hand, and together they glide down the stairs, their soundless steps carrying them to the second floor.

This is the quiet place. His heartbeat is still within his head, but nothing beyond. Darkness eats at the floor and walls turning the building nearly transparent. He sees the street below, the cars parked along the curb: phantoms. They pass an apparition climbing the stairs in slow motion. Glancing back, he considers the perspective from the ghost, a woman climbing the stairs at normal speed barely aware of two phantoms blurring past. The quiet place, the shadows between folds of time, feels like home.

His legs find their strength, and he glides down the steps and melts through the closed door. Turning, Kandy leads him around the corner where she releases his hand. Stepping out of the shadows, he returns to the world. Sounds of traffic, music, and laughter attack along with the crisp evening air.

Reaching a black muscle car, Kandy pulls the door open and tosses the shotgun and sword into the back seat. "Get in."

He obeys her command.

The car roars, thundering pistons shaking the entire vehicle. Steve barely connects his seatbelt when the tires squeal, and the car throws him against the door. Kandy howls out the window like a warrior announcing victory after a great battle. She straightens the car out and speeds down the road. No headlights. Itoril see better without them.

Unable to erase the image of the headless man, Steve cringes. "That was messy."

"Sometimes I lose the element of surprise," says Kandy, flashing a wicked grin. A passing streetlamp reveals blood spatter on her face and leather coat. She drops folded paper on the seat between them.

Picking up the paper, he unfolds it and reads a name written in fine script. "Samuel Jameson?" Before he finishes asking, he realizes Samuel Jameson is the headless man. The note is a kill order.

Without headlights, only the pools beneath street lamps offer a glimpse of the roadway. An oncoming car illuminates the road, flashes high-beams as it passes, and the night returns. Kandy's eyes glow red within the darkness.

"You kill people."

Kandy scowls. "No humans. Not even young Itoril."

Itoril are the descendants of Ithuriel. He knows about Itoril and their strange eyes, their fangs, their long life. All Itoril are related by blood, a family. If only the memory of his own family would surface.

"Rules come with the job," says Kandy. Smashing the brake and turning the steering wheel, she pitches the car, back end sliding around a corner. The car growls and straightens out on a four-lane boulevard. Smashing on the pedal and cranking the wheel, she drives around an orange hatchback.

"A hired killer," says Steve. Without prisons, Itoril depend on executions as a deterrent to crime. He sets the kill order down on the seat.

Kandy squints at the oncoming headlights. "Everyone behaves reasonably well, so I don't work much."

"I saw you at Necropolis."

Glancing over, she frowns. "You look awful. Where are your clothes?"

Looking down, he sees the same shirt and slacks. Unlike the pressed appearance at Torx's place, wrinkles show. Realizing he clenches the seat, he puts his hands in his lap. Maybe these are not his regular clothes. A jacket makes more sense for the cool weather.

"And I saw you at another club. Why did you threaten me?"

Kandy scowls. "What are you talking about?"

"At a club. I don't recall the name."

She glances at him as if trying to read his face and sets her gaze back on the road ahead. "What were you doing back there anyway? Following me?"

"I don't know." He rubs his face. Maybe there is a mistake. Her biting his arm may have been consensual, and the incident at the other club could be a misunderstanding. "I don't remember much. I can't really say what happened."

The car swerves between lanes passing two more cars. Kandy presses the accelerator, and the engine roars with delight.

"I don't recall my childhood, or where I live." Hanging his head, he gazes out the passenger window watching trees and buildings racing past. "Nothing before yesterday."

Tires howl, the nose of the car dives, and the seatbelt digs into his shoulder. Screeching to a stop, the car growls and falls into a purring idle. Light floods the car, and horns blare.

Gazing around, he realizes they rest in the middle of an intersection. Headlights fill the passenger and rear windows. Hands gripping the steering wheel, Kandy glares back at him. Her cool, stern expression gives way to anger. Unable to hold the gaze, he looks down at his hands resting on his thighs.

Three sharp honks cry out from behind. Another horn blares seeming to go on forever. Puttering around the side, a car passes, its driver shouting out the window.

Steve glances about and waves his hand at the window. "Traffic seems to be growing impatient."

"You don't remember us?"

In the glare of the headlights, her face is pale speckled by blood droplets. White powder, sheetrock from the blast, clings like snow on fringes of her dark hair curled over her shoulder. Her lips, bright red like sticky, sweet candy glisten in the light. Even angry, her brown eyes are beautiful. Her face is unforgettable, and no wonder the only one he remembers. Their past, however, is blank.

Reaching out, he touches her hand on the steering wheel. He doesn't know why, but he pulls her hand away and hooks his thumb around hers. Watching her face soften, he gives her palm a gentle squeeze.

Returning the squeeze, Kandy sets his hand on the seat. She looks at the road ahead ignoring another driver yelling obscenities as the car passes around. She licks her lips and says, "What happened?"

"I don't recall."

Kandy stomps on the accelerator, and the car roars, tires screaming. She pitches the car down a side street. Steve watches the passing lamplights splash over Kandy, her eyes flashing between brown in the light and red in darkness. All Itoril, even the young ones, have the iridescent eyes. They perceive ultraviolet light, heat, allowing them to see in darkness. City lights must be a pain, both the brightness and the heat forming clouds over the skyline.

The car is older, a muscle car from a time when steel ruled the country. Steve doesn't recognize the model, and no badges adorn the spotless dashboard. It's loud and fast, probably a collector's car.

Pulling into a dark parking lot, Kandy cuts the engine. The building is an old movie theater with a single box office out front. Except for the handful of cars in the parking lot, the place appears abandoned. Painted in graphite is the name of the establishment, Midnight Dream.

Kandy removes a handkerchief from her pocket. Leaning over, she gazes into the review mirror and wipes the blood droplets from her face. Her hair smells like cinnamon and sheetrock Opening the glove box, she pushes a pistol aside and removes a small canister. She paints her lips red even though they already appear luscious. Snatching up the kill order, she rips it and drops the shreds into the ashtray.

At the entrance, an imposing man in a leather jacket opens the door for them. Warm air wraps around. Kandy removes her leather coat and hands it to a lady wearing an elegant black dress. The short hall opens into a chamber with archways leading to rooms in three directions.

At all four corners of the square room, tall stone statues stand on black marble bases. Each one nude, two females stand in opposing corners and two males in the other corners. One male and female have large wings, angels grasping swords, tips touching the ground between feet. The other female has large pointed breasts and long fangs protruding from an open grin. The remaining statue is a hulking figure with large muscles standing on hooves. Above its tall pointed ears, two massive horns extend up curling out front like a bull. The near human face scowls exposing sharp teeth above a pointed chin. The engorged penis curls out like a weapon.

Steve gazes up at the female with the fangs. "One of your ancestors, I presume." Turning, he faces the other female. The wings are symbolic. "And Alnir, the people from the sky."

Kandy scowls. "You remember your ancient history." Spinning around, she struts through an archway.

Following, Steve watches her hips rock in the snug pants. Shoe slipping over the edge, he nearly stumbles down the stairs, but catches the railing. Spotting Kandy gazing over her shoulder, he returns the smile.

Figures move about within the gloom. The only light is from candles on tables on one side of the room, red neon strips along the bar on the other, and a flickering lighter illuminating faces within a pack at the center.

Red light rising from the bar gives the bartender a spooky appearance, and her spiked Mohawk completes the look of a warrior from a previous century. Kandy orders two glasses of white wine. Turning away from the bar, she waves at the pack. Breaking away from the crowd, a slender fellow slinks over.

There is no mistaking the lanky man, the rockstar from Torx's apartment.

"Hey, Zee," says Kandy. She wraps her arms around the man and smooches his cheek leaving a glaze of lipstick behind. "I believe you've met Steve Reynolds before, but don't worry. Apparently, he's ill with amnesia or something."

"Seriously, Steve?" Zee holds out his hand. There seems to be a brief look of recognition. "You lost your memory?"

The skinny fingers have a surprisingly strong grip.

Steve smiles. "It appears I've somehow misplaced it."

"Well, damn, man. Describe." Tipping in different directions, Zee waves his hands at the air. "Maybe I seen your memories wandering about."

Grabbing a wine glass, Kandy pours the entire contents down her throat and sets the empty glass on the bar. "Excuse me while I powder my nose," she says, "and by that I don't mean anything kinky. You boys have sick minds."

Steve watches her strut away. Even without music, she seems to dance, stepping to her own beat.

"Yeah, man. I don't understand what the hell she's talking about half the time."

"I believe I remember you," says Steve. Lifting the glass to his lips, he sips the crisp wine. "Do you know a young man that goes by Torx?"

"Can't say I do," says Zee. "You remember where at?"

At a party full of college kids, broken bottles, discarded pizza boxes. "That I don't recall."

"Man, memory problem has to be the worst." Chuckling, Zee shakes his head throwing long dark hair around.

Steve scans the room taking in the patrons. Most stand in groups, drinking and talking. A bunch gather at the back beside a stage full of instruments and stacks of speakers waiting for the band. Some of the guests appear to be Itoril surrounded by humans.

He tips his glass towards the pack. "They know, don't they?"

"Oh, sure," says Zee, glancing around. He wobbles to the side before catching his balance. "Most of them are wannabes, addicts. Shit, man. The youngest ones nearly pass for human. I can barely tell them apart sometimes."

Taking a closer look, he considers that some of the others may actually be Itoril.

"Every generation is less like Ithuriel. Children today. Pathetic." Leaning back, Zee appears to nearly fall over, but props an elbow on the bar. He waves a finger. "Elders are all hush."

"What do they think of Yasmine promoting vampire mythos?"

"Politicians." Zee shakes his head. "Always with their agendas. I can't believe Kandy bothers with that club. I think she just likes to show off. You know what I mean?"

Rubbing his chin, Steve looks down at the floor as he considers how to extract more information. There is no doubt this is the same Itoril from the apartment. Looking up, he watches Zee's wandering eyes. The Itoril man seems to look everywhere avoiding eye contact, which seems unusual for a predator. With all the tipping and weaving, Zee also appears high. Maybe Zee hides something. He seems too forthcoming about Itoril politics with a stranger.

Steve empties his glass and sets it on the bar. "Are you certain we've never met before?"

Leaning the other way, Zee looks over finally meeting the gaze. "No. I'd remember a face like yours. Man, you look military. Marine or something."

Lights blink. A pair of spotlights flash the stage a second time.

"That's me," says Zee. Pushing away from the bar, he weaves through the pack bumping shoulders and pushing guests aside. Climbing onto the stage, he grabs a guitar.

Three others join Zee. A female dressed all in black sits behind the drums, a male wearing an expensive suit stands at the far end holding a violin, and a man towering above the others grabs a guitar. Kandy climbs onto the stage, and takes the microphone. Hushing, the pack moves closer to the band.

An orange glow, a cigarette, bobs and weaves; the tall musician takes a drag.

Clicking drumsticks set the time.

A lullaby, the violin swims out of the quiet, floating on currents, haunting. Spotlights explode, drums crash, and the guitars sing complementing the eerie violin. Holding the microphone in both hands, leaning towards the audience, Kandy sings like an angel.

Steve feels cold creeping inside. His legs weaken. It is like a spell holding him, enraptured by the music. He listens to Kandy's every word about love and dancing in the night.

Singing into the microphone she asks, "Will you bleed for me?"

