 
THE CONVERGING: MARK OF THE DEMON

By

GEORGE STRAATMAN

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2009 George Straatman

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase and additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Other Smashwords Titles by George Straatman

THE CONVERGING

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

No work of this scope is a solitary effort. Again, I would like to thank my wife, Louise, for her tireless devotion to these novels.

I would also like to thank Staci Kentish, who once again provided the wonderful editorial work on this novel. This time we hit the nail right on the head.

This novel is a work of fiction. Any similarity between its characters and anyone, living or dead, is both coincidental and unintentional. The town of Semelar, Washington is also fictional. This novel was first written before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. To achieve the desired tone for the last segments of this novel, I decided to exercise the author's prerogative and ignore those particular historical events. In the world of the Converging, they simply never happened.

Prologue

The light was draining from the sky, casting the western horizon in a reddish pink hue that was a photographer's dream. A solitary man sat before a campfire that he had taken great pains to start. It was not the beauty of the western sky that held his attention. No, his eyes were riveted to the eastern horizon which had begun to fade to twilight. He could feel the pervasive chill gradually creeping through his white snow suit, caressing his fevered flesh with its icy fingers. He leaned closer to the fire attempting to escape its glacial kiss.

Though the temperature was well below zero, he realized that this chill had been induced more by recent events and the prospect of the horror to come than by the frigid air around him. He could clearly recall the screams of his dying companions in the instant before they had been snatched by the slathering jaws of death. The sound reverberated in his mind incessantly as if some continuous computer sound bite had been switched on deep in its dark recesses. They had all died and he was still alive. Something, some force had willed it to be so. He had been spared for a reason and he suspected that tonight all things would be revealed. He was alone and if he were being totally candid with himself, he was very afraid. He had an inescapable feeling that he was being watched. The frigid night air was alive with vague menace. Still he was alone, knowing that the other creatures that inhabited the night were not human.

The wind, which had been a whisper, abruptly escalated to a howl, startling the man into dropping his metal coffee cup, spilling the steaming liquid into the snow. He staggered to his feet and pivoted, trying to isolate the source of the sound that had come to him on the wings of the wind. There was movement in the trees at the edge of the clearing. He sensed this more than he actually heard or saw it. She was coming and he was alone, these were the two intrinsic truths of his universe. Not quite alone, he remembered, running his fingers over the reassuring shape of the dagger against his thigh. He withdrew the jewel encrusted weapon, brandishing it before him as if it were a mystical talisman. It occurred to him that this was precisely what the dagger was.

The quality of the howling wind suddenly shifted and with the bullet force of revelation, it came to him that what he was hearing was not the wind at all. Neither was it the cry of a human, but the haunting, forlorn howl of a wolf. Fear coursed through his veins like a thundering freight, spurring his heart to pound painfully in his chest. Through the lattice of branches he could see a countless number of red dots floating in the night air. The sheer number of dots, which he knew to be eyes, terrified him. The horror of the afternoon sprung to his mind with sickening clarity.

Nath drew a raspy breath and thumbed the carbine's safety. This did little to instill confidence in him as a rough count of the pairs of dots in the trees told him that he was vastly outnumbered. The rifle was a lever action Winchester and he lifted it into firing position, preparing himself for the attack. They moved out of the trees slowly, with their heads bent low and their intense eyes fixed squarely upon him. Their breath billowed out around them in white plumes, rising into the night air. Clutching his rifle to his chest, he took an involuntary step towards the fire. The wolves surrounded him but seem disinclined to come any closer. They remained in this position for a long time; the wolves in a rough circle with the man as the circle's center. He could feel his nerves begin to dominate him as hot sweat began to run down his forehead despite the cold temperature. There was a ruffle of branches off to his left and he turned to face the sound. A distinct anxiety rippled through the ranks of the night beasts. They became skitterish; some pacing and prancing, others simply howling. He could sense her imminent arrival. Holding the rifle in one hand, he again drew the dagger. The scar on his chest thrummed like a tuning fork, alerting him to the approaching menace.