Somehow he feels the rhetorical question deserves an answer, but there is only one answer. Kandy, sweet Kandy, full of spice along with a heavy dose of killer instinct. Everyone bleeds for Kandy.

~~~~

Snuggled in the nice part of the town, Kandy's home is a three-story house resting on a hillside of manicured land. Do the neighbors suspect an ancient creature lives next door? Likely not. To them, Kandy is just another eccentric working nights.

Many rooms are without lights, dead bulbs or empty fixtures. On the main floor, light wriggles in through windows splashing furniture from an older era and the carpeted stairs leading to the upper floor where everything appears modern. The bathroom contains a jacuzzi tub large enough to seat five. Uninterested in the wading pool, Steve searches for a shower.

Flipping the light switch, he finds an empty bedroom in the stark light of the unshaded bulb. The carpet appears untouched. Turning the light off, he continues down the hall. A floorboard groans beneath his weight.

A sharp cry followed by a muffled scream sends shivers racing down his back.

At the end of the hall, on the right side, soft light glows within a crack in the door painting a line over a framed photograph hanging on wall on the opposite side. A closed door on the opposite side nearly hides in the shadows beyond the photograph. The light wiggles, and a painful moan escapes the doorway.

On toes, Steve sneaks along the wall. He listens to creaking, another whimper, and a pleasurable gasp. It sounds like a minor struggle, but the gratifying sound is what scares him the most. The muffled cries, slap of flesh, and orgasmic cry sends his heart thumping. One soft step, he holds his breath, and peers through the crack in the door.

Five red candles, wax flowing like a frozen waterfalls onto granite countertop, reflect in the mirror, ten wriggling flames send shadows dancing. Condensation drips from the fog at the top of the mirror cutting through half of the candles. Blue jeans and a white shirt lay on the tile floor beneath the counter. Women's undergarments rest on the toilet seat.

The floor creaks, and the walls respond popping.

Touching finger on door, Steve nudges it open another inch revealing a wall between counter and a walk-in shower, clouded glass door hanging open.

Standing beneath the dripping shower head, and fully dressed, Kandy holds a nude woman, moist backside pressed against black shirt. One hand clamped over mouth, the other holds the woman's arm twisted back over, wrist held like a vice. Kandy bites into the woman's arm, blood squirts and flows down the arm, dripping from elbow splashing onto wet tile. The woman squirms, feet thrashing, and she falls still leaning against Kandy. Her hand over the woman's mouth absorbs the cry.

Steve cringes as he listens to lips smacking flesh, the dripping. The guttural growl sends his stomach rising, heat flowing into his throat.

Head tilted to the side, Kandy licks at the wound, lapping blood. And she watches him. Her gaze locked on him, she continues licking and kissing the wound. She wraps her arm around the woman's middle holding her like a doll.

Tearing his eyes away, Steve steps back and turns. His legs feel weak, but he wills them into motion, and lumbers down the hall. Spotting shadows dripping into swirling smoke, he stops.

Kandy melts from the air standing right before him.

"What?" He waves over his shoulder indicating the girl in the shower. "Who?" The words avoid him, but his thoughts race faster than his heart. Is the woman the meal for the night? The image of Kandy biting into flesh stains his vision, but in the dim hall, he makes out a concerned look.

"You truly don't remember anything, do you?"

He shakes his head. Concern over the woman overtakes his thoughts, and he spins around. Marching into the second bathroom, he sets his mind to the task, but the sight of blood brings the image back. Inside the shower, the woman sits huddled in the corner hugging her knees to her breasts. And he recognizes her.

"Sabrina?"

"You know her?" Kandy pulls a black towel from the bar on the outside of the glass door.

Grabbing the towel, he kneels and reaches into the shower throwing the towel over Sabrina. It is like at Torx's apartment finding the same glazed look, and naked chest speckled with water and blood drops instead of pizza sauce. Sabrina appears stoned, barely responding to him drying her flesh.

Kandy cuts a length of gauze. Gently, she takes Sabrina's hand and covers the wound fastening it with a clip. She leans over and kisses Sabrina on the cheek. The calmness on the Itoril's face is both comforting and unnerving. Sabrina appears lost as she falls into Kandy's arms like a child seeking comfort in a mother. Lifting the young woman, Kandy carries her across the hall into a bedroom.

Leaning against the doorjamb, Steve watches Kandy pull the covers over Sabrina. Is this something he has done before? Not with a young woman, but a child. It seems natural that a man his age should have a daughter he tucks in at night. Watching Kandy brush Sabrina's hair back, he realizes the young woman is more than a midnight snack. There is a bond between them, maybe not like mother and daughter, but something similar.

Led by the hand down the stairs, he feels a little like a child.

Without memories, he is a child.

Kandy takes him into her basement which appears more like a home than the floors above. It is one large room partitioned into quadrants marked by the items occupying each section. At the back is her bedroom containing an old four-poster bed complete with decorative red netting hanging like a shroud. Beside the bed, an old wood bureau blocks the wall. Nearly appearing out of place, a porcelain tub sits on the wood floor before a large wood-paneled fireplace containing a raging fire. Wood stacked in the corner wait their turn to feed the flames. In the other back quadrant, rows of casks and bottles resting on grooved shelves form the wine cellar. Beside the wine cellar is the armory. Shotguns, pistols, and rifles hang inside glass cabinets. On the wall, knives, axes, and swords wait for when the ammunition runs out. The armory also serves as gymnasium containing a weight set, chin-up bar, and barbells. The front quadrant is the sitting room with two oversized black leather chairs, a slender red sofa, and end tables parked beside each. Burning candles fill the air with cinnamon.

Sitting in an expansive black leather chair with high armrests, Steve feels small. He sips whiskey. The smooth drink warms his insides, but he fears without food in his stomach the alcohol might crash his brain.

On the sofa, Kandy reclines on her side, her elbow jammed against the armrest. She appears to study him, her eyes scanning him up and down. A smear of blood disrupts the smooth curve of her chin, and her lips blaze in the firelight.

Steve sets the empty glass on the end table.

"She's an addict," says Kandy. She drops her gaze. "Three years ago I found her outside Necropolis sitting in her own piss, stoned out of her mind."

An image slams into him, Sabrina in the fetal position on the floor of Torx's apartment. He pictures her huddled in the shower, her glassy eyes, unfocused, glancing around at whatever occupies her mind.

"I brought her home. I don't know why." She looks at the candle flame, but her eyes focus on a distant thought. "A new addiction replaced her old one."

"Pain?"

Kandy licks her fangs. "Venom."

It makes a sort of sick logic. Considering Sabrina's weakened state, Itoril venom contains hemotoxins, and the glassy eyes likely mean neurotoxins as well. And addictive? A productive Itoril never needs chase after a meal if the meal returns offering her blood in exchange for a hit.

"It eases the pain. And enough venom causes some memory loss."

Gripping the armrests, he leans forward. "Wait. Memory loss?"

"Not amnesia." Kandy shakes her head. "Sabrina will remember taking a shower. If strong enough she may forget I was ever there."

Flopping back, Steve shakes his head. A heavy dose of forgetfulness drug would be a convenient answer, especially nice if it wears off.

"She's building a tolerance. She may remember everything including you gaping at her breasts."

"Quite the symbiotic relationship you two have going. Two addicts feeding on each other."

Kandy scowls.

Something rubs against his leg. He looks down finding a white cat. The furry feline purrs and looks up, eyes pleading for a return gesture.

"Lucifer remembers you," says Kandy.

"Never would have thought vampires kept cats for company."

The dark look on her face could stop a weak heart. "Vampires are a myth."

"Consuming human blood is vampirism."

"I'm Itoril."

Reaching down, he pats Lucifer on the head. "And not all Itoril consume blood. Do they?" It's more information that seems to come to him. Fewer than half of all Itoril drink blood, and those that do are considered addicts. Many of them hate being called vampires.

"You look exhausted. Maybe you should sleep."

"I haven't eaten." Standing, he reaches up stretching arms. A yawn forces his mouth wide open.

"There should be food in the kitchen." Rolling over, Kandy stares up at the ceiling. "I can't believe you forgot everything."

"Us?"

"Nobody forgets everything."

He remembers language, mathematics, laws, and other knowledge required by grammar school graduation. He forgets people. The past is as unknowable as the future. He remembers Kandy pointing a gun at him. If they are lovers then their relationship is a rocky one. Perhaps they are merely associates with professional differences.

"I remember cinnamon," says Steve. The thought seems to come to him like mathematics and the details of combustion engines. It's what she wants to hear. "Your hair always smells like cinnamon."

A smile erupts on her face, and she nearly appears to blush. "Well," she says, "you seem to know the right things to say."

"I think I'll see what you have in the kitchen." Steve stands. "Pardon me."

He opens the door, and the cat races up the stairs. Closing the door, he realizes there is no sound.

Standing on the top step, the cat gazes down the stairs. In the dim light the white fur stands out. The name, Lucifer, seems more suitable for a black cat stalking the shadows, but even fallen angels are beautiful walking in plain sight. Searching the stairs, the cat appears aware of the strangeness.

Shoe meets the bottom step. No sound. No groaning from the house, not even the silence snaps at his ear. This is the quiet place. Climbing the steps, he watches the cat search the stairs. His scent remains, lingering on the steps from the walk down, a memory of his passing.

The cat turns, takes a step, and dissolves into an apparition.

Lucifer is a normal cat, not a fallen angel or the morning star. The ghost of the cat is a memory like the house eaten by the creeping shadows. Everything is relative, and to the world beyond the quiet place, beyond the shadows, Steve Reynolds is the ghost. Is he speeding through time like passing the woman on the steps or when Kandy raced down the hall? This feels different, like walking among Necropolis or the Sanctuary of Sin.

The shadows eat across the kitchen floor and onto the refrigerator. The walls dissolve revealing the entire house in a dark murky haze. Above, at the far end of the hall, the ghostly shape of Sabrina sleeps in her bed.

Silence of color leaves only foggy shapes and dark shadows. Except above the transparent roof where swirling clouds of deep violets stand out in this ethereal world. Among shadows and ghosts, his thought is the only voice.

A cloud of darkness coalesces into a cloaked figure, hooded and faceless. As it glides closer, it leaves a smoky trail.

Steve calls out Kandy's name, but the silence swallows his voice. Uncertain if the creature can harm him, he steps back as he watches features burst out of the shadows. The cloak hangs open revealing a tunic and long skirt, all black. Or colorless. He searches for the face, but finds emptiness within the hood. Not wanting the thing any closer, he holds his hand out as if fending if off and takes another step back.

Sound crashes down, a crackling pop, and brightness explodes. He slams his eyes shut and smashes his back against a wall.

Footsteps. A board groans.

He opens his eyes to find the hall on the upper floor. Walking towards him with a backpack slung over shoulder, Sabrina smiles at him.

"Hey," says Sabrina. She tosses her hand at the air, a wave lacking spirit. "Can you give me a ride to school?"

He watches the smile slip into a quizzical look. Glancing down the stairs beside him, he sees sunlight slashing across the front room, the east side of the house. It is morning, and given the angle from the front windows, has been for about two hours.

"Do you know Torx?"

"Sure," says Sabrina, shrugging. "He's a guy in my math class."

"Do you remember a party at his place?"

She shakes her head. "I've never been to his place."

He takes in the sleepy eyes and nods. Maybe drugs, or the venom, wiped her memory. The first time they met she was unconscious. In a way, so was he. His memories begin with Torx.

"Of course," he says. A drive sounds nice, and he needs to check in with Detective Silver.

Chapter 6: Payment

At the police station, Steve Reynolds signs for his temporary identification card. Along with his portrait and physical attributes, it has Kandy's address on it. Strange how everything he knows can be summed up on a card.

"I tried you at the Sisters of Sorrows Sanctuary," says Detective Silver. He pulls the glass door open.

Steve steps outside into the afternoon sunshine as he recalls the two queens on the checkered floor. The Sanctuary of Sin must be an old memory, but it feels like yesterday. "Too many ghosts."

"Well, I'm glad you found a place." Silver huffs and looks at the street full of cars. "But, I'm sorry we haven't found anything yet. I'm checking with someone from the military. Records have a way of slipping out of the system these days."

Steve nods and follows the detective to the sidewalk where they join a crowd of pedestrians. He feels bad about leading the detective astray. Not a lie, but more of letting the detective assume Kandy is someone he only recently met. In a way, it is the truth. He doesn't even know her last name. Kandy Fangs. Where does that come from? Her stage name perhaps. He assumes the Itoril appreciates her privacy.

"How about your memories? Anything coming back?"

Nothing of his history has made any appearance, unless he counts the scene within the Sanctuary of Sin. Considering the disconnected experiences, jumping from night to day at Kandy's or the seeming time travel through Necropolis, he wonders if his experiences are his memories coming back. What if everything is a memory? It explains Kandy's denial of threatening him with a gun and Sabrina's response about never visiting Torx's apartment. Time is relative. Perhaps his memories cross with theirs at odd angles.

"No," he says. He digs his hands into his pockets finding the identification card, the pocket notepad, and the pen. All his possessions fit in his pockets with room to spare. "Nothing."

"They say sometimes amnesia is a way of blocking out something terrible, something worth forgetting." Silver wiggles his eyebrows. "Or so they say."

What could be so terrible? In the last day he has witnessed a man's head blown off by a shotgun, ghosts, slipping through shadows of time, Kandy consuming blood from two women, and Sabrina passed out in her own vomit in the aftermath of a drug party. Not even a queasy stomach. Is there anything so terrible that it erases an entire lifetime of memories? Seems unlikely.

Steve shakes his head. "They also say at death a person's life flashes before their eyes. What if that's all life really is? Memories crashing towards death."

Detective Silver stops at a coffee stand on the corner and orders two cups. He hands one to Steve and takes a long drink from the other.

"At the crime scene where they found me."

Silver lowers the cup. "Necropolis."

"Was I at the back or the front?"

"Front." Silver waves his cup at the air. "Like I mentioned before. It doesn't make sense. Everybody would have been tripping over you at the stairs. I asked Gunnar twice, and he verified you were leaning against the wall between the stairs and the mess."

"What about the body? Do you have a photograph I could look at?"

"No body." Smashing eyebrows together, Silver gazes down at his cup. "Nearly enough blood. There should be a body, but no body."

"One body missing. One body found."

"What you have to understand, Mister Reynolds, is that Necropolis is run by a very smart business woman. They follow every regulation to the letter. Paperwork always in order. Everything by the book. Perfect." Silver shakes his head. "Too perfect."

"You're saying they're good at covering up."

"I'm saying I think my best bet on solving my primary case is finding your identity."

"But you don't think someone is trying to set me up?"

"They would have left everything to pin you. Body. Weapon." Silver shrugs. "If only you could remember the events leading up to that night."

He recalls entering Necropolis after leaving Torx's apartment. Somewhere between he lost a barely conscious Sabrina to the time-sucking shadows.

Glancing at his watch, Detective Silver says something about the time and scurries away, coat flapping like a cape.

A bicycle rolls to a stop, the brake releasing a high-pitched cry.

Steel rings pierce the young woman's ears, her nose, and even her eyebrows. Most of them are simple silver rings, but some hold tiny colored glass. Her ratty hair seems to flow all over the place, tendrils dancing, almost as if defying the breeze.

"Hey, Mister Reynolds." The bicyclist slips a bag off her shoulder and opens the flap.

Opening his mouth, Steve starts to ask about her, but clamps shut. He looks at her torn clothes full of holes. She appears like a vagrant on a bicycle. Or a drug addict. Maybe she just doesn't want to get her nice clothes dirty.

Holding up a fat yellow envelope, the bicyclist smashes her face into a scowl slinging metal around. "I like you better in a suit."

"Yes, a suit." Taking the envelope, he searches for the words. He wants to ask about how long she has known him. How did she know to find him here? Nothing comes out. Maybe it's her sudden appearance, or her disheveled look. Her hair. The way the strands shift about.

Steve watches the woman speed away, bicycle carving between lanes of traffic around cars onto the opposite side, and around the corner. Ripping open the envelope, he looks inside.

Dollar bills, a stack of them. He flips through the bills. All hundreds.

Chapter 7: Sin

As the tailor finishes the suit, Steve Reynolds reviews his notes in the pocket pad. Five thousand dollars, a payment or bribe for some unknown service. Delivery by bike messenger increases the difficulty in tracing the money to the source. Sabrina claims she has never been to Torx's apartment, but he clearly remembers her there along with the broken glass surrounding the beer bottles. Drugs. Itoril venom is a drug, and Sabrina is an addict. Yasmine owns Necropolis. They play by the book. Good at covering secrets such as an unsolved murder, missing a body, and his strange appearance after forensics finished their initial job.

The apparent loss of time between Torx's apartment, where he lost Sabrina, and Necropolis could mean something besides a hangover. There is the apparent time travel from The Sisters of Sorrows Sanctuary to The Sanctuary of Sin, and again at Necropolis where he met Yasmine soon after she bought the club. How long ago was that? Doesn't matter. It all could mean his memories are not in order, and it all starts at Necropolis where they found his unconscious body.

It begins with Kandy.

He recalls the dance floor where Kandy swoons to the music. There lost in the shadows of time, she tells him her name. Kandy Fangs. Necropolis, the city of the dead. Somewhere within the murky darkness of time, memories hide.

Steve checks the mirror. The charcoal suit appears neat. Like a federal agent. He tips the tailor a hundred and exits leaving his old clothes behind.

The evening air chills his brow. Traffic hums in is ears. He considers going back to Kandy's place and demanding answers. If not for the memory of her threatening him, he would. Killers keep secrets. Glancing around at the stone buildings, he finds his bearings. The Sanctuary of Sin should be around the corner. Behind him, melting between two pedestrians, a shadow follows.

Focusing on the sidewalk ahead, Steve continues striding between two flows of pedestrians coming towards him. He feels like he paddles up river with the shadow creature floating closer. Much like the thing at Kandy's place, this creature appears like a dark ghost pulling a trail of wispy shadows burning off like smoke. A wraith, not a memory ghost. It could be something else, a distant cousin to the Itoril. The shadow might even be his absent hunger.

When was his last meal?

Except for the coffee earlier this afternoon, the scotch at Kandy's and the drink at Midnight Dream, he has no memory of a meal unless coffee or wine can be considered meals.

Turning the corner, he glances over his shoulder spotting the wraith, closer now, gliding along the sidewalk passing through people. Continuing into the darkness, he realizes the sound has slipped away. His shoes no longer tap the cement. Traffic sounds are memories fading in his ears. Even the cold air has abandoned him. And the darkness is a shroud dimming the street lamps beneath a raging sky of violet clouds.

He passes ghosts, memories frozen in time, and hurries nearly jogging for the next corner. He glances back at the wraith. Instead of a hazy shape, he finds a dark figure dressed in a colorless business suit. The face is still featureless, but he feels the eyes eating into him. Passing the corner, he races onto the empty street.

Sound crashes down; engines, tires screeching. Light blazes. Leaping, Steve dodges the car and runs onto the sidewalk. He takes in a deep breath and looks around. Another car honks at the stalled car, and both continue moving again. A handful of pedestrians stroll along the walks.

He searches the street. The wraith is gone.

Red showers down on the glistening moist pavement. Gazing up, he finds a blazing sign bleeding above the door. The Sanctuary of Sin. He looks the building over. Sure enough, it is the same as before except for the sign. Instead of the old plaque for The Sisters of Sorrows Sanctuary beside the door, a man in a dark suit stands in front of bare stone.

Removing the pad from his pocket, Steve scribbles a note about the building, the red sign. Notes help keep the memories straight. He slips the doorman a hundred and steps into sin.

Music thunders from deeper within pounding the checkerboard floor with a chilling beat. The black queen, Kandy, slinks over. Danger floods her smile, glossy red lips pressed together and eyes blazing with confidence. Behind the counter, a woman in a tuxedo flashes a smile then turns away going about making a drink. The clock on the wall claims midnight approaches.

Kandy waves behind her. "What's your pleasure?"

Steve glances to the back at the beaded curtain hanging in the doorway.

"Perhaps you'd like to start with a drink?"

"Kandy."

Meeting his gaze, Kandy's smile fades as she seems to study him. Her face brightens. "Yes, Mister Reynolds."

"How long have you worked here?"

"You know I own the place. Nearly a decade, isn't it?" Linking arms, she tugs him in the direction of the counter. "How about a drink then?"

The bartender tips a bottle pouring a caramel colored liquid into a glass goblet.

He recognizes the scent. A rare brandy.

"Drink up, Mister Reynolds."

He tips the glass back, drinking down the warm, invigorating contents down.

Kandy studies him, her eyes lingering on the silk tie, the expensive shirt, the leather belt. Calculating. Rising, her eyes blaze with warmth. The room is nearly dim enough, and there appears to be a spark of the Itoril embers burning within.

"I know what you need," says Kandy.

Some food, perhaps. Chocolate would go nice with the brandy. Still no hunger pains. Maybe food comes between memories, meals cast aside as meaningless information.

"Follow me."

Watching her hips in the tight dress, he can't imagine anyone disobeying her command. Even knowledge of her nature is barely enough to discourage his feet from falling in place. Shoes tap the chess board. Her hair smells like cinnamon reminding him of riding in her car after she killed the man. No, not a man, an Itoril. Kandy is an executioner. Or will be. It doesn't matter. Time is relative, and Kandy is always a killer.

Slipping through the beaded curtain into a hall, music grows louder. The deep percussions move the floor, each thundering heartbeat shakes the foundation, rattling the closed doors. Deeper within the beast, the chorus awakens, fallen angels crying their hymn of death, despair, and their allegiance to darkness.

Chills spill down his backside.

Selecting a door, Kandy touches the knob and spins around. The grin on her face could melt a man.

He wants to ask questions about this place, their history, but his fractured memories leave him lost. One thing is certain. This memory comes before Necropolis.

"Welcome to your sin." Kandy opens the door.

Consuming most of the dimly lit room, a semicircle stage extends from the back wall. Polished black bars keep visitors off the stage, or hold the performer prisoner inside. Hanging on the wall, false candles with red bulbs bathe two Itoril men dressed in expensive suits sitting on a leather sofa in the corner facing the stage. Their eyes simmer like coals. On the other side, a female in a business suit sits on a sofa. She flips the pages of a book. Even fully dressed and golden hair pulled back in a tight bun, the woman is unmistakable, Yasmine from Necropolis.

Steve sits beside Yasmine. Glancing over, she smiles and returns to her book writing notes.

Slipping out, Kandy closes the door.

Deep percussions shake the room. The bars around the cage vibrate. The sofa shudders. Even the air seems to shimmer. Or the light. The false candles flicker along the line of perception sending waves rolling through the wood-paneled walls. The angelic vocalists enter a hymn, a tragic lullaby filling the belly of the beast.

Oddly enough, the combination of light and sound seems relaxing. Easing back into the leather, Steve soaks it all in.

At the back of a stage, a red velvet curtain billows open. Slipping onto the stage, a woman struts, her tall boots tapping the mirrored floor, her breasts bouncing in a shiny pink bra. She twirls around throwing her dark hair out, her skirt of meshed silver chain rises above her thighs.

The two men lean closer, their noses nearly touching the bars.

Black gloved hand grasping brass pole, the dancer swings her body around, free arm flying out. She drops throwing her hair over covering her face, hands on the mirrored floor.

The music fades, and the walls cease rippling.

Setting her book aside, Yasmine leans closer and grips the edge of the sofa. She glances over, smiling. Hunger fills her blue eyes. She looks as if about to speak, but seals her lips.

He offers his hand. "Steve Reynolds."

Gripping his palm, Yasmine squeezes tight. Authority beams from her smile, and her suit completes the image of power. Snug against her bare neck, the black tie disappears between her breasts squeezed together by a velvet corset beneath her black jacket hanging open. She seems to enjoy his gaze lingering on her curves.

"Of course," says Yasmine. Dropping her hand, she grips leather cushion."Steve, you look absolutely delicious." She licks her fangs.

Music rises from the depths, chimes and a thumping drum, a heartbeat growing closer. With each pulse, the dancer bounces, head bobbing. Hands on her belt, she circles the cage. A hush, and white smoke floods the stage engulfing the dancer.

Steve glances around. The Itoril men watch the stage with hungry eyes. The same look floods Yasmine's face, maybe with more lust. A crash of drums, and an eruption of guitars sends the room rippling. Light blasts up from the stage shooting through white smoke. The dancer flips her head back blowing smoke with dark fan of hair. On hands and knees, she crawls towards the two business men.

It seems like a normal strip club. Is this supposed to be his sin? He imagines other sins behind other doors: blood drinking, torture, illegal gambling.

"Do they let anyone with enough cash in here?"

"What?" Yasmine shakes her head. "Exclusive. Itoril of a certain stature. And." She winks. "You, my sweet."

Gripping the bars, the dancer swoons rising out of the smoke. One of the men reaches out, two fingers holding dollar bills, slipping between bars. He lets the cash drop into the smoke and leans back on the sofa. The woman dances in a circle pressing her body against the cage.

The music falls into a groove, and the heartbeat returns. The dancer moves with the pulse, pressing her breasts against the cage. Her stage name might be exotic or flowery, but standing above the others is the perfect name, Sin.

Twirling around, Sin cups her breasts and squeezes for the audience.

"City leaders," says Yasmine. She rolls her eyes. "Itoril council members. They want to shut this place down."

"Attracts curious eyes."

"Right." Leaning over, Yasmine pushes several bills between the bars. "That and some of the weird shit that goes on in here." Reaching into her jacket, she produces more, pushing the cash onto the stage before Steve.

The dancer struts closer, smoke swirling around her legs. Reaching to her shoulders, she pulls the pink straps down her arms flipping her bra over, breasts bouncing free. Gripping the bars, she dances, her hips moving to the heartbeat of the beast. Smoke slithers up her bare thighs, wispy fingers snatching at her glistening skirt.

Yasmine leans closer touching shoulders, and releases a pleasurable gasp. "I'm planning on opening my own club. For lovelies like her."

"Humans you mean."

"Right." She laughs sounding wicked. "Thursdays could be Itoril night."

He recalls the other evening, the memory in some other corner of the universe, the Itoril woman wearing the chain mail dress and explaining her plan to make vampires cool. In that other memory, the sanctuary offers food and shelter to those in need. Here, wickedness for the elite.

Spinning around, Sin leans over, meshed chain sliding up offering a tempting view. Steve lowers his gaze finding the dancer's face looking back through the smoke. She smiles.

Yasmine holds out a twenty. "A little more sweetness for you, Steve?"

He pushes her hand away and shakes his head. "I'm good. Thanks."

"Don't mind me then." She drops the twenty on the stage before her.

The dancer spins around, swaying her hips. Guitars fade giving way to the thundering heartbeat. Body bouncing, the dancer locks her gaze with Yasmine. Hands on her hips, she removes knives from her belt. Curved blades like slender talons held in hands, she twirls around and slashes at the smoke.

Yasmine scoots the edge of the sofa and gazes up at the dancer.

Holding blades to cheeks, the dancer licks her lips touches tongue to nose. Hips rotating, shoulders dipping, she moves to the heartbeat. Red oozes along the blades, clings to the surface. Red tears slide down her cheeks.

Music explodes, and Sin dances waving the blades around stirring up smoke. She strikes the bars, chiming to the music. She slices over collar bones. Crimson tears slide down onto her breasts, one off to the side, the other pooling over her nipple, separating, and two drops fall splattering thigh. White smoke licks thighs.

Steve gazes at the smoke, bright red on flesh, and dark hair sashing around. Beautiful. Spotting Yasmine gripping leather, he suspects the Itoril woman sees something else. A tease of blood, her senses on fire sending her body shuddering into an a near orgasmic-like state. The pleasure filling her face is priceless. Blood is Yasmine's sin.

Watching the exotic dancer working the blades like paintbrushes spreading crimson streaks over the canvas of her flesh, he feels warmth build inside. The grim art sends tingles into the back of his head, and he shudders realizing this is his true sin. Or close to it. Maybe due to the performance, the naked flesh, or just the color. Red is sensual.

He watches Sin bleed.

As the performer dances on the other side for the gawking gentlemen, Steve notices Yasmine watching him. He nods.

"Delicious, isn't she?"

"How long have we known each other?"

"Forever." Licking her lips, Yasmine glances at Sin and drags her gaze back. "I was just a girl then."

Hard to tell, but Yasmine appears young for an Itoril. Her youth might have been decades ago.

She scoots closer bumping shoulders. "Are you doing anything these days?"

"What do you know about Kandy?" Looking at the blank expression, he thumbs over his shoulder at the door. "Our hostess."

"She dances like a storm."

One of the men bangs on the bars and reaches into the cage. Spinning away, Sin grasps the poll and twirls around. The man hammers on the bars with his fist while the other tugs at his coat trying to pull him away.

Yasmine laughs. "Blood sometimes gets the best of them."

Leaping, Sin grabs the poll and twirls upside-down climbing higher. Ankles gripping poll, she spins holding her arms out. Blood droplets drain from the slashes above her knees, into the groove between her clenched thighs.

Grabbing the bars, the enraged Itoril tugs rattling the cage. Arms bulge within the suit, and cracking sounds circle the stage with each mighty jerk. He snarls exposing his four terrible fangs.

As Sin swings around, she throws her hand out. A blade zips through the bars striking the raging Itoril in the chest. Stumbling back, the man pulls the blade out and throws it to the ground. Madness fills his eyes and he leaps at the cage, toes shoved between bars. Leaning back, he tugs wrenching the cage. More creaking, and several of the lights in the stage floor flicker out.

Dropping, palms on the glass, the dancer dives into a roll, flips over and throws her arm out, blade twirls between bars piercing into the Itoril's chest. Pushing away, she rolls back over and onto her feet.

Shock consumes the man's face as he gazes down at the blade stuck deep into his chest, blood draining down his shirt. He reaches for the blade, but slips tumbling onto the sofa. The other business man falls at his side yelling obscenities.

Yasmine claps her hands delicately. "I'm hiring her."

"Is he okay?"

"He'll be fine." She laughs. "Except for his pride."

Sin resumes dancing with a smirk on her face.

Returning to his thoughts, Steve searches for his next topic. "Venom," he says. "Is it true that it causes memory loss?"

Yasmine's face turns serious. Looking at him, she seems to consider the question. Or him. Itoril keep secrets for their survival. She leans closer brushing her cheek against his and speaks into his ear.

"Venomous Itoril are rare creatures. Elders. Mostly."

Nodding, he watches the Itoril man pulling his shirt open and inspecting the wound. Blood covering his chest, it looks bad. The man seems to be taking it well, a hint of a smile warms his face.

"Memory loss is often temporary," says Yasmine. She takes in a breath and presses closer.

It feels uncomfortable, fangs so close, but he trusts Yasmine. He doesn't know why, but he feels she is a woman of her word. Of course, Yasmine is the same woman that owns Necropolis where they follow the letter of the law and sweep crime under the carpet. He watches Sin holding the bars and writhing. She grins at him, and he returns the smile.

"Itoril venom eases the pain," says Yasmine, her lips brushing his ear. "Addictive as hell."

"Can it be bottled?"

Yasmine growls. "Venom is stature. More than blood. Those with it hold it over everyone else. Nobody messes with them."

Pulling out a twenty, he reaches out and drops the tip onto the stage. Falling back, he feels the woman press in beside him. The Itoril is far from warm, not exactly reassuring, but she feels safe. She is young. Even with the scent of blood in the air, crimson painted on Sin, Yasmine is in control.

"I could use a guy like you."

"Pardon?" Turning his head, he gazes into her deep blue orbs. Within the dark centers, embers burn.

"The world might be moving on, but for Itoril, it's still very much a man's world." She licks her lips. "If I want to climb the corporate ladder, I need help. And who better to help me than an outsider? A ghost."

Looking back at the cage, he finds Sin watching him. Squatting, her bottom nearly lost in smoke, she reaches through the bars and curls her finger in a come-hither motion.

"Think about it, Steve."

He stands at the cage.

Rising, Sin reaches through and tugs his belt. The bars press against him. Rising on toes, she leans her cheek against the cage near his ear.

"I have a message from you," says Sin, whispering above the music. "Time to go."

"Excuse me?"

"Get the hell out of here."

Pulling back, he gazes at Sin. The determination in her copper eyes tells him she speaks the truth. A message from him must be important. Something bad approaches. Whatever it is, he must have thought better not to pass along the nature of the warning. Or he didn't know the details.

Nodding, he steps back bumping into Yasmine.

Sin dances away and grabs the poll spinning around, hair flowing.

"She's a sweetie, isn't she?" Yasmine laughs.

Tearing his eyes from Sin, he strides for the exit and throws the door open.

Steve glances in both directions. Closed doors line the hall, a corner in one direction and the beaded curtain to the exit in the other. Music thunders shaking the floor. Even the air seems to shimmer, and the walls ripple like waves of rising heat. The pounding grows in his head.

The quiet place. He needs the quiet place, away from music where he can think and slip away from whatever is about to happen. Who knows he is here? The exotic dancer knows. Yasmine knows. And Kandy. He barely understands where, or more precisely when, the Sanctuary of Sin is located. Somewhere, buried within the shadows of time.

Turning away from the beads, he glides down the hall. The thundering bass continues shaking the building. Recalling Kandy's house, her cat, Lucifer, on the stairs, the ease of stepping into the shadows, he tries to relax, let his mind go.

The music pounds in his head.

Around the corner, he spots a glowing exit sign at the end of the hall. Quickly, he strides towards the sign passing more closed doors. Imagining Kandy holding his hand, he puts his mind in the same frame as when they glided down the stairs in the apartment building, two ghosts passing a person frozen in time. Instead of silence, he hears his heart thumping in his ears.

A door swings open on the side. Out of the shadows, a hand rises holding a gun.

Gazing into the room, he sees the outline of a slender man with shaggy hair. Two points of red, burning embers of an Itoril stare back at him. He watches the finger squeeze the trigger, the hammer flying, and a flicker of light. In the spark of the silent gunshot, he spots the shooter's face, the lanky fellow from Torx's apartment, Zee. The light fades leaving two glowing orbs.

The quiet place.

A streak extends from the barrel, the bullet slowing, losing substance. And he realizes his mistake. His step carries him into the line of fire, the streak piercing his gut. Instead of a quick sting, he feels the bullet ripping through his flesh, burning hot. His heartbeat pounds. Flesh splits open, slowly, but he keeps going deeper into the quiet place.

Concentrating on Kandy's home, outside the empty bedroom, he reaches out for the ghostly hall. Sabrina sleeps in her bedroom, and Kandy relaxes on the sofa in her basement. There in the hall, Lucifer watches the stairs.

The bullet lets go, and he tumbles over landing on carpet.

Steve cries out hearing his voice. His gut fills with pain, and his heart thumps in his head. Rolling over, he grabs the side of his stomach feeling warm blood soaking his shirt. He cries out again.

The floor bounces. Voices.

He opens his eyes finding movement in the dark hall. Blinking clears his vision. Horror covers Sabrina's face, and confusing fills Kandy's eyes. Gut crying out, he squeezes feeling blood flowing over his hand.

"Dammit Steve!" Kandy pulls at his hand. "What the hell happened?"

He takes in a breath, lungs burning, and he grimaces. "My timing was off."

"Sabrina!" Kandy snaps her fingers. "First-aid kit from the bathroom."

Sabrina frowns and slips away, floor shaking.

"Steve, what the hell?"

"Like I said." Sharp pain rumbles up into his chest. The Sanctuary of Sin is more than a memory lost in time. The pain, the torn flesh. The quiet place is a conduit through the shadows connecting two strands of memories within the fabric of the universe. Here he is back at the top of the stairs where he briefly left the cat, but now with a hole in his gut. A giggle rises, but the pain cuts it off. He gazes down finding Kandy ripping the buttons on his expensive shirt soaked in blood. His side is a mess of torn flesh.

Kandy sours her face.

The floor shudders. A metal box squeaks open.

Grabbing white pads, Kandy dabs the blood. She glances back. "Now, go to your room."

Sabrina stomps away and slams her door closed.

"Looks like it didn't make it through," says Kandy. Dropping the pad, she grabs another and holds it to his chest. "Bleeding like a bitch, though."

Heart settles down, and he takes a deep breath. "The Sanctuary of Sin."

"What about it?"

"That's where he shot me." His voice sounds distant.

Kandy snatches another pad from the kit and presses it over the wound. "That club has been gone for years."

"He shot me," he says, grimacing.

"Who?"

"Your friend, Zee."

Kandy laughs. Holding up her arms, she leans and sways, mimicking the man. "Zee can't walk straight. Sure as shit, he can't shoot straight."

He chuckles at the comedic imitation. It hurts, but laughter feels good.

"Steve, you're confused." Kandy cuts a length of gauze. She licks her lips. "Damn you smell good."

Nausea waves over, and his vision blurs. "I don't feel so good."

Throwing her leg over, Kandy straddles him. She holds the compress down with one hand and digs through the kit with the other. "You need stitches."

"Sew me up before I ruin your carpet."

The house creaks. Paws pad the carpet, and Lucifer appears, nose sniffing.

Looking up, he finds Kandy staring down at his gut. She lifts the compress and watches blood gurgle out of the wound. Her eyes grow large, and her mouth unhinges. She appears lost. Or taken.

The blood has her.

"Kandy!" Pain lurches within, and he grinds his teeth. "Focus, please."

Tossing the blood-soaked pad aside, she dives in, tongue lapping his gut. Her teeth graze flesh, nibbling at the wound. As her tongue digs inside, pain shoots through his gut, and he screams. Holding him down, Kandy continues slurping blood.

Steve squirms, but she has him held tight. Each nibble sends a torrent of pain shooting through him, and his heart races pounding into his ears. Vision blurs, and he cries out. Fist balled, he pulls his hand free and swings hitting the side of her head. The slurping gives way to carnal grunts and biting. Deep bites.

He screams emptying his lungs.

The fire in his gut fades, and something cools his insides. Venom. Pulling back his arm, he punches again cracking his knuckles against her head.

Kandy rears back, blood dripping off her chin. She cries out, and the rage in her face fades. Her grip loosens.

Pushing Kandy back, he sits up. The pain is manageable, but blood pours out from the torn flesh. He holds the wound tight, and turns his attention on Kandy.

Shock consumes her face, eyes wide and distant. Her flesh turns pasty and dry. Dark cracks erupt on her cheeks and lips. Her hair pales, graying. She tumbles over onto her back.

The door at the end of the hall stands open a crack, the slender line of light lighting up Sabrina's shocked face. She slams the door shut.

Hand on the wound, Steve rolls onto his knees, and gazes down at Kandy. She appears like a corpse, frozen with cold eyes staring at the ceiling. He presses his palm to her chest. No heartbeat. Unlike vampires of folklore, Itoril have hearts pumping blood through their bodies like everyone else. He feels a thump and then another. Her heart rate is slow, too slow, even for an Itoril.

"Need help." He winces at the sharp pain and tries again. "Sabrina, we need help here."

Where to go? Not a hospital. Do Itoril have physicians? There is one individual that comes to mind. Yasmine.

Holding his gut, he climbs to his feet and searches for the quiet place, the creeping shadows. The floor sways throwing his feet, his shoulder crashes into the wall, and he grimaces against the pain in his gut. His visions blurs. Blood oozes between fingers. He moves along the wall. A dark fog rises, swirling around his feet.

Silence.

Shadows creep over erasing the walls, the floor. The ceiling crumbles away, and the sky opens up into a storm of dark violets.

Steve concentrates on Yasmine. He pictures her home above Necropolis, the dark stairs leading up to the doorway. The fog licks his face, and he shivers. He sees the stairs rising out of the darkness. The violet sky fades away. A door. Instead of reaching for the brass doorknob, he stumbles through the door, a ghost passing into a room. His silent steps meet red-and-white checkerboard floor.

Lit by a waving veil of golden light within a dark alcove, a porcelain tub cradles a woman submerged in bubbles. Eyes closed, laying back, blonde hair reaching the floor, her arm out over the edge, she holds a wine glass cupped in her hand.

Eyes adjusting, the room brightens. The alcove is a fireplace set into the wall, and the golden veil is fire waving in slow motion. Glowing haze leaps up, wriggles splashing light onto the floor and tub, and fades.

Looking at the wine glass, he watches the red contents lean at an angle, ringing the edge, a wave crashing back in on itself. The wave increases in speed, swirling.

The fire crackles.

Yasmine opens her eyes. Surprise floods her face quickly replaced by a grin.

"Steve," says Yasmine. Her giggle races around the windowless room. "How delightfully naughty of you watching me bathe."

"Kandy needs your help." An explosion of dazzling sparks, and he winces.

Her grin fades, and she sits up, water draining from her shoulders. "You're bleeding all over my floor."

"Kandy." Nausea waves over, and the room spins. The floor strikes his knees.

Raging clouds, shoots of lavender undulate into the billowing sea of violets, crash onto the shores of horizons. Bits of red float like ash, melting onto the rocky, gray ground, blood oozing into the crevices. The quiet place with its deep purple sky and mottled ground of endless waste.

The ground seems to bend upward in every direction, scorching into the sky, hazy horizons waving like rising heat. But there is no warmth. No cold. Silence for the senses.

This is the shadows between worlds, the folds in time and space.

Steve glances around finding bits of pale white oozing out of the very air. Beneath him, a rectangular white shape melts out of the darkness. He lays on a bed. In a wave, hazy chunks fly up forming solid walls wrapping around into a room. A dresser, pale, rises like smoke. And he realizes, he reads the bits of reality forming a bedroom. A ghost-like nightstand lurks in the corner, tendrils of smoke solidify into a lamp with a frilly shade. Lipstick and other cosmetics occupy the dresser.

A wraith stands at the side of the bed. Smoke drifts off the dark creature like hair waving in the wind. Bending over, it brings its featureless face closer.

Glancing down, Steve finds his shirt torn open exposing a blood-soaked bandage over his gut. The gunshot wound, flesh ripped open while stumbling into the shadows between worlds.

Slender claws biting in, the wraith reaches into his gut. Ice prickles his flesh, and the wraith disappears in a puff of smoke.

"You need rest," says Yasmine. Dressed in a long leather coat, she leans against the wall beside the open door.

"Kandy?"

Yasmine fades into a ghost frozen in the moment.

Rolling over, he steps through the ethereal bed and stands. He touches the bandage, bumps underneath. Stitches. It hurts like hell, and he lets out a silent grunt of displeasure. He could cry like a baby. No one would hear, or even remember while in between the folds in time.

He recalls Kandy, her flesh growing pale, her hair graying. Chills racing into his feet. She appears more like a corpse in his mind. Something stole the life from her.

His blood.

He looks down at the bandage. Bigger than his hand, it wraps around his side.

Looking up, he notices Yasmine's ghost has moved. Her hand is higher, moving in slow motion. Everything moves. If he steps deeper into the shadows, increasing the difference in their respective motions, her ghost will disappear along with the room. Yasmine would continue raising her hand beyond his sight. From her perspective, did he just leap out of bed? Did he disappear? It depends on the timing. He memorizes the moment for his return.

Pain rises in his gut, and the world spins around him, storming clouds of violet. Walls rise out of the shadows, a ghost staircase tumbling down from above, under his feet, and into a hall behind him.

Dressed in her black coat, Kandy climbs the wood staircase covered in grime. She grabs the railing at the turn, glancing back down, and continues climbing to the next floor.

Looking up through the ghost-like ceiling, Steve follows Kandy's movements above his head. She appears like a ghost, a blue aura flowing behind her. Occupants, red and orange forms, go about their business in slow motion. Above six more floors, the violet clouds pass overhead.

Even in the quiet place, his gut hurts. He feels the throbbing. Echoing the cries, his heart beats into his ears. Looking down, he appears normal, a solid figure wearing a torn shirt with a bloodied patch over his gut. From the perspective of the building, and its occupants, he is the ghost.

Keeping his distance on the floor below, he follows Kandy. Looking around at the worn carpet, the cracks in the walls, he realizes this is Torx's building. Watching Kandy's blue ghost on the floor above, he follows her on the floor underneath. She stops at a doorway, and he looks at the door before him on his floor. Kandy stands at the door to Torx's apartment. He looks up through the ethereal floor.

Kandy is gone.

Racing up the steps, building blurring away, he climbs to the next floor. Snapping back, the building returns, and his shoes clomp on the floor. Music rumbles from Torx's unit. He throws the door open.

Smoke spills out rolling onto the ceiling. Within the haze, a throng of bodies wriggle. Some move to the beat, and others slink crazily about. Sabrina, topless, stands on the sofa and twirls her shirt overhead. Standing amid the crowd, Torx soaks in sin like a king basking in the glory of his kingdom of drugs and alcohol.

Pushing through bodies, Steve fights his way inside. Reaching the table, he finds the beer bottles, some empty but others nearly full, sweaty beads slipping down the glass. He recalls sitting at the table, the crushed glass surrounded by beer bottles No broken bottles, just two bottles of beer and pizza box occupy the table.

Trying not to draw more attention, he circles the room walking at the edge of shadows within the quiet place. Everyone appears to move in slow motion. On the sofa, another topless woman joins Sabrina, they bounce and dance to the music beyond the silence. Beside the sofa, Torx appears to be caught in mid-laugh, the memory of the popping sounds crashing into his thoughts. He feels like a voyeur watching them without their knowledge. He is a ghost in their world. At the back of the room, he returns to the world, music filling his ears.

Leaning against the wall between an amorous couple and a door open a crack, Steve scans the room. Sabrina topples backward off the couch knocking a lamp over. Laughter erupts, and several men raise their bottles. He considers rescuing Sabrina from this place, but he does just that after the party. What happens if he meets himself? It's a risk he'd rather avoid. Right now, Kandy is on his mind. She came here tonight, but she doesn't appear to be here now. Pushing the door open, he peeks inside finding a bathroom. Empty. Turning back, he watches the couple in the corner hugging each other. The woman runs her hand over the man's unshaven face.

Steve searches the room. Most of them smile or laugh, a few appear lost in bliss. No Kandy, but she feels close. He spots Zee leaning against the wall beside the door. Leaning and wobbling, his strange stupor, he chats with a girl.

At the center of the table, a wire cage holds six vials containing milky liquid. He storms across the room barely aware he has passed into the quiet place until he runs through a man, cold tingles racing up his arm.

He considers taking the vials, but the pain in his gut reminds him of his task. Find Kandy. Besides, he knows the fate of these vials. Finding the delivery guy can wait for better health. Slipping into the shadows, he leaves the music and sounds of life behind along with the stench of smoke and alcohol. He floats down the stairs, passes through an empty apartment, and outside beneath the street lamps. He spots Kandy's muscle car, not here on the street, but within the swirling violet clouds on the warped horizon. A single step carries him inside her car, and out of the quiet place.

"It's hardly exciting," says Kandy. She gazes through the droplets clinging to the driver's side window. "The job is mostly about waiting and watching."

Execution. Kandy is a killer employed by Itoril politicians to maintain justice. Peering through the raindrops on the windshield, Steve finds Necropolis. People wait in line as the doorman checks their passes.

"I was never naïve." Hand on the steering wheel, she gazes at the dashboard as if studying the gauges. "Even when I took this job, I knew."

In a blaze, the model of the car springs to mind The sixty-seven Fairlane is popular among collectors. More comes to him, information streaming into his consciousness. Kandy purchased the car new off the lot back in the midwest. Originally blue, she repainted it black the same year she opened her club.

Hanging his head, he listens to the rain pattering on the roof. It always seems to rain in Roseland. Light, sometimes a misting turning everything slick without even a drop. The pattering comes and goes like a blues musician plucking away at the guitar searching for the right sound. Even between pattering, moisture continues to slick the windshield as if the rain cloud hangs inches above the car.

"But I always expected some honor in it."

His gut rages on the verge of exploding, and he grimaces. If this is a memory, he carries his wound with him. He gazes down at his torn, blood-stained shirt. It is a memory, but not his own. Knowledge of the car, listening to the rain, this is Kandy's memory. This is a piece of the information within the cosmos. And it is part of his memory now. If this is after his blood stole her life, then all is well. And everything is fine, peaceful, here and now.

"The magistrate fears her," says Kandy. She smiles. "And adores her."

The magistrate, an Itoril officer administering the law. They have no prisons. Instead, the magistrate sends executioners like Kandy.

"Someone backs her with money."

Someone sponsors Yasmine for a political move.

Kandy swipes her dark hair back pushing a shock of gray over her ear. "This is man's world, Steve, and they want to make certain it stays that way."

Pulling the torn shirt closed, he covers the bloodied rag. "Didn't females once rule Itoril?"

"You do remember your ancient history." A grin rises and fades, her face growing dark. "Those women were monsters and deserved to die."

"Do I detect some animosity towards your own gender?" He laughs, but the rumble in his gut stops him short.

Kandy gazes down at her hand on the wheel. "I grow tired of this."

"Why don't you retire?"

"I killed my predecessor," says Kandy, her voice falling to a whisper. She closes her eyes. "Death is the only retirement."

He nods finding the logic in the barbaric custom. It proves that the new executioner is capable, and more important, reminds everyone of the power of the judicial system.

"Don't get me wrong. I'd never take it back."

"I know. Every job comes with its baggage."

Kandy looks at him, her eyes lingering on the torn shirt, before meeting his gaze. "Do you remember the Sanctuary of Sin?"

Taking in a deep breath, he wills the pain away. "Like yesterday."

She nods and looks out the window. "Everyone forgets. They say it was a record store."

"Like mass amnesia?"

"A record store, Steve!" Turning, she looks him square in the eye. "Is it possible to change the past?"

Feeling like a victim, he drops his gaze to her hand on the steering wheel. Changing the past is a fascinating question given more meaning by recent events. Can he return to the Sanctuary and stop the shooter? It seems like a paradox. What business is there in returning to prevent an incident that never happened? Or will happen. That is the problem with time. A given future might be another past, arbitrary labels in a timeless world.

"I mean," says Kandy. She bites her lip. "Could someone go back and erase my club?"

It makes sense that Kandy is behind a controversial club upsetting members of society on both sides. Sometimes it seems that Kandy and sin go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Kandy shakes her head "Forget it."

"How many others can do what you do? How many can go to the quiet place?"

Closing her eyes, she seems to consider the question. Or listen to the rain. The calmness on her face is a beauty age dares not steal. And she has aged since the Sanctuary of Sin putting it at least a decade or more in her past.

"Not many," says Kandy. Her eyes remain closed as she inhales. "Some Itoril can appear to move fast for a short period, but very few know about the quiet place. I didn't before I met you."

Pain bursts, and he screams through his clenched teeth. A violet storm washes over erasing the car and Kandy. His gut calming down, he looks around at the churning clouds above the endless waste. If this is home, it is his resting place. The pain remains, but a tolerable thump. Here in the quiet place, it seems almost tranquil except for the sight of the black wraith and its smoking hair blowing wildly about its featureless face.

The room. Steve concentrates on the bedroom where Yasmine stands at the door.

Bits flying up, ethereal walls take shape. Yasmine, a pale ghost, appears holding out her hand. Colors slam onto the walls, floor, everything, and sound explodes in his ears, crackling of a sleeping home racing through the walls like thunder.

"Steve," says Yasmine. Reaching out, she snags his arm as he tumbles into her.

Pain returns, and he looks down at the blood oozing through the bandage.

"You've torn the stitches." Yasmine pulls him towards the bed.

The image of Kandy appearing like a corpse hits him. "How's Kandy?"

Pulling free, he stumbles into the hall. Lucifer scurries down the stairs, and he follows taking the steps two at a time. The front door stands open, and two men push a gurney, a body covered in a white sheet, outside. Kandy? Reaching out, he stumbles on the steps and crashes against the banister spinning him into the wall.

"Steve Reynolds!" Yasmine descends the stairs, her leather coat crinkling around her curving form. Her blazing eyes demand attention, and she has it. Even the men with the gurney stand frozen in the doorway.

Yasmine waves the men out the door. She smiles, but instead of appearing friendly, she seems more imposing. It might be the way her fangs hang there ready for attack.

Steve feels the blood against his palm. The bandage hangs loose, and he presses it down.

"Kandy rests in her bedroom." Reaching out, Yasmine strokes his chin.

"Sabrina? Where is she?"

"The girl is preparing you another bandage." Yasmine shakes her head. "Honestly, Steve. You're like a walking disaster area. Trouble follows you."

A door bursts open, and an older man with gray hair climbs the stairs from Kandy's basement. Spotting Steve, he shakes his finger and smirks at Yasmine. "Nature's answer to your kind I think."

Yasmine frowns hiding her fangs.

"That's what this one is." The old man pats Steve on the shoulder and disappears out the front door.

"Let's get you back upstairs." Linking elbows, Yasmine pulls him up the steps.

He reaches back towards the basement. "Kandy."

"Let her rest. You and I have business to discuss."

"What's with the body?"

"Never mind the mishap." Yasmine waves her hand. "I need an outsider. I'll pay you five thousand a week."

He recalls the envelope of money. "The bicycle messenger."

"Discreetness is key."

Yasmine helps him into bed. Sabrina peels the old bandage away and replaces it with a fresh one. After the young woman departs, Yasmine kneels beside the bed. Coals smolder within her blue eyes.

"At my club," says Yasmine. She licks her lips and glances around the room as if thinking about how to continue. "There's been talk. About venom. Not some cute name for a new power drink, but venom. _Our_ venom."

"Someone bottled it." Rolling back on the pillow, he closes his eyes.

"I want you to find out who is responsible."

"Did you try the authorities?"

Teeth grind.

"You suspect someone important."

"I don't dare make accusations. Not yet."

Steve gulps in a deep breath hurting his gut. Opening his eyes, he gazes at those simmering coals at the center of deep blue lakes. "Let's see if I come to the same conclusion. How is that?"

Smiling, she nearly appears less threatening. "It's a start. Thank you, Steve."

Her coat crinkles as she stands. Strutting like a supermodel, hips rocking, she walks to the doorway and latches her claws onto the frame. Turning her head, she gazes back with a devilish grin. "About popping in during my bath uninvited."

He recalls dripping blood on her red-and-white checkerboard floor, Yasmine floating in bubbles beside the fire. He intruded, not just her home, but her memory. His memory now.

Her sinful grin glimmers with delight. "Careful, Steve. I might get the wrong idea."

Chapter 8: Lost In A Memory

A sharp odor attacks. Nail polish.

Opening his eyes, Steve finds Sabrina sitting beside him. She wears a black tee nearly covering her pink panties. One leg stretched out across the bed, her other foot rests close to her buttocks as she paints her toenails pink.

"Must you do that here?" He rolls away, but the odor follows.

"This is _my_ bedroom."

"My apologies." Grunting, he sits up. The bandage appears fresh, again.

"I overheard you talking to that bitch," says Sabrina.

"Yasmine?" He rubs his eyes and looks at the window. City lights twinkle in the valley. "Why is she a bitch?"

"She won't let me into Necropolis!"

"Is it because you were asking about venom?"

"God no!" Sabrina slaps the bed sending waves sloshing over. "I know not to talk about that."

"And you get your fix from Kandy."

"Shut up. God! You suck sometimes."

The bed wiggles sending nausea rising.

"Please, I'm sorry." He stands before Sabrina turns the bed into a war zone. Maybe it is the pain or the dizziness in his head, but he can hardly imagine dealing with a girl. Maybe there is no daughter out there somewhere. No trick-or-treat. No family waits for him.

"No, I'm sorry, Steve." Sabrina closes the cap on the nail polish. Pulling her legs up, she hugs her knees. "It's Kandy that needs the fix. I don't think she could last a week without me."

He nods. Kandy's addiction is powerful enough to attack while mending a bullet wound. Maybe the near death experience will persuade her to consider facing her addiction.

"Torx." Sabrina buries her face into her legs. "You asked me about him the other day, and I lied."

"And?"

"Torx mentioned some guy. Julio, I think." Lifting her head, she looks him straight in the eye. "That's all I know."

Steve shuffles out the door into the hall noticing he walks around in his underpants. He needs new clothes. If he can keep from getting shot, clothes will last longer. Can he avoid getting shot in the Sanctuary of Sin? Change the past? Not if he wants to catch the shooter. Maybe he can be the bait. It's a crazy idea, but makes sense in a world that forgets the Sanctuary of Sin. A record store? A store full of strippers performing bloody rituals maybe.

At the turn in the stairs, he looks at the front door where two men rolled a dead body sometime in the night. People bleed for Kandy.

Steve shakes the prickles from his backside, and heads down the stairs. Pushing the door open, he peeks inside. Across the room, in candle light, Kandy rests on her bed.

Closing the door, he shuffles over. Every few steps, he winces, but he makes it to the bed. He throws the satin sheet back and gazes at Kandy's nude body. Unflinching, she gazes back, her brown eyes simmering, both from her Itoril nature and the look on her face. More gray, nearly white, shoot through her dark hair. Kandy appears near middle age, which for an Itoril means she is older than old enough.

He crawls in beside her and pulls the sheet up. "Sabrina kicked me out."

"That bitch."

"Well, her nail polish forced me out."

"Likely story."

"You ever see anything strange." He tries to think how best to describe the wraith. Smoky dark, faceless creature sounds crazy. "In the quiet place. A dark thing like someone's watching."

The bed wiggles as Kandy rolls over facing him. Her fingers brush his elbow. "Like a person moving in slow motion?"

"No. It moves like us. A dark smoky form." He takes in a deep breath and exhales. "I call it a wraith."

"Once. I saw something." Kandy squeezes his arm. "It wasn't faceless, though."

"What did it look like?"

Scooting closer, she places her lips to his ear. "Death."
A shiver races down his spine followed by a shower of tingles.

"I saw it at Necropolis," says Kandy. She shakes her head. "He walked right through people like a ghost. I could feel the cold as he drew near, and I looked at his shadowy face. Deep violet smoke poured form his eyes."

He tries to imagine the wraith with a face, a shifting smoky jaw and empty sockets for eyes where purple smoke puffs out.

"I thought he was going to take me, Steve." She shivers against him.

Even tough girls get scared.

Leaning over, he touches his lips to hers. Without the sweet lipstick, her lips taste even better. The kiss sends warm currents washing over, and he relaxes burying his face beside hers. It almost feels like home, familiar. And dangerous.

Warmth returns, and they both stop shivering. They hold each other for what seems like hours. It might only be minutes, but time doesn't matter. Just the two of them holding each other, forever. He kisses her again, his tongue finds her fangs, and the touch ignites him.

Foreheads knocking together, he gazes into her eyes. The soft red glow from deep within the dark pools shines through her irises like the red moon through stained glass windows, beautiful and threatening.

"You might not remember everything," says Kandy, singing. "But you remember how I like being held."

"I guess some things just come to me."

Her lips tickle his cheek. "Sure about this?"

"You're not going to bite, are you?"

Her giggle electrifies his chest. "No, sir, not you anymore. But I'm a screamer. Wake the goddamn dead, I do."

"Good." He kisses her neck. "The dead need music."

It isn't long before he realizes that Itoril don't mate like humans, but Kandy obliges him. Her fangs are scary sharp, which adds to the thrill his heart has trouble keeping up with.