Now the wolves began to bay and howl; some running around the perimeter of the clearing in distracted little circles. The very air around him seemed to congeal as the witch approached. There was a sharp crack behind him and he whirled, training his rifle on what he judged to be the source of the sound. At first he saw nothing, but then a tiny flicker of light drew his attention. A small fire had erupted in a small section of underbrush and as he watched it, the flames leapt into the nearby branches, igniting the entire tree before spreading to its neighbors. He viewed the spectacle with a mixture of dread and fascination as the flames traveled in two directions, forming a perfect circle. When the spread of the flames had ceased, the perimeter of the clearing was alive with a wall of flame. Though the fire encircled him, the flames did not come together, instead leaving a six foot gap through which the legion of wolves briskly passed. Again, he found himself alone.

The flames had risen to create a crackling wall that was at least ten feet high. The snow on the ground around him had melted and the flattened grass beneath appeared pale and dispirited in the silver moonlight. Though the flames melted the snow and heated the night air, he, himself, could feel no warmth, as though some invisible cloak of ice had insulated him from the warmth. Beneath the howl of the wind he could hear a soft voice whisper his name, "Nathaniel."

He briefly considered attempting to flee through the gap in the flames, but correctly deduced that the wolves were stationed there to forestall any hope of flight. He was trapped like an animal inside a pen awaiting slaughter. There was nothing he could do but sit helplessly and await the witch's arrival. He could divine her presence the way that one senses a malignant tumor growing deep within the chambers of their own body. He peered through the opening of his corral but could see nothing. No, he had jumped to that conclusion too hastily as in a distant shadow, a nebulous form took shape. A single spark of golden light had ignited and was fanning out, gaining form and substance as it grew. It continued to spread until it had grown to about six feet in width. To Nathaniel it seemed to have assumed the shape of a carpet. This carpet began to elongate, moving directly towards the gap in the fire circle. Nathaniel retreated towards the rear of his enclosure; heart pounding like a drum as he went. The carpet of light moved through the opening, coming to a halt about ten feet from where he stood clutching the dagger in both hands.

The night air had grown pregnant with expectation as if the normally insouciant gods had been drawn to the dark drama that was unfolding beneath them. Nathaniel's agitation increased with every second that Cynara elected not to appear.

"Goddamn you show yourself!" he cried, no longer able to contain his anxiety. As if in answer to his summons, a figure appeared on the opposite side of the wall. The shadows, combined with the golden glow, made it impossible to identify the figure, though he had little doubt that it was the dreaded Night Queen. The shudders that wracked his body and the icy lump in the pit of his stomach heralded her imminent arrival. Then she stepped over the threshold and Nathaniel's jaw unhinged, as his mind screamed a denial of the thing that his eyes kept insisting to be the truth. The dagger slipped from his grasp, forgotten as his whole being focused upon the woman standing imperiously upon the carpet of golden light. She was clad in a white fur wrap, over which her golden hair spilled; the array of loose curls glowing like a corona. His emotions were at war; joy battling fear and denial battling acceptance. His mind sifted through the layers of memory recalling an image from his distant past. That image and the face of the woman before him were identical. Hot, salty tears trickled down his face as he whispered the single word of greeting, "Mother."

Chapter One

1

Bright sunlight streamed through the large windows of the Conly Building on Wilshire Blvd. Magnified by the glass, the sun's rays ignited the interior in a blaze of heat and light that was well near blinding. The Conly Building was a newly erected complex of shops and offices designed with an open space concept. The main concourse of the complex had been intended to reflect a harmonious blend of nature and modern architecture. A large ornamental fountain dominated the main floor. The fountain was surrounded by a profusion of various plants, big and small. A shopper, entering the plaza for the first time, might well have thought he had just stepped into a jungle. To the occasional shopper, this environment might seem rather pleasant, but for the people who worked there on a daily basis, the effect rapidly lost its minimal charm. Something about all of that lush vegetation caught in a prison of marble and lacquered wood was inexplicably depressing.

The ascending levels were enclosed by tinted Plexiglas to attenuate the sun's glare. Directly across from the main entrance, on the opposite side of the concourse, the main bank of elevators stood ready to convey patrons to the upper levels. There were three spacious glass elevators that connected the ground floor to the eight floors above. These elevators provided their occupants with a spectacular view of the building's interior, unless of course, the occupant suffered from acrophobia.

On this Monday afternoon, the middle elevator was in the process of descending, carrying two riders to the ground floor. The first was a pretty blonde named Roberta Morgan, an Executive Secretary for the firm of Mason, Carruthers and Associates. The other was Dan Wells, an Advertising Director for the Forsythe and Miller Advertising Agency. Dan sported rugged good looks, accentuated by a deep California tan. His hair was black as were his piercing eyes, which gave him a deceptively intense appearance. This ruggedness was further enhanced by a thick moustache that had been clipped to points at the corners of his mouth. He possessed the kind of animal magnetism that had earned him the reputation of a lady-killer; a reputation which he took great pains to foster.

The elevator descended with what seemed like a contrived slowness, as if the designers were intent on providing the user with a prolonged view of their work. Dan took the opportunity to thoroughly inspect Roberta Morgan's considerable attributes. His eyes crawled appreciatively over the firm curves of her buttocks and the side swell of her ample breasts. His mind's eye automatically constructed a picture of what that body would look like once divested of the drapery; glorious no doubt. He had heard rumors about Roberta. The office players (of which he considered himself to be the king) proclaimed that she was most definitely beddable, with a preference for the straightforward, aggressive type. _'Me in a nutshell_ ,' he thought proudly.

On the pretence of getting a better view of something on the main floor, Dan leaned forward, venturing closer to Roberta, who continued to stare directly forward. She wore a navy, knit dress which was hemmed at a rather conservative knee length. Leaning slightly, he touched the silk covered skin just behind her right knee. He felt her tense and was prepared for an indignant outburst. Instead, she turned towards him and flashed a receptive smile. A mischievous twinkle danced in her lovely eyes. Dan could see an open invitation in those limpid blue depths. He was not a man given to hesitation in the face of such a frank invitation.

"Marvelous view, wouldn't you say?" Dan intoned conversationally. Roberta gave him a long appraising once over, pursing her lips and arching her right eyebrow. The invitation was undeniable now. It was a simple matter of reeling in his catch.

"Yes, I'd say it's a rather spectacular view indeed," she breathed. There was a sighing quality to her voice that spoke directly to his prick. He could easily conjure up the image of Roberta upon her knees, consuming him inch by pulsing inch. Slowly, he moved his hand upward, along the length of her thigh, so pleasantly smooth and firm. At last he came to the slope of her exquisite ass, fondling and squeezing the flesh tenderly as he made casual conversation. A dreamy expression had come over her face and he knew that she was his for the taking. His fingers found her lace covered vagina, caressing it lovingly. She adjusted her stance to allow him easier access to his target. He continued to massage her, until they came to the second floor, where he withdrew his hand while giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. Roberta smiled appreciatively as the two stepped out of the elevator and into the throng of shoppers on the main floor. By the time that they had reached the facility's parking lot, Roberta agreed to meet him for a drink later that night, much to his delight, but not surprise.

As he made his way to his Mustang Cobra, Dan could feel his mood lightening. The prospects for an entertaining weekend had improved significantly. If all went well, he and his latest conquest would be doing the horizontal rumba well before midnight. He climbed behind the wheel and gunning the eight cylinder engine, reversed into early afternoon traffic on Wilshire Blvd. The traffic was heavy and this congestion served to sour the mood of the average driver, but not Dan's. Very little could sour Dan's mood. He was far too serene. Why? Quite simply, Dan had the world by the balls and in that position it was impossible not to be happy. One of the few pearls of wisdom that his old man had imparted to Dan (between random thrashings) had been precisely that. Dan could remember the many occasions when, half in the bag, the old man would tell him, "Danny lad, in this world there are two things that you can do; you can let life get you by the balls or you can beat it to the punch by getting it by the jewel sack. One thing that I can tell ya, if you do manage to get a good hold on this bastard life, give it a good sharp tug and don't let go."