~~~~

Gun oil hangs in the air.

Steve finds Kandy in the opposite quadrant of the basement, the armory. Nude, she stands at a table cleaning a gun. Glancing over her shoulder, she flashes a grin and returns to her gun. Hands behind his head, he lays back on the bed and watches Kandy. She assembles pieces pushing a pin inside, and slides a magazine into the handle. Picking up a dark nozzle, she screws it to the barrel.

"What is that?"

"This?" She taps the nozzle that appears too large for the gun. "It's a sound suppressor, but don't let the name fool you. Still damn loud."

"Then what's it for?"

"Hides your location. People might not recognize the gunshot in a noisy location like a club."

He nods imagining Kandy slipping through a crowded nightclub searching for her target.

"Even better if you shoot from the edge of the quiet place."

Sitting up, Steve shakes his head. The physics seem wrong. The time dilation might even wreak havoc on a speeding bullet leaving the barrel into normal space. It seems crazy imagining the shooter passing her own bullet, if she could keep track of it at all.

Kandy spins around squaring her shoulders, arms extended, and aims the gun directly at him.

There is no gunfire sound, not at first. Kandy's ghost fires the gun, a distant pop, and everything goes quiet like giant hands clamping over his ears. And Kandy is no longer a ghost, her intense eyes gazing down the length of the barrel. The bullet blurs through the air, vanishing.

Two thunks and a ringing sound. The world is normal again, his heart pounding away.

Kandy holds the gun, finger on the trigger. A curl of smoke rising from the opening of the sound suppressor. "Do you see now?"

Steve glances down at his chest. No fresh bullet wounds, just the bandage over his gut. Glancing behind him, he finds two holes in the wood headboard.

"It's like a natural reaction for you. It took me years to learn. But you." She twirls the end of the gun, and returns her aim. "Instinct."

Kandy fires the gun, and this time, the bang crashes the room. Like before, he drops into the shadows, the room becomes a ghost, silence in sound and color, and he pops back again, unharmed.

"Maybe if I tried my best. Perfect my timing."

Waving hands, he climbs out of bed. "You've made your point."

"Have I?"

Kandy tosses the gun, and he catches it.

"Shoot me," says Kandy. Planting hands on her hips, she stands in defiance, and naked she appears even more intimidating.

He looks at the gun in his hand. It's a small caliber semi-automatic pistol with a sound suppressor making it appear three times as big. He shakes his head.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"It will only sting if you even hit me."

Taking a step closer, he grasps the gun by the barrel and holds it out.

Kandy snatches the gun and spins around. "You can be a pussy sometimes, you know that?"

A gunfight with an Itoril having Kandy's skills requires extra training, a lesson better suited for the firing range.

She pulls the clip out and sets the gun on the table, the clip next to it. Turning, she falls into his arms and pounds her fists against his back. "Dammit, Steve. Tell me what happened."

"We all make mistakes."

He remembers spotting the gun in the doorway before the shot. Surprise is a different beast. If not for the dancer's warning, the result might have been much worse if he had remained in the room or exited at the front. The warning already putting him on edge, instinct nearly saved him. The bullet catching him on his way into the shadows between worlds means the shooter has skills like Kandy, perfected timing.

"Here," says Kandy, motioning her fingers in a come hither.

Steve follows her between a row of shelves stocked with boxes of ammunition. At the back is what appears to be a black coffin standing up on end against the wall. The glossy surface reflects their black shapes with the light gleaming behind them.

"Yes, it's a coffin." Kandy's grin turns devilish. "It's welded shut."

"What's it for?"

"Look inside," says Kandy, folding her arms.

Leaning into the quiet place, he sees the coffin turn ethereal revealing the padded interior. Inside is the ghost of a sword in a corner.

"Take it."

Kandy appears to be studying him, testing his memory or even his abilities. Carrying items into the quiet place is easy enough, but taking something while in the time-altered state seems impossible. Reaching through the lid while crossing back into normal time could have disastrous results.

"Bad timing won't sever your arm if that's what you're wondering." Closing her eyes, she cringes. "It'll hurt like hell, and you'll have a bitch of a time separating yourself from the coffin."

It sounds like she speaks from experience, and it isn't the sort of knowledge he wishes to pursue. No melding with the coffin is necessary.

"I got it," he says, "just stand inside."

Holding his breath, Steve steps into the shadows and pivots on his foot facing Kandy. Taking a step back, he enters the ghostly coffin and stands inside. He returns to the world and darkness blankets him. The air is warm, suffocating. Feeling around, he finds the handle of the sword beside his leg and grabs it. Quickly, he returns to the quiet place and steps out of the coffin, back into the world and into Kandy's arms. He breathes a sigh of relief.

"You're new at this, aren't you?" Squirming, she smashes her chin against his chest and looks up at him.

"Don't tell me," he says, hugging her. "That's a trick I taught you?"

He looks at the sword, a katana in a glossy, black sheath. It's likely very expensive, and good reason to keep it locked away.

"Not amnesia," says Kandy, face growing long "It's like you're backwards."

Staring into her eyes, he works out the problem. Time is like a familiar old man everybody knows, but when trying to describe him, nobody can say if he is actually old. Or even a man. Time seems to pass quickly when not paying attention to him, and slowly when trying to watch him. Time is a haunting wraith.

"Can you change the past?"

"Think about it this way." Gritting teeth, he fights the pain welling in his gut. The bandage feels loose. "Before modern physics, scientists were thinking that the universe was solvable. Like predicting where a rock will land after launching from a catapult. Initial velocity, trajectory, air resistance, and wind velocity. Solving all the variables might predict the future.

"Everything is connected, information passing through the tapestry of the cosmos, but the threads can change leading to something unknowable. Just like in an experiment, if you stare at it long enough, you'll find the result you were looking for."

Tilting his head back, he gazes up at the ceiling. He realizes he cannot change the shooting. That memory is part of him now. Just like he cannot make the Sanctuary of Sin disappear even if the rest of the world forgets it. Both are part of his reality.

He smiles at her. "The past is as unknowable as the future regardless of memory."

"Memories change," says Kandy. She presses her cheek to his chest. "But why do I remember the Sanctuary of Sin, and others think it was my music store?"

"The brain is a powerful pattern recognizer."

"Otherwise we'd be overwhelmed by noise," says Kandy. "You've told me this before. The brain constantly updates our memories based on new information forming a narrative that makes the most sense."

"And for us, the most logical conclusion is to remember things others do not."

"Because of the quiet place."

"Think of time not as a flowing river pulling you along, but as different places." He pushes her hair back over her ear and holds her tight. Her flesh is cool, but the contact warms him. "Past and future are just arbitrary labels relative to the viewer's perspective. Information connects these places leaving us with only two possibilities. Everything is tightly connected. Unchangeable."

Kandy pushes away, turning around. She folds her arms. "Fate."

"Or the strands may be altered, and the best we can do is predict the most likely outcomes. Future or past. Doesn't matter. Time is an illusion, and memories are ghosts we cling to making it appear that we have a past."

"But the Sanctuary of Sin seems so far away now." She wraps her arms around, hugging herself. "How do you get there?"

"I don't know. It's sort of like drinking in the information, and then I'm there."

"So natural." Kandy glares over her shoulder. Her eyes smolder, her face rigid like stone. The look of a killer. "Steve, what the hell are you?"

A shiver races down into his legs.

He looks at her naked backside, the ridges of her backbone, the cleft over her buttocks. How many times has he gazed at the smooth curve from her slender waist, over her hip, onto her thigh? Is the past she remembers part of him? Life is a memory crashing towards death. Predictable, yet unknowable.

It seems strange how the question changes. Who is Steve Reynolds? What is Steve Reynolds? Maybe both questions have the same answer. With the information of the cosmos connected time and space, another question seems more relevant. Where is Steve Reynolds?

Lost in a memory, and far from home.

Chapter 9: Vampire Ice

Leaping from one memory to another, Steve glides through a storm of shadows eating away at the buildings, the streets, ghosts of pedestrians fading out and back in. Violet clouds give way to blue skies as he steps back into the world, city traffic greeting his ears.

He spots the bicycle messenger and waves his hand. Brakes squeal, and she stops. Each time, a different greeting. This time, she asks for his name. Backwards. That's what Kandy said. Sometimes it seems the world is backwards.

Twenty thousand dollars minus the change already spent. He buys another suit, top of the line, from the same tailor. Concentrating on the bike messenger, he searches for another memory, her memory. It's beginning to feel as if he has no memories of his own, or that his memories blossom from the memories of others. Three trips through the shadows beneath the violet sky, four counting the walk downtown, leaves him exhausted. He enters the quiet place like stepping home, but finding his way back out requires concentration. He searches until his head hurts, but there is no other meeting with the bike messenger. His employment with Yasmine lasts four weeks.

Returning to the world, traffic noises and laughter filling his ears, he stops beside a lamppost. People pass him without a glance. Nobody seems to notice his return. And who would remember a ghost? Only those paying close attention, catching a glimmer of his movement out of the shadows.

Opening his pocket pad, he jots down a note about the payments. A month in their time, but how long in his? Does it even matter? Flipping back through the pages, he reviews his notes. Yasmine suspects someone important. Why would an Itoril distribute venom? Status, that's what Yasmine said back in the Sanctuary of Sin. Maybe an Itoril kills his own kind, takes the venom trying to level the playing field. It would have to be someone near the top. Those with venom kick ass.

Beside the note about the Sanctuary of Sin, he jots down a question about the record store. With an uncertain history, the notepad does more than keep memories straight. It helps him keep the world in order. The record store, the Sanctuary, and the shooter must wait.

Torx is his link to the venom.

Polished leather shoes meeting old worn carpet, he climbs the stairs finding the door to Torx's unit right where he remembers losing Kandy. He doesn't dare return to the same party a third time. Besides running into his ghost, he doesn't want to risk getting caught popping in wearing different clothes. He considers knocking, but instead steps into the quiet place passing through the door like a ghost into a dimly lit room.

A pizza box sits on the table where the beer bottles once stood. Clothes lay strewn on the floor. Torx sits on the sofa, his eyes focused on nothing. In his open palm, he holds a syringe.

Standing beside the sofa, Steve gazes at the barely conscious young man. The unit is nearly dark, only the red glow of the television indicator and the green glow from the clock above the stove in the kitchen provide illumination. A step inside the quiet place, he finds more. He reads the bits of information forming the walls, the dark lamp with clothing draped over the shade, and he sees a milky puddle left inside the syringe.

Enough venom erases recent memories.

Settling into the darkness of the room, Steve hears music thumping from somewhere within the building. Shouts beat into the floor, a couple arguing in the unit below.

"Torx."

The young man drops his lazy gaze to the syringe in his hand. Or his arm. He seems to study the wad of gauze taped over the bulge on his muscle. A trail of dried blood leads from the dressing to the crook in his elbow. The substance inside the syringe appears more opaque than the liquid in the vials.

Taking a deep breath, Steve clears his mind. Reaching out with his thoughts, he concentrates on Torx. Warmth rises from within, and a calm wave splashes over. A torrent of sights, smells, sounds gurgle up from the depths, all familiar. The buzz of alcohol, the taste of pizza, thumping music, and the touch of a woman's breast, sensations rise like a storm.

Invigorating.

Julio, the name Sabrina mentioned. The venom supplier, a lump of a man with a mess of curly dark hair sits on a stool surrounded by comics. Brightly colored graphic novels line the walls. Books pile up on tables. Plastic figurines stand at attention inside glass prisons.

Julio delivers. That's what Torx says.

Taking a giant step, darkness crackling underfoot, Steve glides into the shadows between worlds finding the violet storm. Spotting the comic book store, an ethereal skeleton of a building rising from the wasteland, he walks to the front door stepping back into the world.

Traffic sounds attack his ears, and he grimaces. Pulling the glass door open, he walks into a stench cloud, old paper, carpet cleaner, and a touch of something musty.

"What can I help you with?" says Julio, rising from his stool. "Collectables, latest graphic novels, imports. If I don't have it, I find it."

Steve glances around noting the closed door in the corner, lack of security cameras roosting near the ceiling. Barely any light makes it in through the front door leaving the back looking bleak under two yellow lights. He straightens his tie and clears his throat.

"I'm told Julio delivers."

"That's right, man. Whatever it is, I find it." Julio nods and sets his hands on the glass counter. Inside the display case, rows of comic books held snug by plastic protective covers rest on velvet. "What you looking for?"

Reaching inside his coat, he spots Julio's eyes snap open. The peddler appears on edge. He holds up the pocket pad, and the man relaxes.

He flips open to his most recent notes and reads the last entry. "Julio delivers."

Julio folds his arms, and glares back through slanted eyes. "You a cop?"

"No."

"You look like a fed."

"I'm self-employed."

"Uh-huh."

Waiting for a response, Steve watches the man. Like a staring contest, their eyes remain locked, unblinking. With plenty of patience, time on his side, this is the sort of trial he excels at. After seeing wraiths, gazing into the eyes of a killer, and watching Kandy consume blood from his gut, there is nothing intimidating about a book peddler, including one that may move a rare drug that could anger an army of pissed-off Itoril.

Julio lowers his gaze, and scratches his chin. "Who sent you?"

"Do you get around Necropolis?"

"Not anymore. Not after last week."

"What about last week?"

"You see the news? Someone died, man!" Julio coughs into his elbow. "Christ! From out of nowhere, blood sprayed me, man! Crazy shit."

Detective Silver's crime scene with the missing victim.

"Then nothing," says Julio, shaking his head "No body, no victim. Just blood."

"There was a lot of confusion."

"That's what the cops said, and they didn't believe us, either." Julio's eyes grow big. "Like ghosts, man. Both of them just disappeared."

"Did you get a look at them?"

"Ghosts, man. They looked like dark ghosts, a man and a woman. Spooky as hell."

Nodding, Steve marks a note in his pad about two individuals slipping into the shadows between worlds. It could be Kandy. Would she do a hit at the club? Likely, given the noise at the apartment where she shot the head off that Itoril. But a Kandy hit means there should be a body.

Steve slips the pad into his pocket. "I am interested in your product."

"So, who sent you?"

Offering Torx is a bad idea. Torx is sleaze, and nobody squeals about something as dangerous as Itoril venom. Better to get a reaction. Drop a big name.

"Yasmine."

Julio stares back with a blank face. After what seems like a minute, he walks to the front and locks the door. He flips the open sign over to closed. Strolling back, he shakes his head. A look of disgust slips onto his face and washes away.

"I had a feeling," says Julio. Leaning against the back door, he turns the knob and pushes it open. "Your suit is too expensive. No fed can afford that."

A bank of fluorescent lamps flicker on, a storm zipping from front to back, and wash the room in blue. A cloud of dust hangs over the shelves holding cardboard boxes. A coffee maker caked in grime sits atop a mini-fridge in the corner.

Julio lumbers to the back and kneels before an old luggage trunk. He inserts a key and pops the lock open. A brass lever springs up clapping against steel. He pulls the lid open. Reaching inside, he removes a black cloth laying it on his lap. Looking back, he waits.

Steve gives the room another glance. Dust everywhere, and it smells like something died. Slowly, he steps into the room and looks into the trunk.

Guns.

Shiny handguns of all sizes, from tiny concealable guns to a heavy forty-five, rest snug in black foam. He recognizes a nine-millimeter, the kind police use, more information he knows without knowing why.

"Here," says Julio. He removes the police gun and holds it out. "This looks you."

Taking the gun, Steve checks the chamber finding it empty. The clip is empty as well. The weapon looks as if it might have just come straight from the manufacturer. He sets the gun into its cozy home and gazes at the others. He needs something that can hit a fast moving Itoril, maybe even someone as skilled as Kandy. His knowledge of guns comes short of details like muzzle velocity and stopping power.

"Do you have a sound suppressor?"

"You don't want a silencer, man. You want bang."

"How about high velocity and decent stopping power?"

Eyes narrowing, Julio looks down at the chest and back up again. "Yasmine sent you?"

"That's right."

Julio wrinkles his brow. "Some of those vamps shoot each other for fun. You want to hunt one of them freaks, man, it's all about stopping power."

Steve nods.

"I got what you need." Julio lifts the foam revealing more guns and plastic boxes. He pulls out a box, contents jingling. "Hollow point."

Taking the box, Steve slides the cover back. Resting in a plastic grid, the medium caliber shells appear normal except for a divot in the head of each bullet.

"Man, you shoot a vamp with hollow point and he won't be giggling." Julio reaches into the chest and selects a handgun. "He'll be one pissed-off freak of nature."

Steve examines the gun. Like the other, it appears new.

"And after he's good and upset and all," says Julio, his eyes growing large. "Shoot that freak with a shotgun. And not with birdshot, man. You need effin' slugs from hell. Carbine full-auto-army-class-door-busting-mean-ass shotgun with serious balls. Be nothing left but bloody pieces."

Steve glances in the chest. No shotguns.

"Nah, man." Julio shakes his head. "They won't let me carry nothing like that."

"You only deal weapons?"

"Besides comics?" Julio chuckles. "That's it, man. Guns for the boss."

It fits Detective Silver's brief description. Yasmine runs business by the book keeping her criminal dealings hidden. It seems unlikely that Julio deals venom risking his employment. Torx's memory leads here, but his version of reality is in question. Taking venom erases recent memories. Julio works here, but anyone could have sold the venom.

Steve flips a page in his pad. "Have you heard anyone asking about venom?"

"Is that some new nickname for a drug?"

"No, it isn't. Perhaps they use a nickname, but I'm not familiar."

"Wait." Julio's eyes grow huge, and his jaw drops. "It's not a rumor? Those freaks are venomous?"

"Not all of them."

"Holy shit." Julio shakes his head and grits his teeth. "That would be like taking a man's balls! What kind of fang-freak would take another freak's fangs?"

"Has anyone mentioned it here? Or maybe nearby?"

Julio nods. "Some girls were asking about vampire acid. Ice. Something. Over at Necropolis. Man, I thought they were talking about booze."

"Vampire ice."

"That's right. Two pretty young things. They could dance like a dream."

"Thanks for the tip." Steve shoves the pad into his pocket. "How much for the gun and ammunition?"

"Three clips, twenty boxes of ammo, and the gun. Four thousand."

Steve counts the hundred dollar bills realizing that most of the money will end up back in Yasmine's pocket.

Returning to Torx's apartment, he kneels on the floor at the edge of the shadows between worlds. Torx still looks out of it, but he doesn't want to startle the young man into full awareness. Whispering hints about vampire ice and pretty women, he reads the memories flowing from the man mixing with the information of the world. It's like drinking memories. Like a vampire consumes blood, he ingests Torx's memories. And they taste delicious, like sweet candy.

A shiver races down his back, and tingles erupt on the back of his neck.

Selecting a morsel tasting like peppermint, he dives in. Shadows eat the floor, the walls, and the violet storm rages overhead.

Chapter 10: Memory Thief

Dark shapes within purple haze, like smoke, their swooning motions leave trails, dancing. More of them, a mass of smoky forms gather around. They wave their arms building smoky clouds above their heads.

The ghosts dance, their pale forms turning and moving on a wood floor. Dark columns holding purple rods rise up into a white fog where lights spin splashing red like blood dripping from the mist.

Thunder erupts, pounding into the floor. Another dull boom, and another, the increasing beat becoming alive, sharpening. The dancers stomp to the beat, their movements increasing in speed. A chorus of guitars join in, music explodes, drums crashing.

White shirts and waving colored bracelets glow in the black light. Some of the eyes glow as well like phosphorous disc floating on white orbs. The discs bounce and weave. The floor shakes to the beat of the drums and dancing feet.

Standing on a stage, a woman with deep crimson hair screams into a microphone. Her voice is nearly demonic as she shouts about blood and death. Behind her, the band shakes their heads and stomp. A bald man pounds drums splashing sweat glistening into the spotlight flooding his bare chest decorated with a dark dragon.

The familiarity of it all sends a wave of nausea splashing over. Necropolis. The same, all over again, a nightmare playing from a different angle.

Steve spots Torx entering the dance floor. The sea opens up, bodies grooving, surrounding the young man. Grinning like a kid in a candy store, the man approaches a woman dressed in a long black dress.

The woman spins around, her hips throw her dress swaying and shifting about her leather boots tapping the floor in time with the beat. Her body flows, twisting, her arms climbing up over her head like snakes swooning about each other. Her dark hair bounces on her shoulders.

Steve recognizes her pale face, her cute dimples, her slender nose. Kandy. Like before, at the beginning, but now he watches like an out-of-body experience of a memory.

Torx's memory.

Torx says something lost to the music. Steve searches the information, diving into the quiet place. He slips around the ghosts, afraid touching them might break the spell, and steps back into the world.

Kandy smiles, her glossy red lips curl deepening her dimples. "Nice to meet you, Steve Reynolds."

Her eyes are on Torx. She speaks to him.

A wave of nausea rushes over, and he concentrates on Kandy's face, focusing on her glossy lips trying to read them. He watches her tongue slide sideways licking her upper lip. Smile growing, her mouth opens wider exposing glistening teeth. A red spotlight flashes over her fangs, red like blood.

"I'm sweet like candy," she says. Spinning around, she gazes over her shoulder. Her thin eyebrows bounce. "With a K."

The world spins, and Steve grasps the sides of his head trying to hold the dizziness inside. The floor tips, sending him skittering around ghosts and towards the shadows eating away at the world. Deep reds break through the crevices of the wasteland, and purple clouds churn overhead.

Torx's memory, meeting Kandy in Necropolis as it always has been. And the name, Steve Reynolds. The origin. From the apartment to Necropolis, he feeds like a vampire. Instead of blood, he devours memories tasting them for his own.

Climbing out of the shadows, he finds his way back into Necropolis, climbing ethereal stairs. Peering through the floor above, he see's Kandy's ghost pushing Torx's ghost into a room, the door shutting behind them. Racing up the steel steps, he passes through the door finding an empty hall. Recognizing the black painted walls, the leather sofas, he glides towards the door to the room where he first met Yasmine dressed in the chain mail dress, and he passes through the door.

Arms folded, one foot crossed behind the other, Kandy stands with her back facing the leather sofa before the window overlooking the dance floor. Her eyes nearly glow in the dim light, and the scowl on her face could melt a heart.

Arm rising in slow motion, Torx holds up a fan of money. From the quiet place, the words are lost to the silence. From behind, Steve cannot read his lips. Whatever Torx says, it turns the burning scowl on Kandy's face up a notch.

A blur of motion, Kandy strikes grasping Torx by the arm. She opens her jaw, fangs dripping saliva. She bites into the arm sending blood squishing out from her lips. Slipping from the man's grasp, dollars flutter to the floor.

Rivers of red flow over his hand, beading around fingers, drops breaking free. Three globs stretch and snap back, red swirling surfaces, the spherical drops meet the glossy floor, one after another, compressing, an exploding ring of drops fly out of each one arcing into a rain of blood.

He recalls the pain, the memory burning inside his thoughts.

Body heaving, Kandy clenches the man. Torx spasms, dangling hand throwing a rain of blood. Her gaze climbs. She pulls free, blood shooting against her cheek, and her tongue laps the plasma.

Meeting her gaze, Steve watches her eyes flash through shock then into fear. Her face collapses, jaw slacking, blood rains down from her fangs onto her dress. Pushing her dinner aside, she pulls her face together, determination burning like fire.

The carnal feeding, the money on the floor, Kandy and her fangs, venomous, it all comes together. Torx, original Steve Reynolds, crumples on the floor. Dazed, lost to the venom, he stares at the ceiling. Venom causes memory loss, and the man may not remember the details, but somewhere within, the greasy young man knows exactly what he came for: intoxicating Kandy Fangs.

Music thumps.

Standing there, blood soaking her dark dress, Kandy seems to consider Steve Reynolds the memory thief a moment. She licks blood from her chin. Arm flying up, she raises a pistol. The barrel is a black square around a circle of darkness. Gun oil tickles the nose. A good killer always keeps her tools clean, and this gun looks and smells like a very clean tool.

He steps into the quiet place.

The trigger moves back in slow motion. Behind the gun, the killer glares back. There is no anger on her face. No hatred. Determination fills her smoldering eyes, and red breaks through the hazel iris like cracks of molten lava breaking through rock.

Someone once said that right before death a man sees his life flash before his eyes. The statement is nearly true. Life is a memory, and this one belongs to someone else, or his former self, wherever memories are born. Quicker than a flash of gunpowder, a lifetime of experiences explodes imprinting memories onto the very fabric of the cosmos like blood spraying the floor. It can take a while to read it all, the memories, and sometimes only pieces make any sense.

Kandy is a killer, and he is her target. It's right there in her eyes. She has known where the name, Steve Reynolds, comes from. She likely knows him by another name, maybe his true name or some other name stolen from a memory. Never a mention.

The hammer pops, thunder swallowed by silence. Darkness eats the walls, the floor, and Kandy lunges backward, a ghost passing through the sofa, the window, and she falls.

Leaping over the sofa, Steve dives through the glass down towards the waving sea of ghosts churning white smoke into a stew. He reaches out for Kandy, fingers coming short of the gun in her hand. She fires the weapon, flicker of light eaten by the shadows, bullet streaks out stinging his hand as it melts away into the memory of the club.

Kandy fades into a ghost, slowing in time, and Steve grasps at her, arms passing through her midsection sending frozen tingles racing up his arms. Her ghost strikes another ghost, a dancer, knocking the woman over. The pedestal explodes, ethereal boards shooting out. Hands over his face, he braces against the crashing ghost debris.

The ground knocks the wind out of him.

Tasting dry clay, Steve spits. Dark spot, bits of dirt mixed with saliva, mark the mottled gray ground. Crimson gore oozes within a crevice, flowing over pebbles and into crags beneath his hand. Warm. Lifting his hand, he tastes it.

Blood.

Spotting a shadow, he climbs to his feet keeping his eyes on the smoking figure. It moves differently, less graceful, taking determined steps circling around him. It slips away into the shadows, and another dark form blossoms over the desert. Watching the hazy figure slowly move around him, he recognizes the rhythm and flow of the slender legs. Kandy. Maybe she cannot reach this far, caught somewhere within the shadows between two worlds.

Kandy's shadow dissolves into a puff of smoke, disappearing.

Another shadow, taller, erupts onto the dead landscape. Each step, determined like the first dark figure, carries the shadow closer. It is a wraith dressed in the long skirt, only this one has a face of hazy dark shapes forming a broad chin, a stubby nose, and dark pits for eyes. His short hair smokes as if on fire.

From its eyes violet smoke pours, billowing to the sides, tendrils worming around its ears and disappearing. The smoking eyes match the storming purple clouds overhead. It seems at home in this dead world.

Concentrating on the dance floor, Steve steps into the shadows.

Pale ethereal shapes appear, walls un-crumbling from the floor up. A ghost-like ceiling unveils in a wave. Columns grow out of the floor, the stage appears in a puff, and beside it, the broken dance platform. Ghosts, clumps of them, take to the dance floor of Club Necropolis. As color returns, movement increasing in speed, the ghosts become people, some standing nearly still while others run, clanging up the steel stairs to the exit.

Fear covers their faces.

Caught in the stampede, pushing and shoving, Steve slips off the dance floor, shoes skittering on the concrete. Swinging an arm, he fights his way free and up against a wall. Spinning around, he watches the crowd pushing their way onto the stairs, some falling crushed against the steel steps by others climbing over.

Some remain on the dance floor, confusion flooding their faces. They watch the panic at the stairs, while a few glance around searching for the source.

Standing beside a stone column at the edge of the dance floor, Julio glances over at the broken podium then back at two men standing beside him.

Bursting from a cloud of smoke, Kandy appears, her face like stone. Turning towards her, Steve notices a slender black rod swinging up at him. Realizing it's her sheathed sword, he throws his arm up in defense, too late, the sheath glances across his head sending him falling back.

Silence.

Voices murmur.

Footsteps.

Rough ridges push into backside. Cold concrete presses against palms.

Peeling eyes open, Steve finds a dance floor bathed in bright floodlights leaving the stage at the back lost in darkness. He sits against the wall gazing at the red streaks of blood on the wood floor. Two men and a woman kneel on the floor beside a streak of blood. The woman waves her latex covered hand in circles as she speaks to the men.

Forensics.

Behind them, at the edge of the light, Detective Silver stands with his arms folded. His grim face contemplating the crime scene.

Steve's eyes grow heavy, and he closes them.

A lavender scent waves over.

Opening his eyes, he finds heavy maroon drapes held open by snug gold chords. Outside the window, a row of dark, glossy rectangles breaks a dirty white surface, a building across the street.

A tap and the floor rumbles. Another tap, and the floor shakes. Black heels strike the floor. The woman walks to the window and stops, hands on her hips.

Gazing down, Yasmine twitches her nose. "I'm sorry to disappoint you," she says. She pulls at her snug blazer. "I'm not yet ready for my bath."

"My apologies." Climbing to his feet, he feels his head slosh over. The throbbing is bearable. "I didn't mean to intrude."

"Mister Reynolds, how goes your investigation?"

"Steve Reynolds is the name of a drug addict. It seems I stole his name."

"I think the name suits you."

He ambles to the window and gazes down at the street below.

Light rain patters on the street. Under the lamps, halos glow in the mist. Two cars rest on the far side under one lamp, and between two lamps another sits in the shadows, Kandy's black Fairlane.

Watching and waiting is the unglamorous side of contract killing. Yasmine, a young female Itoril rising to the top, attracts attention. Not only that, her methods of bringing Itoril out in the open by celebrating vampires enrages the elders accustomed to hiding from the world. Of course, Yasmine having attained status means her opponents cannot simply sweep her away. They wait until they have evidence against her, something terrible like killing other Itoril for venom distribution.

Standing at the window, he feels as though Kandy watches him.

Heels clicking, Yasmine approaches, her ghost reflection appearing in the window.

"What happens when the magistrate dies?"

"The council members elect a new magistrate."

"And if the election is held tonight, who would they choose?"

Yasmine takes in a long breath and exhales.

On the street, the Fairlane comes alive, pistons hammering. With a throaty roar, a brief spin of tires, the dark chariot carries Kandy through Roseland.

Turning away from the window, Steve looks the room over. It is an office, back wall lined with bookshelves and a heavy desk taking up the center of the room. A reading lamp splashes the dark oak desktop and an open book. Near the corner of the desk, a computer monitor bathes the desk in a bluish-green light.

On the far wall, lit by a lamp, hangs a large portrait of Yasmine, nearly nude in her chain mail dress. The painting feels alive, the warm brush strokes and stippling creates a living resemblance of the woman. As if pulled by the painting, he stands a foot away before he realizes he walked across the room.

Beside the painting, a shelf holds a black sword stand, a pair of carved dark hands holding a the slender, curving blade of a sword. He dares not touch the weapon as it is considered rude and an aggressive move. Instead, he leans closer and examines the waving pattern forged into the blade by a master.

Standing up straight, Steve spins around and clasps his hands behind his back.

A smirk on her face, Yasmine watches him.

"You are the next magistrate." Reaching up, he touches his head finding the soft bump where Kandy hit him. "Unless they pin vampire ice on you and take you out first."

"Sounds like all the pieces are coming together."

"Given that they haven't already executed you, then you must have a strong sponsor and good bodyguards." He glances around the empty room. If cameras roost, they are hidden.

"Don't worry, I told my guards how much you enjoy watching me undress." She bites on her finger and flashes a girlish grin. "So delightfully naughty, you are."

"How do I make an appointment with the current magistrate?"

"I'll make an appointment for you. Look for the bike messenger."

Gazing at Yasmine's playful smile, he considers Kandy watching from the car where he had the discussion with her moments earlier, a day ago, somewhere within Kandy's memory. Does she know he stands inside Yasmine's home? It might explain the attack at the club. At least now he knows how his unconscious body ended up at the crime scene.

Recovering from his thoughts, he realizes Yasmine's blazer is on the floor and her blouse hangs open exposing her bright red bra. Shaking his head, he steps back into the shadows. Yasmine pales away, and the room dissolves. He leaves the ghost behind.

~~~~

Following the note from the bike messenger, Steve finds a tall glass building, headquarters of Stratton Enterprises. He avoids security by stepping into the quiet place. No sense in turning over his gun. He nearly expects to dive underground to some secret dungeon, but the elevator carries him to the upper penthouse. The outer offices offer a view of city lights glowing within the drizzling haze. A guard opens a door into the core of the building, a dimly lit windowless vault.

His shoes tap on the black-and-white marble squares. Itoril seem to have admiration for checkerboards, or maybe his own interpretation of memories makes it seem that way. Standing against the wall, shady looking men in dark outfits watch him cross the room. Or it feels like they watch. It's hard to tell what they gaze at through their dark glasses.

"Welcome to Roseland," says a man, rising from behind a large oak desk standing on a dais. "I'm Charles Stratton. Magistrate."

Steve inclines his head.

"Mister Reynolds," says the magistrate. He pushes his golden hair from his shoulder and shakes his head. "It is customary to greet the magistrate and ask permission for operation within his domain on arrival. Yet, I hear you have been working within my city for several weeks."

"My apologies." Uncertain if he should bow, he nods. "I'm unfamiliar with many of the Itoril customs, and well, I'm not Itoril."

"Of course," says Stratton, nodding. "You seem quite human." He touches his finger to his chin. "How is it that Yasmine knows of you, and this is the first I'm learning of you?"

"Yasmine claims I saved her life when she was young. To my embarrassment, I must admit that I don't recall the event."

Stratton chuckles. "She's not a forgettable woman."

"Please, Magistrate Stratton, you have me at a disadvantage. I know nothing of what Yasmine may have mentioned, and I'm in need of education on Itoril politics."

"Of course," says Stratton, nodding. He glances over at the guard near the back corner, and sits. "Honestly, Yasmine has told me very little about you. Including the details about your business here in Roseland."

"I'm investigating a matter."

"The slaying of Itoril," says Stratton, his eyes narrowing. He glances over at the same guard. "For venom."

Heap of dark hair hanging over his shoulders, the guard stands motionless. Unlike the others, he doesn't hide his eyes behind dark glasses. Instead, he stares at the checkerboard floor.

Stratton throws his hand at the air. "We are conducting our own investigation. You need not worry. This matter is in capable hands."

"That might be the problem." Plucking his notepad from his pocket, Steve flips to the most recent entry. "Your capable hands is the subject of my inquiry here tonight."

Standing, Stratton leans over placing his hands on his desk. "Do you dare?"

"I do indeed, sir. Isn't the magistrate's office most capable of carrying out such a crime?" Pen extended, he points at each bodyguard ending with the one in the corner. "Extensive protection. Resources. An executioner at ready, and I assume a team to handle cleaning up. Wouldn't you say all the necessary resources are here?"

Stratton's blue eyes burn red.

Touching pen to paper, Steve sketches Stratton's pose capturing the hands on table, face of stone, and those fiery eyes. The sketch is crude, and more than recording the moment, he wants it to appear as if he has much to note.

"Hugo," says Stratton, snapping his fingers.

From the center of the west wall, the largest guard steps out of line.

"What does one do when the accused is the magistrate?"

Face going slack, Hugo gapes at the floor. Biting his lip, he looks up and faces the magistrate. "Go to a higher authority."

"No, Hugo." Stratton shakes his head. His eyes cool, and he stands up straight. "You're dismissed."

Head hanging, Hugo clomps out of the room.

"Someone else," says the magistrate. He nods at another guard. "You. What's your name?"

"Travis, sir," the guard says, stepping out of line.

"Travis, what do you do if the accused is the magistrate?"

"Sir," says Travis. He coughs. "Challenge the magistrate."

Stratton nods. "And in such a scenario, I have no doubt I would lose that challenge to such capable hands."

Travis nods and steps back in line.

Steve waves his pen in the air. "I'm not here to challenge you."

"No," says Stratton. He tightens the knot on his necktie. "You're merely pointing out the subject of this meeting. And to answer your question. Yes, I have all the necessary resources to carry out such a terrible crime and keep it secret from my superiors."

Feeling eyes watching him, Steve glances to the corner finding the guard staring directly at him.

"These are trying times," says Stratton, folding his arms. He gazes up at the dim globe lights in the ceiling. "Our numbers grow larger as each generation grows weaker. The youngest barely pass for Itoril. Shades of their ancestors."

Glancing, Steve spots the guard shaking his head at him. He turns his attention back on the magistrate.

"The elders are divided," says Stratton. He looks down at his empty desktop. "Some wish to eradicate these shades. Protect our interests through cleansing."

Steve jots down notes. Genocide is a last resort of the desperate.

"Yasmine has made the case to not merely blend in with society as many of us have done, but to bring humans into our world starting with the youth. Embrace change using the vampire mythos. 'Make it cool to be a vampire' as she likes to say. As you might imagine, this angers many of the elders."

Finishing his note, he glances to the corner finding the guard watching the floor.

Stratton glances at the corner and back. His face sours. "Yasmine sympathizes with tradition, but she recognizes that the world changes. The younger a person is, the more open she is to change. And Yasmine is quite young."

Steve nods and notes the details.

"Travis," says Stratton.

Travis steps out of line.

"Tell me the name of the man standing in the corner behind me."

Leaning to one side, Travis peers around the desk. Eyes squishing down tight, he searches the corner.

Steve spots the man without sunglasses still looking at the floor. He looks at Travis's puzzled face. Glancing back again, he finds nothing obstructing the view.

Travis shakes his head. "Sir?"

Studying the man in the corner, Steve spots a dark haze. The man stands just beyond the edge of shadows, which means he likely cannot hear the conversation. There are only a few Itoril with Kandy's skill, and it makes sense that the magistrate employs one as a personal bodyguard.

Noticing all eyes in his direction, the man steps out of the shadows. Stammering, the other guards glance around before standing at attention.

Stratton glares at the guards. "All of you remain here with Xavier. Mister Reynolds and I will step outside."

Outside the large office, a woman works at a desk near the window. Spotting the magistrate, she excuses herself and scurries to the elevator.

"I thank you, magistrate, for the demonstration." Steve glances out the window finding panels of light filling the shorter building across the street. Hanging from the clouds, tendrils grasp at the buildings. "I expected you would have someone, besides Kandy, with similar skill."

"You are a security risk."

"Should I assume my name is on your executioner's list?"

Stratton laughs. "Please. You're a risk, but not a danger. I mean look at you performing a service for Yasmine. You're a business man, Mister Reynolds."

"A working man is a safe man. Is that your position?"

"I'll be honest, Mister Reynolds," says Stratton. Lowering his head, he gazes at the ground and takes a breath. Returning his gaze, his expression turns grim. "Fear is a terrible sickness. You're not human. You're not Itoril. Nobody knows much of anything about you, and that frightens some. I must say, there are those that have pushed me in the past, but I have never entertained the execution option to merely put unwarranted fears at rest. As long as you don't threaten Itoril, I never will."

If the magistrate lies, he hides it well behind a perfect poker face.

Inclining his head, Steve says, "I thank you for your honesty."

"You didn't come here to ask about politics."

"How difficult is it to bottle venom?"

"A challenge, even assuming one is skilled enough to capture a mature Itoril and extract it from his living body. Expensive, even. You see, there are two chemicals which combine during the bite, and once mixed, the result quickly loses potency."

Finishing his note, Steve looks up from his pad. "So, one would need to store these chemicals in separate containers."

"And must be kept at body temperature. It's possible, Mister Reynolds, but a losing business plan."

Nodding, Steve jots a note as he speaks. "It would be easier for an Itoril to offer such services straight from the fangs."

Stratton laughs. "Yes. That sort of activity is frowned upon, but it happens."

He recalls Sabrina in the shower offering her arm to Kandy. A young woman trying to forget her past lives with an Itoril exchanging blood for a hit of memory loss.

Steve shakes his head. "I imagine such a symbiotic relationship is inevitable given an Itoril with a strong taste for blood."

"You'd make a great executioner."

"You already have a great executioner."

"I've sensed for some time that Kandy grows tired of her position, but she keeps at it. She'll never give in until her replacement takes the position from her. But I'm not speaking of myself. You'll make a great executioner for Yasmine."

Realization striking him, Steve shakes his head. "You're her sponsor."

"Of course," says Stratton, "we've won over some of the elders, but many hold onto their old ways."

"You don't think she's too young?"

"I never planned on giving up this position so soon, but in any case it's not about what I think, Mister Reynolds. It's about Fate."

"Fate?" He touches pen to pad, but stops uncertain what to write.

"Fate," says Stratton, "is the voice of everyone. Plotting a course through politics. Picking out clothes for work. Decisions. Listen to them and you will hear Fate. Certainly each decision on its own merit, there is free will, but all of them together creates a tangle we cannot, and sometimes dare not, escape from.

"If you could see the future, such as your own death." Stratton shakes his head. "No. Honor, accepting death, and all that gets in the way. If you could see the death of a loved one, like a child in a terrible accident, would you try to change it?"

Taking a deep breath, Steve nods. This is an exercise in logic and the misunderstanding of time. "Naturally," he says, "but if I change the outcome then I never truly see the future."

"Fate is cruel. If all the collective decisions lead to that death, then trying to change a few decisions will not alter the outcome. This is like this venom issue you find yourself mixed into. I saw the signs years ago. The fading of each generation. The struggle between the elders, some holding onto the past while others condemn the future. I saw this time coming, and I have a prediction for you, Steve Reynolds."

Lowering his notepad, Steve looks into the blue eyes finding fear.

"Very soon, Yasmine will become the first female magistrate in centuries. The youngest ever to hold the position. And the venom issue will go away."

"You must have a strong suspect."

"That's part of her cruelness." Stratton's expression turns cold, and the room seems to drop a few degrees. "No matter how long I stare at her tapestry, I cannot make out the threads."

Chapter 11: Confession

"They told me I'd find you here."

"Ah, Mister Reynolds," says Detective Silver, waving his hand. "I'm taking one last look before we release the scene."

"I remember what happened."

"Excellent."

Steve gazes down at the dance floor where Julio stood, at the nearby stone column. The stains are gone, but he spots an open folder in the detectives hand where a photograph reveals the blood.

After the talk with the magistrate about collective decisions, Fate and her tapestry, it feels as though he has been running on rails since the beginning.

Given the expense and complication of producing vampire ice, the venom issue must be a plot to convince the elders that they need change. That part seems straightforward. He has not seen any vampire ice. The vials at Torx's apartment could have held anything, and Torx gets his fix straight from Kandy. The forgetfulness nature of venom takes care of the rest. Considering distributing venom is expensive, and the complete lack of evidence, it seems likely it is just a rumor created by those that don't want to see Yasmine become magistrate.

It's Stratton's other implied message that chills his bones. Will the magistrate accept his end?

He clears his throat and says, "I was hit on the head."

His notes mention how Julio describes the incident. Two ghosts, a spray of blood from nowhere, and then nothing. There are very few that fit the description. Maybe Zee, but two others were present during the crime. Kandy and the wraith circling around the chaos, somewhere on the other side of the shadows.

"Do you remember who attacked you?"

He shakes his head as the image of Kandy striking him across the head burns into him. If Stratton never sent the executioner then something else must have motivated Kandy. Her dark expression, the determined killer eyes, hits him in the gut, and his suspicion of her attack returns to the stolen name.

Kandy knows he's a memory thief, and she knows something about his past that he doesn't recall. Something worth killing for.

"I'm sorry," says Steve, shaking his head. "There was a lot of confusion."

Nodding, Silver points at the dance floor. "What about the victim?"

"I wish I could be more help. I just wanted to let you know what I recall."

Silver nods. "Come by the station tomorrow. We have a lead on your identity."

"Truly?"

"I haven't had a chance to review it yet, but it sounds promising. We'll try to clear it all up together."

Steve wishes the detective good luck and climbs the stairs to the exit. The night air greets him with a chill. It feels strange that his own life might be within grasp, but his true identity is stranger still. He is a memory thief.

Chapter 12: Executions

Walking towards the Sanctuary, Steve flips through his notepad, scanning the pages.

There is no bottled venom, or vampire ice as the kids refer to it. Torx and Sabrina get their drug straight from the fangs. Given the memory loss symptom of the drug, and with a little psychological nudge, Torx would believe he accepts deliveries from Julio or others at Necropolis pinning Yasmine as the supplier. Kandy isn't behind it. She is a traditionalist with no interest in politics. And she is a killer. No matter how much she hates the idea of a young female magistrate, she would never take part in political treachery. A killer kills. No, it seems more likely that someone takes advantage of Kandy's lust for blood and her willingness to exchange a hit of venom, an activity frowned upon, but not necessarily illegal. Someone is trying to frame Kandy.

That leaves two suspects: Stratton and Zee. The magistrate seems hell-bent on proving a point to the elders, and the wobbly bandmate shows up at interesting places including Torx's apartment and popping out of a closet at the Sanctuary with a gun.

Among the pedestrians on the sidewalk ahead of him, he spots a slender shadow defying the light, a wraith. The creature turns his head, gazing back. Wispy smoke reveals shapes of its slender nose, cheeks, and broad chin. The eyes are dark pits. The wraith turns away, continuing its march.

Glancing back, Steve finds the same street full of pedestrians from memory. This is the place the wraith followed him, only now in front, a memory within a memory. Could the wraith be his shadow? It seems impossible, but there it is right where he remembers walking. As if reading his thoughts, the creature glances back a second time just as he had done before in its place.

A chill shakes him right to the core, and the wraith melts away.

Instead of paying the doorman, Steve steps into the quiet place and slips into the Sanctuary of Sin. It's the same night as before, the same bartender in her bow tie, but after the moment Kandy leads him to the room. He passes through the ethereal walls and finds his way to the dressing room. He returns to world standing behind Sin.

Wearing only black shoes, Sin stands bent over a table gazing into a brightly lit mirror. She applies lipstick smacking her lips together.

Gazing at the smooth curves over her backside, at her breasts hanging over the table, he feels embarrassment wash over from walking in on someone in a compromising position, into her private life. She hums a tune beyond her own awareness as she reaches behind and scratches her buttocks. It could be worse had he caught her on the toilet, but not as terrible as the thought crossing him.

Drink in her memories.

A beautiful young woman, an exotic dancer entertaining Itoril, must have interesting memories. Nasty thoughts come rushing in. What she likes during sex, her bathing preference, even her favorite foods seem like tantalizing appetizers on the way down, deep into her secret place. It's all there for the taking.

Stealing memories isn't just wrong, consumption means they also become part of him. All the secrets, the fear, the good and the bad become his memories like Torx, the original Steve Reynolds, and whatever other memories are already mixed inside. All those secrets become his burden.

The dancer's gaze meets his in the reflection. Holding the lipstick before her face, she watches him for what seems like eternity. The urge to consume her memories erupts, and he tastes them like the scent of home-baked goodies floating in the air. Going to school, eating strawberry ice cream, and hugging a stuffed toy bear. What would it be like to have a daughter? Go trick-or-treat. Watch her grow up, become a women. Would it even be possible to follow the transition? With all the memories getting mixed up distorting time, the only way might be to take in the memories and watch them like a movie.

Just one drink.

Devour her memories and know what growing up is like.

A shudder rushes down his spine, and he bites his lip holding back temptation.

The dancer spins around. Taking no effort to cover up, she stands there looking her intruder over. Her eyes flash to the closed door and back. "How did you get in here?"

"My apologies." Taking in a deep breath, he quiets the urge. He glances down at her bare breasts and pulls his gaze back up. "At the end of the first song, you must tell me to get the hell out."

Her face contorts into confusion.

Counting five hundred-dollar bills, he sets them on the table. "That's all. Just tell me to leave."

Turning to the door, he grabs the knob. It refuses him. Realizing the problem, he pushes the button in the center popping the lock. He exits into a dim hall and closes the door to Sin.

Palm to his head, he wipes sweat.

The original plan likely involves the shooter surprising him inside the room, but Sin's warning changes that. Using himself as bait might allow him to surprise the shooter, unless of course, the shooter has already thought of that. Or Kandy. What if the shooter is bait? Tracking down Kandy and getting caught wearing a different suit is too much of a risk.

Waiting is a risk. Kandy or the shooter may come along at any minute. Does walking in shadows mean the ability to find the right moment in time? That's just it. Time. Nothing slows down in that other world. It's perception. Like visiting the memories of the dancer, all he has to do is find the right one. The memory of the shooter waiting in the room. It's right there in memory.

Turning the corner into a short hall, Steve steps into the shadows. Peering through the walls, he finds the room with the door on the opposite side. It is a closet full of the ghostly shapes of brooms, mops, and dust bins. A shelf against the near wall holds boxes of cleaning supplies. Concentrating on the memory, he passes through the wall like a ghost.

Out of the violet gloom, a familiar form appears. Dressed in his dark rockstar clothes, Zee faces the other way with his feet wide apart. In his left hand, he holds a gun aimed out the crack in the open door. Finger squeezes trigger, a flicker ignites.

Steve lunges smashing into Zee's backside. Arms wrapping around, he grasps for the hand holding the gun. Chin against leather, he gazes over the shooter's shoulder down the length of the extended arm. Beyond the gun, out the door, a wraith occupies the hall.

The creature is shadow, dark wisps flowing behind. Even without color, there is no mistaking the suit he recalls wearing before bullet and blood ruined the shirt. Swinging to the side, the slender necktie erupts into smoke. Feet dissolve into nothing, smoky wisps climbing legs up over the hand holding gut. Erupting from the eye sockets, violet smoke flows back around its head. The wraith dissolves into the shadows.

Pinning Zee against the doorjamb, Steve pulls on the leather coat swinging the lanky man twirling around back into the closet knocking brooms over, a mop bucket rolls and bounces off the wall.

A gunshot smashes the air, and a box tumbles off the back shelf spilling green cleanser crystals onto the floor. Another gunshot, duller. The third shot sends tissue paper flying off the shelf.

Steve falls back into the shadows, silence surrounding him, but his ears continue ringing. Slipping from his grasp, Zee slides down fading into a ghostly figure, boots slipping on the floor kicking the ethereal mop bucket. The lanky man sits on the floor at Steve's feet, and the gun rests discarded between the outstretched legs. The world returns in a dull roar.

The Itoril coughs, the sound muffled behind the ringing. "Shit, man," says Zee. He coughs again. "That hurt."

Blood soaks Zee's shirt.

Glancing at spilled cleaners, at the scattered paper, at the shelf where the packages fell from, Steve realizes the shooter is on the other side of the wall. He spots three pinholes of light.

Reaching into his jacket, he draws his gun and pushes the safety off. Aiming at the wall, he fires repeatedly. Boxes scatters, papers flutter, and holes appear in the wall as the hollow point bullets scream into the hall on the other side. The gun kicks hard, but he keeps firing a swath of pinholes across the back wall. Julio delivered.

Emptying the gun, he steps into the shadows. Ringing fills his ears. He strides into the shelf and melts through the wall. Pulling the empty clip from the gun, he shoves it into his pocket and snatches the other. In the hall by the dressing room, he glances around and spots ghostly forms on the other side of the dressing room. Popping the clip in place, he storms the dressing room, passes through the wall and onto the stage.

Sin crouches against the bars, fear on her ethereal face. Sitting calmly in her seat, the Yasmine ghost watches Sin. The two Itoril dressed in business suits cower behind their chairs.

A body slams into him, arms wrapping around, knocking him through the brass pole and onto the floor sliding to the edge of the stage. His head rests within the ethereal bars. Recalling the test with the coffin, he imagines the pain of leaving the quiet place while material objects penetrate the body. He tries climbing to his feet, but a weight falls upon him pinning him to the floor.

Twisting around, Steve finds Zee. He appears to howl, but without sound it is more like a breathless cry, saliva dripping from his fangs. Steve hits Zee across the head with his gun, and wriggles free rolling onto his feet.

Circling the stage, Zee holds his bleeding gut with one hand and clenches his other hand into a fist. The old Itoril bares his fangs, and swings.

Stepping out of the quiet place, Steve meets Sin's shattering cry and evades the ghostly fist. Zee returns to the world shouldering him against the pole. Slipping across the shadows, Steve pulls on Zee's shirt and backs through the pole. Releasing hold of the shirt, he returns to the world, sounds popping in his ears.

Convulsing, Zee cries out spitting blood. The Itoril stands there held by the brass pole skewering him through the left leg and out his shoulder.

Steve watches as Zee moves in and out of the quiet place trying to pull free, but the pole shimmers in and out with him. The reverberating scream is agonizing to listen to and nearly drowns out Yasmine's enthusiastic applauding. Sick of the horrifying sounds, he returns to the quiet place.

Slow strides carry Steve out the open door into the front hall passing the two Itoril business men running in slow motion. They don't seem to notice him, a ghost blurring by in their perspective. He walks through the beaded curtain and finds his dark queen.

Dressed in her black dress, Kandy stands at the center of the checkerboard floor. In her right hand she holds a pistol. Her left hand wields a sword, curved blade pointing to the side.

Ghosts are immune to bullets. As long as they stay in the quiet place, it is a stand-off, their guns aimed with conviction waiting for the other to return to the world first. Timing is everything. The sword is for fighting within the shadows of the world. In this battle, Kandy has the upper hand.

There are no words in the quiet place, no sounds except for the fading ring droning inside his head. Kandy's eyes blaze, both with the iridescence of the Itoril blood seething inside her and the killer instinct.

Steve recalls the other night, sharing a bed with the killer. It seems strange that the woman before him is the same woman caring for Sabrina. The same Itoril that took his hand and helped him find the quiet place. Her face tells him that this moment on the chess board is business.

One foot over the other, Kandy takes a step closer.

This has to stop. He doesn't want to hurt her. Slowly, he lowers his gun and shakes his head.

Gun held steady, Kandy inches closer.

Steve returns to the world, and Kandy fires her gun. Instincts pull him back as he watches the flicker, the bullet escaping in slow motion and fading away. Timing the passing of the ethereal bullet, he aims his gun and pulls the trigger as he returns to the world. Leaping diagonally closing the distance, Kandy fires again. Bullets strike behind both of them cracking stone walls. In a zig-zag dance, the two close in on each other as they fire their guns.

A sting blazes inside his chest, and he tumbles sideways falling onto the floor. Another sting strikes him in the side. Twisting around on the floor, he fires his gun repeatedly, the explosions filling his ears. The killer comes at him like a blur, and he keeps shooting until the hammer clicks.

Standing over him, Kandy aims her gun at this chest and raises her sword. Her chest heaves, and blood runs down her leg onto her black boot.

"Please, Kandy." It feels like something slams him in the chest, and he clamps his hand over his heart feeling the moist slop soaking his shirt. "Kandy?"

The killer bites her lip and shakes her head. "By order of the magistrate, I hereby end your miserable life."

The sword slashes down blurring into a ghost, and Steve realizes he's in the quiet place. He feels his arms reaching out for Kandy, but his limbs do not move. His thoughts extend out, and he lets his hunger take control. The sword reappears slicing through wisps of violet turbulence of the shadow world.

Devour her memories and know life.

He swims into her thoughts and drinks her memories in. Like bubbles floating up around him, memories drift by. Touching them releases their bundles, moonlight glimmering off the lake, the musty scent of autumn, and sound of a beating heart. The scent of cinnamon beckons a campfire, and the taste of blood carries a warm wind. He dives into the abyss, drinking it all in.

The smell of burning wood, pine and ash, rides the wind. A spark breaks the darkness, and a pop disrupts the silence. From the depths, mumbling whispers rise into rabid howls, shouts call for pain and death. The spark erupts into a flame, a hungry blaze reaching for the twilight.

Gathered in a semi-circle, men dressed in cowboy hats and dingy overalls shake their fists and shout. Women wearing long dresses, several in bonnets, join the men. They scream blasphemes at the top of their lungs. At the focus of their relentless clamor, a young woman struggles against the bounds holding her to a post. Her free foot kicks at the wood piled around her, dust and paper swept away by the warm breeze. The smell of oil rises. Beside her, a woman in a dusty blue dress waves a burning torch as she shouts leading the crowd in a chorus of contempt.

Witchcraft and devilry, their accusations ride the wind.

The torch bearer turns to the prisoner, her expression dark, the icy glare of a killer. Kandy.

The prisoner thrashes around, her golden hair flying about her dirt covered face. She pulls at the rope tearing the sleeve from her dress. She spits and shouts, cursing the people. Younger, but there is no mistaking her curving form and deep blue eyes: Yasmine.

Kandy circles around touching the torch to paper and oil. Flames rise, flickering, dancing, puffing smoke taken by the wind. As the crowd roars with delight, Yasmine gazes over, tears streaming tracks down her dusty face. The fire eats at the end of her dress, a flicker climbs up the middle, and the garment billows up, cinders flying away.

This is Kandy's memory. In this little Texas town, Yasmine accidentally murdered the mayor's son. Self-defense, but her Itoril strength and vigor ripped the boy apart. It's all there for his tasting, and he feels Kandy's emotions pouring into him. She feels sadness for the young Yasmine, but her duty protecting the Itoril secrets holds her to this execution.

Yasmine cries, heaving fits, her face wrecked in anguish. Somehow she sees him, or his ghost, and meets his gaze. No words on the wind, no voice, just the pleading face, but he hears her call.

Ezekiel, my angel, rescue me from this nightmare.

Spotting a knife attached to the belt of the nearest man, he pulls the weapon from the sheath and strides directly towards the prisoner. Like a ghost he passes through the burning flames, the pile of wood, and returns. Heat blazes. He slices through the rope and scoops Yasmine into his arms, and crashes through the pile of wood. Dropping Yasmine onto her feet, he grasps the top of her dress and rips the fabric open releasing the flaming dress floating to the ground.

Lifting the young Itoril, he carries her into a violet storm of light and shadow. Smoky mists rising, another memory slips inside pulling the young Yasmine from his grasp. Diving into the abyss, he grasps at memories bubbling all around. Latching on to one, he drinks it in finding the smell of rain and leather, the soft driver's seat of Kandy's car.

Devour her memories and find the truth.

Chapter 13: My Fangs

I always knew there was something terribly wrong about him even before I bit him. He looks and smells so human, but his blood is death.

The rain comes and goes like a blues musician plucking away at the guitar searching for the right sound. It patters on the roof, trickles down the window. At the other end of the block, across the street at Necropolis, people wait in line as the doorman checks their passes. In the dreary night, their forms glow orange like an aura, all except the doorman. His Itoril body radiates a cool blue.

Above the club, somewhere behind the glossy windows within the dimly illuminated apartment, the owner, Yasmine, plans her transition into the role of magistrate years ahead of schedule. Stratton almost seems flummoxed by the sudden change of heart among key elders. It's her particular charm. As a babe, her lust for blood overwhelmed her glamour leading to a public execution. Maybe it was the threat of burning alive, or lessons from other Itoril. She has grown up considerably since that night.

The night I first saw him. What did Yasmine call him? Ezekiel. He had that same damn suit and tie he always likes wearing.

The car rocks and settles on its springs.

Glancing over at the passenger side, I see him. Like the other times over the last few days, he just appears. At the kill, twice at the house, he rises out of the shadows like a ghost. His aura appears so human. Steve. He calls himself Steve Reynolds.

Trying not to bring attention to his sudden arrival, I stare at the gauges behind the steering wheel. The fuel marker shows the tank on its last quarter. Searching for something to say, I realize I'm already blabbing about my job.

I tell him I always expected some honor maintaining the law among Itoril.

Spotting Steve staring out the windshield at the building across the street, I follow his gaze finding a light on in Yasmine's place. The Itoril woman insists on romancing the youth with vampire fantasies risking everything. For this, the magistrate fears her. And loves her for her boldness. Glancing back, I find Steve watching me.

His gaze pierces into me, but I hold on trying to make sense out of his blue eyes.

"This is a man's world, Steve," I say, only half paying attention to the conversation. "And the Itoril men want to make certain it remains that way."

"Didn't females once rule Itoril?"

A smile robs my composure. The man can't remember where he lives or anything from his childhood, but he remembers history lessons and other silly facts about the world. He knows it well, or at least as well as I do.

Those ancient women were monsters and deserved to die.

"Why don't you retire?"

Losing myself in his eyes, I force my gaze down at my hand squeezing the steering wheel. I feel him as if he's inside my head.

Death is the only retirement. It's the way it's always been with executioners, and the only way I'll have it.

I realize I'm rattling on again, something about my old club turning into a record store. Why do others remember a record store? Steve says something about the changing memories of the world.

He asks me about the quiet place. That's what he calls it. Purple Hell is a better name. There are things in there, hidden in the depths. Usually I just feel them, but sometimes I catch a glimpse of their smoky shapes. He wants to know how many Itoril can get there.

"Not many," I say. Closing my eyes, I picture the faces of the ones I've met with the skill. Stratton's bodyguard, Xavier, is a master. Zee can get lost in there for a bit. There was another man I saw once in there. "Some Itoril can appear to move fast for a short period, but very few know about the quiet place. I didn't before I met you."

Steve screams, a painful howl.

Opening my eyes, I find I'm alone in the car.

Peering through the raindrops on the glass, I find the illuminated window above Necropolis. A dark shape moves before the light; someone stands at the window. Not Yasmine, it's a man's form. Steve works for her, if not for her charm then her money.

Reaching into my coat pocket, I tug an envelope out and study the blue seal, the jagged crack cutting through the impression of three crossed swords, the symbol of the magistrate's office. Sometimes they arrive directly from the magistrate. Other times Zee delivers them as he did this one twenty years ago. Pulling the card out, I read it for the fifth time this week.

Steve Reynolds a.k.a. Ezekiel.

Whatever the reason, it may have been forgotten, but law is law and the execution order still stands. How does one kill a ghost? I push the card inside the envelope and shove it inside my pocket.

I curse at the rain, and turn the ignition. The engine erupts, cylinders pounding into a roar, music to my ears. Slipping into gear, I work the throttle controlling wheel spin, and drive frightening clubbers off the street. I flash my headlights at a man lumbering on the crosswalk against the light. He doesn't respond, so I push the throttle eliciting a roar that gets the jaywalker's attention.

I curse at the man.

Leaving the lights off, I wind my way into the bad part of Roseland. Passing streetlamps are yellow clouds like dragon's vapor. Slamming my fist on the steering wheel, I yell an obscenity. A heavy lump slides into my gut. Accelerating onto the freeway, I speed around cars listening to their blaring horns receding behind me. I drive, water howling in the wheel wells, my car tearing up the night.

I curse Steve Reynolds.

The dead should stay dead.

~~~~

Rounding the corner of the creaking staircase, I catch a violet glimmer on the floor below. Leaning over the handrail, I search the stairs winding around the pit to the lobby four floors down. Decay and rot flow down the steps. Dampness rises up the well. Thumping music permeating the walls nearly drowns out the carnal sounds of lovemaking. Nothing stirs on the stairs.

Reaching into my coat, I wrap my fingers around the handle of my gun strapped under my arm. Tingles race down into my legs. It isn't nerves, or the sinking feeling in my gut that holds me. I know it's him. His scent rides on a wave of mold.

It's not amnesia. That's for damn sure. Maybe Steve doesn't have memories of his own, instead surviving on the memories borrowed from others. Like his knowledge of history, and how he seems to know how I like being kissed. And backwards. Except for the borrowed memories, everything seems new to him. He doesn't remember our past because it's in his future. Like him wearing a modern suit over a century ago, appearing out of nowhere to rescue Yasmine. The creepiness of it all sends shivers down my arms.

The dead should stay dead and out of my head.

I listen to the gasping breaths, squeals of delight, and bedposts banging the wall behind me. If Steve is here, he is on the other side of the shadows. Purple Hell. Stepping away from the handrail, I lean against the wall letting the beat creep inside. The booming electronic music upstairs works into the wall shattering bliss. I consider slipping inside, watch the sweaty bodies move to their music, listen to their heartbeats. Laughter rumbles upstairs. Hunger calls.

The room is three doors from the stairs beneath a buzzing light. Music thunders within. There's a party here nearly every week, and plenty of tasty morsels. Without knocking, without opening the door, I step into the shadows, my foot passing through the ethereal door. It's a trick Steve taught me. Glancing around the rising purple mist, I search for him. Nothing, not even one of those creepy shadow things. I slip inside the smoky den.

The chatter roars fighting the blaring stereo system for attention. On the table near the door, sticky pizza leaves cheese trails back to stained boxes. Bottles in hands, they chat in small groups taking chugs between chortles or drags on cigarettes. On the sofa, two topless women bounce and dance spilling beer. Orange and yellow auras rise from their warm flesh.

Intoxication makes it easier, but too much alcohol spoils the meal.

Riding the edge of shadows in and out of the silence, I make my rounds. Stepping back into the world, music thundering, I let a man catch a glimpse of me. Gliding behind a woman in dark clothing, I slip back into the silence. Drifting deeper into the shadows, their forms pale into ethereal, nearly frozen shapes. Selecting another, a topless girl on the sofa, I position myself in her line of sight and return, the thud of music and laughter slamming my ears. She spots me and returns my smile, then turns her attention back on her dance partner. Looking at the other topless girl, I recognize Sabrina painted in dark mascara and black lipstick. What is she doing here? Slipping back into the shadows, I continue browsing the selections nearly frozen in their time. Finding potential targets at the back, I return to the world.

In the corner, a man leans in close to a woman talking her up and out of her blouse hanging from her shoulders. His finger traces the black strap onto lacy fabric. She bats his hand away and grins into a giggle.

I lean against the wall between the amorous couple and door opened a crack. Tapping my leg and nodding my head to the beat, I scan the room. A girl topples backward off the couch knocking a lamp over. Laughter erupts, and several men raise their bottles in a cheer. Taking advantage of the distraction, I push the door open and peek inside. A bathtub rests along the wall on the far and toilet on the near side. Empty. Turning my attention back to the party, I find the couple in the corner hugging each other. The woman runs her hand over the prickly unshaven face while the man watches me.

I smile.

He nods.

They tell me their names. Monica is a student of economics, and Tim enjoys riding dirt bikes. I mention I'm looking to party and motion at the bathroom door.

"Three hundred," says Monica. Her grin could melt a man. "For the both of you."

Tim steps back, and his jaw drops. "You're a hooker?'

The night is looking up. I consider offering another location, somewhere discreet, but my gut churns telling me to get on with it. I'm not like one of those girls that tries to call it cravings or other pretty words. This is an addiction, and I damn well need satisfaction. Feeding is messy, and the tub will do nicely.

After Tim storms off, I separate my prey from the herd leading Monica into the bathroom and close the door. I slide the lock home and turn around finding the woman dropping her skirt. I tell her I like to bite.

"Okay," says Monica, laughing. "But I'll have to ask for extra. You know, marks and all."

Clearly the prostitute isn't knowledgeable of my kind, so I'll have to work my dance. Removing my coat, I nod my head to the beat pounding the apartment. I slip the holster off my shoulder and set the gun in the sink.

"Are you a cop?" Monica stands there holding her breasts in her hands.

"No," I say, smiling. "I have a permit to carry." It's true. I'm fully registered, but not with this gun. I hold up a pair of hundred-dollar bills and drop them on the edge of the sink.

Monica climbs into the tub, starts the shower, and begins dancing to the music. Turning in the spray, she wiggles and grooves. At my age it's hard to tell, but the girl appears young with tits too perky and flesh too tight. Scrawny, for my taste. And my bite. Fleshy is less painful for the victim, and easier on me.

A knock rattles the door.

"Occupied," I say. Setting my hands on the sink, I hang my head. Sometimes it takes concentration, especially when the hunger is this bad. I need to focus.

"Hello?" It's Sabrina. She knocks again.

Monica continues grooving in the shower.

Looking at my hands, I see a wristwatch on my left arm. A man's accessory and it looks similar to Steve's old analog watch. I stare at it trying to recall putting it on. Did he leave it the other night? On the nightstand. That must be it. Having a thing for a mark is bad for business. A thing for a dead guy could be considered crazy under normal circumstances, but there isn't anything normal about Steve.

After the third knock, I spin around and throw the door open.

Bouncing on her toes, Sabrina holds her crotch in one hand and covers her bare breasts with the other. "Sorry," she says. The girl seems a foot shorter somehow. Spotting Monica in the shower, her face sours. "I really have to pee."

A familiar chuckle catches my attention, and I search the crowd spotting Zee standing beside the pizza table. Talking to three young men, swaying in his strange way, he waves a wired tray of glass vials around. After Sabrina squeezes inside, I hold the door nearly closed and peer through the crack watching the old Itoril talk the men up. One of the men holds a vial up in the light. The contents appear a milky.

Keeping my eye on Zee, I ask Sabrina about the skinny man in leather.

"Vampire ice," says Sabrina. "It's bullshit, but that's what he says."

Closing the door, I lean against the wall.

Panties hanging around her ankles, Sabrina sits on the toilet with her hands cupped over her breasts as if shyness has overcome her. She tells me about how Zee is spreading word about some guy named Julio.

The only sensible reason is that Zee is trying to pin the venom thing on Yasmine. On the other hand, coming around my hangouts makes it look like he's trying to get me into trouble. It's no secret this is one of my stops.

Monica laughs and says, "Steve Reynolds told me Necropolis has vampire ice. I thought it was some new drink, not a party drug."

I give Monica my confused, but very concerned look. Steve would never spread rumors. Besides, how does she know Steve?

Monica stops wiggling, and shrugs at the door. "Torx, I mean. He likes to go by Torx."

It's too much of a coincidence that the kid leasing this apartment shares a name with Steve. Is this where it started? It makes a strange sort of sense. The man forgetting everything takes a name from someone else. Shaking my head, I turn my attention back on the vials of whatever concoction. I need to talk to Zee. Put off snacking and deal with this fake venom issue.

"Hey," I say, snapping my fingers. "How about we go back to my place? The three of us."

Monica shakes her head and frowns.

Standing, Sabrina snaps her panties in place and returns to cupping her breasts. Seeing the sour expression dipped in fear on her face as she passes, I feel my gut drop. The girl is acting peculiar. Icy prickles race into my legs.

Looking at the watch, I find a masculine hand. Touching my head, I feel short prickly hair. His hair. In a step, I'm standing before the mirror and into the face of Steve Reynolds and his menacing blue eyes. I grab the gun from the sink. Stumbling back, I'm consumed by Purple Hell, the walls turn misty as I pass through, and a violet storm of clouds erupt overhead. Catching my footing, I spin around on the cracked desert landscape, and come stomping back onto the carpeted floor of the apartment meeting the sound of breaking glass.

Beside a pizza box, smashed clear shards rest on the moist table. The stuff smells a little like vinegar and some chemical, nothing like venom. And my hand on the glass shards. It's my hand, slender fingers and all dripping blood from a cut. The wristwatch is gone as well. Catching my eye, I see it. Like a shadow defying light, a wraith sits at the table watching the smashed vials.

Rising violet smoke surrounds me, Purple Hell swallows me whole, the silence slamming down.

My scream beats the walls, and I open my eyes to near darkness, and the smell of my satin sheets soaked in sweat. Throwing off the covers, I grab at my head finding strands of long hair. Slapping my hands over my chest, I squeeze my breasts confirming they are mine. I sit alone in my bedroom with a groggy weight pulling my head down.

My hair, my boobs, my bed.

Feeling doubt creeping under my skin, I race across the bedroom, throw the door open, and take the stairs three steps at a time feeling the cool air rushing over my damp flesh. Lucifer leaps out of the way, his white fur glowing on the dark staircase. At the end of the hall, my bare feet slip on the cold tile as I grasp for the sink. Latching on, I pull my face to the mirror.

In the darkness, I can see my aura glowing from my arms. Hotter than normal, it almost appears violet with a touch of red instead of the cool blue. I find my face in the mirror. Auras never reflect, but I imagine my face on fire burning red. And it's my face, my dark eyes looking back at me. I brush my hair back and touch my breasts making sure I'm real.

My hair, my face, my boobs. I run my tongue over my teeth feeling the comfort of my slender canines.

My fangs.

Leaning over the sink, I look closer at my eyes. "Steve," I say to the reflection. "Are you in there?"

None of this makes sense. Back at the apartment, was that his memory? No, it had to be mine. Somehow, he's in my head. That's all. Before I met Steve I didn't know how to find Purple Hell, but now it finds me transferring me from one place to another like a bad dream. Steve is pulling me over.

My thoughts return to twenty years ago, Steve laying on the checkerboard floor. At the end of my sword, his body fades into violet smoke leaving a pool of blood behind.

Something moves in the reflection, and I spin around finding the wraith standing in the doorway. The creature is all shadow with deep purple accents, but I can make out the tie and the buzzed haircut of Steve, dark tendrils rising like smoke. From the dark pits of his eyes, nebulous violet smoke pours out curling around his head.

A yelp escapes my throat, and I tumble over, the cold tile slapping my flesh.

Light explodes, and I smash my eyes shut. Sabrina's voice, a whimper of concern crawls closer. She asks if I'm okay. I nod my head feeling my insides sloshing around. Pulling my eyes open, I see Sabrina in her pajamas kneeling beside me. Orange radiates off her flesh, and her heart pounds like a drum. The doorway behind her is empty.

"You look terrible," says Sabrina, shaking her head. "Do you need a bite?"

I do. My gut feels empty, my tongue is dry, and my hands shake like an addict.

"But not my arm," says Sabrina. "My arm is still sore." She pulls her pajama bottoms down. "How about my leg?"

"Steve," I say. I grab her leg feeling her warm thigh. The sound of her heart pounds into my head. I'm uncertain how much I might be able to restrain myself. "Where's Steve?"

Sabrina scrunches her face. "Who?"

"Steve Reynolds."

"Torx?" Sabrina crawls out of her pajama bottoms and tosses them on the floor behind her.

"No, the guy that was here." Looking up, I find confusion on the girl's face that sends my gut lurching. "Tall, buzzed hair," I say, describing the wraith I just saw. I leave out the smoky tendrils and glowing violet eyes, and get back to the man.

"He was shot," I say, "and he stayed with me after I got sick."

Sabrina shakes her head appearing confused.

Of course she doesn't remember. With so much of my venom in her, Sabrina doesn't remember much of anything anymore.

Resting my face on her warm thigh, I kiss her flesh. "What about at Torx's place? Do you remember seeing me there?"

"Sure." Sabrina leans back on her elbows. "I don't know why you bother when you have me. Don't you love me?"

The sound of my fangs breaking flesh crawls into my head before Sabrina's scream fills the bathroom. Cool toxins flow out, warmth rushes inside. Some of it gurgles out from under my lips, and I chase it with my tongue feeling my insides heat into a raging fire. As I lay there lapping blood from Sabrina's thigh and off the gritty tile, I can't help but wonder if Steve is sharing this memory with me.

Chapter 14: Final Dance

Sneaking weapons into a club isn't something I normally consider given the authority of my position, but when I'm carrying enough hardware to make a distraught postal worker appear like cuddly toy bear I have to think through my options. Walking in shadow-time is easy enough, but that's where Steve lives. I keep hearing his voice, a whisper calling my name. His scent lingers in the damp air. He steals memories, and the best I can figure is he took mine that night when he lay bleeding on my checkerboard floor. He did something before disappearing into violet smoke, and he's been haunting me ever since. There's only so much shit a girl can deal with.

The line at Necropolis is longer than usual full of young people wearing clothes too skimpy for the cold Autumn night. They bounce about or hug each other for warmth. I'm in my black party dress, and why not? At least I have my coat on. Behind me, a young man holds two young women in his muscular arms. He has that cocky look on his face like he's God's gift to the world. I'd love a bite of him, and his lovely ladies. Pulling my gaze from the morsels, I scan the street for danger. No Itoril thugs or creepy wraiths. The scent of rain mixed with cheap body spray hangs in the air.

Hearing my name, I spin around spotting the doorman, Axe, waving me over. Passing irritated faces, I march to the front of the line.

"What's in the bag?" says Axe, wrinkling his brow. A vein rises on his bald head, but his body glow remains cool.

I press a hundred dollars into the doorman's palm and say, "What bag?"

Axe laughs and says, "Just try not to wreck the place."

Necropolis swallows me, doors banging shut. Striding down the stairs, the electronica works into my legs, and I bounce to the beat. If not an executioner, I'd be a dancer. Can't beat getting paid to dance all night.

I don't know if it's even possible to push Steve into another head. Memory thief. Is it truly him? Or does the wraith have him? Sucking the memories out of someone has to be the most invasive intrusion imaginable. Finding another victim isn't tough. Original Steve Reynolds, Torx, is apparently a mind he's at least lifted the name from if not indulged in. I'm certain Torx will take to the vampire ice rumor and arrive looking for a good time.

If the wraith doesn't accept my offering, then it's going to end one way or another. Kill the wraith, and be free of the torment. Or die and be free of it all. Retirement is permanent for executioners.

There's plenty of open space on the dance floor at the early hour. On the stage, a disc jockey with a tired expression works his machine. Hopefully the main band is loud enough to hide the screams, if it comes to that. Maybe Torx can handle a little bite. Passing the dance floor, I dive into the dark back hall coming to a closed black curtain.

Peeling the curtain aside, I find a dressing room lit by circles of glowing bulbs around mirrors on the left wall. At the back, a shower drips on the tile. Lockers occupy the wall on the right where a young woman sets a black purse on the floor of an open locker. Walking to the locker on the near end, I open the door. It squeaks, so I close it and try another. It's tall, nearly big enough for a small person to squeeze inside.

The woman, one of the podium dancers if I remember correctly, glares at me. "You're not supposed to be in here," she says. "I'll call security."

Opening my bag, I pull out my shotgun and lean it, barrel up, inside the locker. Holding my katana, I pop the blade free checking friction, and push it closed. I lean the sword into the other corner. On the shelf, I set several spare ammunition clips for my handgun.

"You can't do that." The dancer folds her arms in defiance, but her scowl gives way to fear. The girl glows hot like a human and smells just as nice. "I'm calling the cops."

"You do that." Shrugging out of my coat, I hang it on the hook inside the locker and close the door.

"I will," says the dancer, stomping her foot.

I fasten my lock and give it a tug clanging the door. "Did you want to borrow my phone?"

The scowl returns. "Bitch."

"Sugar and spice," I say, singing. Raising my hand, I hold the chain dangling the locker key from my fingers. "Take it."

"What am I supposed to do with that?"

"You can show the cops my weapons or return the key to me at closing."

The dancer appears uncertain at first, but reaches out and snatches the key. She loops the chain over her head and stuffs the key into her cleavage. "Okay," she says, "but if I don't see you dancing out there, I'm calling the cops."

It's a deal that doesn't cost me any money.

Bag scrunched under my arm, I climb the back stairs to my second stash location, the VIP lounge. Slipping through the curtain, I enter the lounge lit by candles perched on the wall above leather sofas. Small lamps glow over the bar opposite the sofas. Standing in the corner, the bouncer dressed in a tight black shirt nearly blends in with the dark walls. He nods at me. I don't recognize him, so I smile showing off my pearly whites. Fang flashing is the customary way of establishing position. He doesn't show me his teeth; he accepts my dominance. Only a fool wouldn't.

At Necropolis, VIP refers to Itoril. The only humans that ever enter the lounge are club staff, entertainment, and menu items. Here, Itoril are free to be themselves. In the old days that sometimes meant stupid activities like shooting each other in the gut to see which one could take the most pain. Since then, Yasmine started enforcing a no-weapons rule, but that doesn't stop me.

The bartender, Nathaniel, dresses like people did nearly a century ago complete with puffy sleeves and a bow tie. Nobody else dresses in costume. Spotting me approach, Nathaniel raises a bottle offering o-negative.

"I don't know," I say, smiling. I can taste it teasing my tongue already. Nathaniel takes good care of his customers, always remembering favorite drinks delivered with a broad smile. I always appreciate good service, and it's one of the things I like about Necropolis. "I need the balcony room for the evening."

Even frowning, the man still appears happy. "Kandy, dear," he says, "that's Yasmine's room."

"Tell her I'm sorry, Nathaniel." I fan ten twenties on the bar.

His smile returns, and he swipes the dollars away. "I'm certain she'll understand." He pops the cork from the bottle releasing the scent of blood. "Enjoy."

Taking the bottle, I spin around and march into the balcony room closing the door behind me. A sofa sits beside a table against the glass wall overlooking the dance floor below. Music pounds through the floor calling me. Taking a chug from the bottle, I taste the sweet blood splashing in my mouth. The donor must be young, and female with good eating habits except for a chocolate weakness. She tastes too damn good. I take another gulp, and march over to the sofa.

I set the bottle on the table. Throwing the bag on the sofa, I open it and remove my pistol. Sliding the clip, I check my ammunition. Hollow point. I have my doubts that it will be enough to stop a wraith, but any Itoril getting in my way will think twice. Satisfied, I push the gun into the sofa cushion.

The music ends, and my heart sinks.

Pushing the backup clip between my cleavage, I squeeze it into the pocket sewn inside my dress. After stuffing the bag under the sofa, I stand at the window pressing my palms against the cool glass.

For a moment, I stare at my reflection–my ghost in a party dress. Something Steve mentioned creeps into my thoughts. Time is an illusion, and memories are the ghosts we cling to making it appear we have a past.

The stage crew warms up the instruments, plucking at the guitars and banging on the drums. They test the sound system as the disc jockey pushes his cart off stage. People stream down the steel stairs, some onto the dance floor and others lining up at the bar hidden beneath my feet.

Steve will be here. I know, because when he stole my memories somehow some of his dripped into mine. His past is my future, and my ghosts are his. They'll all be down there, original Steve and the memory-eating wraith. Or maybe it's not his memories mixing with mine. Could the memory from down there on the dance floor originate from me? It's my ghost he took twenty years ago, and he's been haunting me since.

He knows all my secrets. How I like being touched. My desires. That's how he got to me. He charmed me with my own thoughts.

Pulling the paper, the kill order, from my pocket, I unfold it and read it again. It's just his name handwritten on the page. I should have finished the job twenty years ago. Tonight, I'll end it.

Grabbing the bottle, I take a sip and cross the room. Opening the door, I find Zee leaning against the bar with a wine glass in hand.

"What the hell, Zee?" I slam the bottle on the table. "Why are you passing fake venom?"

"Covering your ass, babe." Swaying to the side, he clinks his glass against my bottle.

"Hell you are. You're passing that shit around my haunts."

"Deflecting attention."

"Yasmine hired Steve Reynolds about your venom thing. She probably already knows all about it."

Nathaniel pours whiskey into three glasses. I glance around, but I don't see anyone else besides the bouncer. One of the other rooms must be occupied.

Zee wobbles to one side, his eyes zipping in the opposite direction, and sways back again, confusion filling his face. "She hired that drug addict?"

"The other Steve. The guy hanging out with us the other night at Midnight Dream. Amnesia guy."

Zee shakes his head, confusion twisting into that concerned look reserved for crazy people.

I push the kill order into his hand, crumpling paper. "This guy. Twenty years ago, you delivered this order and helped me track the guy down at my club where I executed him."

Unfolding the paper, Zee reads the note. Shrugging, he drops the paper on the bar.

"Steve is back from the dead."

"Shit, babe. You're starting to scare me."

"Don't worry. I'm taking care of it."

"You've never failed, and I don't even know what guy you're talking about."

I grab the bottle and gulp down the remaining contents.

Leaning against the bar, Zee shakes his head. "I never delivered this order."

"Twenty years ago, Zee. I executed him at my club. Or thought I did."

"You never had a club," says, Zee. His face sags, and he flashes a look at Nathaniel.

Spinning around, the bartender disappears into the back room.

"Sanctuary of Sin," I say, determined to knock some sense into the old Itoril.

"Before the Sanctuary of Sorrows, that building was a record store."

Not again with the record store.

"Your record store where we used to jam in the back."

I stand still watching Zee, and I see on his face that he sees the frustration on mine. I can also tell he's going to call the magistrate. There is nothing more dangerous than an executioner out of her mind talking about imaginary clubs and twenty year-old kill orders.

"Please, Zee. Give me a little while and I'll have my mark. Then everything will be right as rain again."

Picking up the note, Zee reads it and holds it out. "Babe, for all I know, you wrote this kill order. And that has me scared to the bones."

I can't believe it. Zee doesn't even remember the club.

Grabbing the kill order, I stuff it in my pocket and storm back down the stairs. The music works into me, and my step lightens, boots tapping steel.

Dark shapes appear. Swooning and swaying, the hazy shapes surround me. They appear like smoke, their swooning motions leave wispy trails. They dance in slow motion. Turning around, I find more of them, a mass of smoky forms in every direction. They dance, waving arms building smoky clouds above their heads.

Purple haze lifting, dancers increasing in speed, the smoke trails fade leaving solid forms. Clothing ripples out of the blackness. The ghosts dance, their pale forms turning and moving on a wood floor. Dark columns holding purple rods rise up into a white fog where lights spin splashing red like blood dripping from the mist.

Thunder erupts, pounding into the floor. Another dull boom, and another, the increasing beat becoming alive, sharpening. The dancers stomp to the beat, their movements increasing in speed. A chorus of guitars join in, and music explodes.

The prickly sensation of déjà vu crawls beneath my skin.

Standing at the center of the dance floor, I search the crowd for Steve. White shirts and waving colored bracelets glow in the black light. Some of the eyes glow as well like phosphorous disc floating on white orbs. The discs bounce and weave. The floor shakes to the beat of the drums and dancing feet.

On the stage, a woman with deep crimson hair screams into a microphone. Her voice, harsh, shouts about blood and death. Behind her, the band shakes their heads and stomp while they work the music into a demonic chorus.

I dance into a storm riding the edge of shadows, my dress floating about me like smoke.

Spotting a familiar face watching me, I dance my way towards him. Watching in wonder as I defy the light, the crowd parts for me. The young man doesn't look much like Steve. Shorter and too scrawny, the young thing appears to lack confidence dropping his gaze from mine. The sea of sweaty bodies flows away, and I swoop in on my prey.

He tells me his name.

Satisfied I have Torx, I smile and say, "Nice to meet you, Steve Reynolds."

Standing right behind Torx is a wraith smoking in and out of the shadows like a dark fire eating the air.

"I'm sweet like candy," I say. The sinking feeling of having done this before pulls at me. My feet grow heavy. I spin away from the wraith, and tug at Torx's hand. Glancing back, I say, "with a K."

This is my memory playing out. My memory eaten by Steve, returning to me because he's in my head and has been all this time. He never stole this man's memories, not all of it. He might have peeked inside and only taken a taste.

It all starts making a twisted sort of sense, the déjà vu and my old club Steve has been visiting. It's like time travel, but Steve calls it revisiting a memory. Somehow something changed there in that moment I thought I had killed him. Some serious messing with Fate's tapestry.

"I'm looking for vampire ice," says Torx.

"I have what you need," I say, pulling my prey onto the back stairs.

Glancing back, I search the dance floor. The wraith is gone, but I spot Stratton and his bodyguard slinking through the crowd. I curse Zee. I curse the magistrate for getting here so fast. Feeling time crushing down on me, I pull Torx stumbling up the stairs and into the VIP lounge. I push him into the balcony room and slam the door closed.

The music is loud as ever, pulsing through the glass and trembling across the floor. My groove cuts a line down the center. At the sofa, I spin around and wave my hand in a come hither. Money already in hand, Torx approaches with a goofy grin on his face. Sometimes I can't believe how willingly they come, but without venom it would be a savage pain even masochists would deny.

Holding out the money, Torx takes a wobbly step closer. His face loses color, and his gaze drops to my midsection. He asks if this is going to hurt.

With both hands, I grab the extended arm, pulling the sleeve up. Pushing his shoulder up, his arm backward against his elbow, I lock my prey into a prone position dancing on his toes in a fit of pain. I bite down crunching through tendons, blood shooting out.

In a violent spasm, Torx screams like a girl.

Cool toxins flow out, and warmth gushes inside. More than I can handle, blood rushes down my chin splashing onto my dress and onto the floor. I taste the alcohol, the drugs, and a lifetime of poor eating. There is nothing sweet about Torx.

Looking up, I find my mark standing in the room. The same business suit, the same buzzed hair, but he appears more like a wraith. He watches me with his nebulous violet eyes spewing smoky wisps curling over his head. Is this my Steve? I realize I've already given up drinking, the mess dripping on the floor.

Take him.

I'm uncertain if he can read my thoughts, but if he's eating my memories, certainly he remembers them.

Take him, wraith!

The wraith doesn't move, but I feel it draw closer. The grin appears to shift between cruel, love, and thirsty. Yes, terribly thirsty. The wraith wants it all, suck my life down, feast on my private thoughts and deepest secrets.

Realizing he has no interest in my offering, I release Torx and spin around stepping into shadow-time. Reaching into the sofa cushion, I grab my gun and twirl around through the rising purple mist stepping back into normal time, gun aimed at my target.

Gun oil tickles my nose.

I pull the trigger, and the world falls into slow motion. He moves, not in physical relation to me, but in shadow-time. His buzzed hair turns smoky, dark wisps rising, and his body fades into a ghostly, dark form. His luminous eyes sparks violet energy leaving a trail of tendrils behind him. He closes in, creeping within the violet shadows.

Unwilling to surrender my remaining secrets to him, I dive deeper into our entanglement straight into his Purple Hell.

The hammer pops, thunder growing quiet, swallowed by silence.

Walls crumbling away, ceiling fading, a violet storm erupts consuming the club as I backpedal through the ethereal sofa fading away, through the window. Falling, I watch the dark purple clouds raging across the sky and the wraith diving after me, arms reaching out. I fire my gun again watching the bullet disappear back into normal time.

Even in Purple Hell, gravity is a killer. Only the hard desert floor awaits me, so I twist around reaching for the other side. Through a curtain of shadows, a spray of mist, I find the dance floor rushing up at me. Moving in slow motion, two ghostly forms dance on the pedestal beneath me. I slip into normal time and fall upon a dancing girl.

An explosion of splintering wood, the pedestal collapses. I feel bones crunch beneath me as I topple over the girl rolling onto wood, another body, and onto the floor. A cloud of dust rises, and people dive away blinking in and out beneath the strobe light.

Standing, I enter the quiet place. My gun is gone, but it's useless on this side of the shadows. Glancing over my shoulder, I spot the wraith, a slender dark form dressed in a black suit leaving a trail of black and violet smoke. His nebulous eyes explode into a purple fire full of hunger. I race around nearly frozen ghosts, catching an arm passing through me leaving a shiver of tingles. Spotting the hall, I charge through the hazy wall into the dressing room.

Turning for the locker, I bite my lip, concentrating, and pull my arms in, ducking, making myself as small as I can. A short step, I pass through the slender steel door, hoping like hell I fit inside. Another short step, skipping back into the world, I clasp my sword hugging it to me, and slip back into the quiet place, passing through the wall and spilling into another room.

Two ghostly men stand at urinals, and I feel relieved that the smell of urine and those damn deodorizer discs remain locked away outside the quiet place, but the memory attacks my nose turning my gut. Sinks behind me, trash bin beside the air hand dryers in front of me, I turn facing the closed door in the corner where I spot the wraith melting through the wood.

No longer appearing much like Steve, the wraith is a shadow defying the light. Violet smoke pours from the pits of eyes, but otherwise darkness. I can only hope killing this thing will free Steve. Free me. Smoky appendages fly out, slender claws cracking with dark energy.

Diving backward, I tumble through the ethereal wall and return to the world, music crashing into my head. Leaping to my feet, I find throngs of people hurrying off the dance floor, passing confused faces of others, onto the steel stairs for the exit. And there I find him dressed in a white shirt without his tie, his blue eyes wide with confusion, moving with the sea of bodies.

My Steve spots me, our gazes connect. He doesn't recognize me at first, and even then the moment passes, and he glances around as if lost.

The wraith emerges through the wall, and Steve stands frozen.

In a flash, my arms come to life, and I swing my sword upward, the sheath bashing across Steve's head knocking the man over and fading into a ghost passing into the shadows. A dark claw lashes out, and I duck into the quiet place searching for Steve. Spotting his ethereal form fading away, I follow him into Purple Hell, my shoes skittering on the cracked soil.

Steve is gone. Spinning around, I search the desert finding black and violet clouds churning away on horizons. He must have passed back to the other side. Completing another circle, I spot a black fog rising from the ground spiraling into a vortex of violet electrical sparks and churning black smoke.

Watching the wraith emerge from the vortex, I pull my blade free and toss the sheath aside. Dressed in a black cloak, its splotchy, cracked skull peeks out from beneath the hood. He gazes at me with his pinpoints of light within eye sockets, violet smoke spilling down over jagged cheek bones. From between his rotten teeth, smoke gathers around his slender fangs and drips like blood onto his cloak. Preparing to strike, I hold my sword overhead.

He speaks, not with a voice in this silent world, but an invading thought inside my head sending a shower of painful prickles down into my neck.

Kandy, will you bleed for me?

Hell no.

Here on this side, I imagine is the only place I can kill the wraith. My churning gut reminds me this is his timeless home where he has the advantage. If only I can catch the creature off guard moving between worlds.

Attacking, I slash down at his head. He drifts backward evading my blade. I continue the attack, but he continues moving away leaving me in his smoky trail, and that stupid dead grin of his taunting me. The world darkens around me, and I realize I'm within the shadows passing back into my world. Walls appear blocking out the purple sky, and ghostly forms rise out of the darkness behind the wraith. Before he can reach the other side, I lunge, my sword slicing through churning black-and-violet mist and into his neck.

Thundering drums crack the silence, light explodes, and the scent of sweat and blood fills my nostrils. My sword slices flesh, bone, and zips through the air spraying a crimson streak across a mirror and one of the lightbulbs surrounding the reflection of the dressing room.

The shocked face before me turns away, head toppling over. The body collapses to the floor.

Stratton lays dead at my feet, and his bodyguard stares down at it, stunned.

Pushing away thoughts about the consequences of murdering my employer, I circle around searching the dressing room for the wraith. Including the bodyguard, the magistrate's body, and a dancing girl cowering in the corner beside the lockers, nobody that matters occupies the room. Not on this side of the shadows anyway.

Purple Hell.

Crossing over, I find the wraith reaching for me with his talons. Diving into a roll, I leap up and spin around slashing at my foe. Instead of the skull, I find Steve's face. His nebulous, purple eyes fade leaving normal blue eyes gazing back at me. His cool hands wrap over mine pulling the sword free.

The sky darkens, ghostly forms rise up like smoke, and I find the dance floor of Necropolis. Some of the patrons glance around in confusion while others storm up the stairs for the exit. The music hits me like a brick. Steve twirls around, dancing with me. He's wearing his suit, of course, his tie streaming from his neck. As I spot the light flickering off the blade, the gravity of it all falls upon me. The crime scene. I take a step back into the shadows, music fading.

Cold slices through my neck. The world tips, and I crash onto the ground.

My head fails to respond, but my eyes manage a look around. I'm on the floor, the black-and-white checkerboard of my club. A wood shelf disrupts the surface blocking my view of the entrance. I can't quite see the beaded curtain at the back, but there appears to be shelves lining the wall. Relaxing my eyes, I find Steve Reynolds standing over me. I try to speak, but my mouth fails. As Steve kneels down beside me, I see tears spilling down his cheeks.

My life doesn't flash before my eyes, and I realize in a way, it has been passing before me since this very day Steve stole my memories. Time is a collection of ghosts, haunting memories.

_Don't forget me, Steve_.

He doesn't see her lips move, or hear a voice. He reads her thought inside his head.

"Never," he says.

Glancing around the room at the brightly packaged albums, he smiles.

"Look, Kandy. It's your record store. How odd is this?"

It's the same place, the same position on the floor, only now their roles reversed. Instead of the Sanctuary of Sin, it's Kandy Fangs, a music store. History changed along with their memories, a life the two of them shared together at the most intimate level.

Remembering the note, Steve reaches into her pocket and removes the crumpled paper. Unfolding the kill order, he reads the fine script.

Steve Reynolds a.k.a. Ezekiel.

It's her handwriting.

The theft of her memories is a terrible crime, but she pushed him to this final dance. It's about retirement. She chose him to replace her. In the spirit of a killer, she made him fight for it. Their intermingling memories somehow lifted a few strands of out of Fate's tapestry turning her club into a record store.

Eating memories is a dangerous game.

Pushing his hand across the gore beneath the half-severed head, he props her body up. His other hand beneath her thighs, he scoops her into his arms. Turning, he steps into the quiet place and crosses the shadows into the other world. Selecting a spot in the endless desert, he sets her down and returns fetching some tools.

Slamming the pick into the hard soil, Steve Reynolds breaks the ground beneath the violet storm reaching for each horizon. There is no sound, just the vibration of each strike climbing his arms. The work is slow and tiring, but he manages a trench. Switching to the shovel, he digs a hole. The dry grit becomes easier with depth and soon, he stands beneath the surface. Looking up, he watches the churning sea of clouds drift by. It might be night, but there is no way of knowing. No stars or sun, just the everlasting storm lighting the world.

Purple Hell. It's a good enough name.

Climbing out of the hole, he finds three wraiths standing several meters away. Here on this side of the shadows, their features stand out even though they remain dark and nearly ethereal. They each wear skirts flowing about their ankles. He imagines the skirts once had color. One in blue for the warriors of the north. Another, a dark green worn by the wizards in the east. And the third, violet, the color of the royal guard. These are Kandy's ancestors come to mourn her passing, or welcome her home.

Kneeling on the hard ground, Steve slides the body down into the grave. He sets her sword beside her. Grabbing the shovel, he stands and begins filling the hole. A drop splashes on his shoulder, and another on his head. Red splats on the ground.

Looking up, he watches the red rain. Purple Hell cries for her.

~~~~

"Mister Reynolds!"

Spinning around, Steve Reynolds spots the bike messenger squealing to a stop at the curb. She pulls her messenger bag from her shoulder and opens the flap. In her bottle cage is a black aluminum can with silver-and-blue writing.

"What's your drink?"

"Vampire Ice," says the bike messenger. She rummages through the bag. "A new energy drink and addictive."

"I bet it is." Naturally, the new drink dispels the venom rumors.

"Here it is." She pulls out an envelope, same size as all the others. "You need an office," she says with a laugh. "It would make tracking you down much easier."

"Sounds like a wonderful idea. Do you have any suggestions?"

Twisting around, ratty hair flipping over shoulder, she gazes back up the street. "Yeah, there's an empty space just five blocks from here. You'll see the signs."

Steve tips the messenger, shoves the envelope under his arm, and walks up to the police station doors. The detective meets him in the lobby with a huge smile.

"Isn't it wonderful?" says Detective Silver. "Your wife will be so happy to see you again. They are on their way now."

The name, Steve Reynolds, is his at last. He has a wife and a daughter, a step-daughter, but his girl just the same. They can go to the movies, trick-or-treat, or whatever. Fate? Her tapestry may have changed the memory of the world, but this is Yasmine's doing. Another envelope full of money confirms it. The Itoril woman runs Roseland now.

"I'm just sorry I couldn't have been more help with your investigation." Of course, he can't mention the identity of the killer, the body that left the streaks of blood on the dance floor, or even the other body in the locker room. Would anyone even believe such a confession?

"Not to worry," says the detective. "It's only been a few days. Forensics is still going over everything."

"Of course," says Steve, smiling. "Good luck with your investigation."

Silver extends his hand. "Have you learned anything about your past?"

Giving the hand a firm shake, Steve considers the question. There is no past. No future. There is only the ever changing fabric of the universe pushing around bits of information leaving ghosts—memories.

"No, can't really say I did."

Life is a memory, a blood-spattered stain on the cosmos where ghosts relive every moment. Before his eyes, another life flashes, ghostly moments of love, sadness, anger, and joy from birth to death, indescribable sweetness. If he looks deep within the murk of stolen memories, near the cinnamon and lavender scents, among the knowledge of weapon skills, down in the blood of it all, he'll find me and my fangs.

Other Titles by David G Shrock

Shadow Memories

Raven Memory

About David G Shrock

David G Shrock lives in the Pacific Northwest where he works as a software developer and writes dark fantasy stories. Stories never end, haunting him even while mountain biking the rugged Cascade Mountains.

Kandy Fangs website: KandyFangs.com