That was about the only advice that the old bastard had bothered to give him. It didn't really mattered though because Dan always hated his fucking guts and was ecstatic when the old fucker finally gave up the ghost. All of that aside, that simple piece of advice had given him a maxim by which to live his life. At thirty three, Dan could say, with implacable certainty, that he had the world by the grapefruits in a grip of steel. As he jockeyed his way through the thickening traffic, heading north along Cold Water Canyon Drive, he reflected on his rise at the Miller Forsythe Agency. A little work, combined with a small degree of creative flare, had rapidly propelled him up the corporate ladder. He had a knack for selling, but more importantly, he had a knack for selling himself. He viewed his work with a well concealed indifference. It was a means to an end and nothing more. People were both stupid and gullible and, should you package it properly, most would pay a king's ransom for a pound of pigshit.

It was much more than simple salesmanship that had allowed him to advance as far as he had in the seven years that he'd been with the agency. Dan was a master of discreet innuendo and subtle suggestion. It was amazing what a few well placed words could do. He recalled an episode two years earlier, when he had been competing with a fellow Junior Executive named David Mathis. It had come to Dan's attention that David had liked to tipple a few drinks during business hours and from that point on, Mathis was a has-been at Forsythe. How had he phrased it? Perhaps it had been something like, "Dave's a good man. Hope he can keep a handle on those three martini lunches."

This dropped in the ear of a Senior Executive and it was game over for the career aspirations of David Mathis. A month later, Dan was given his promotion and Mathis was yesterday's news. Wells had no qualms about resorting to such tactics to get what he wanted. In this world, you figured out what you wanted and did what you had to do to get it. You never made apologies for doing what you had to do. Never! That was why he was the youngest man ever to hold the position of Advertising Director with this company. He knew that he was well liked and that his future was all sunshine and roses. Even those who disliked him were shrewd enough to keep their dislike hidden and dance when he called the tune.

He turned off of Coldwater onto B.R. 101, heading west towards the Pacific. He was making excellent time and it wasn't unreasonable to think that he would be back at his Woodman Avenue home before six. With the Cobra's engine purring like a tiger and a warm breeze blowing through the open window, it was a simple matter to feel great, to feel lucky, as if the world was a card table and he was turning black jack on every deal. The notion of feeling lucky made his thoughts turn to Roberta Morgan and the promise of those delectable thighs and that high, curvaceous ass. The vivid memory of her dreamy blue eyes came back to him. Its clarity awakened his penis, turning it to stone against his thigh and causing him to press down a little harder on the Mustang's accelerator. The prospect of having Roberta was pleasing. Not because he felt anything for her...in truth, he viewed her as just another bit player to be used and discarded at his leisure. No, to Dan, she would be just another conquest in a long line of conquests. He found it impossible to take women seriously or to ascribe any real importance to them. In general, he regarded women as items to be used and when the situation demanded it, abused. It wasn't as if he would ever seriously beat a woman, but he saw no harm in the odd slap or two, just to keep their role in things perfectly clear.

It never really caused him any concern, because Dan was convinced that most women harbored the secret desire to be dominated, to be commanded...by the right man, of course. As far as he was concerned this entire assertive, independence litany was a lot of feminist bullshit. His experiences with women had gone a long way towards substantiating this theory. He could remember only one woman who had refused to be subjugated or bend to his will. They'd been divorced some eight years ago and that failure grated on him like a stubborn wound that refused to heal. He thought of her as an ungrateful bitch, but was forced to admit that she had been the finest piece of ass he'd ever had. Roberta was ground round compared to Elizabeth's angelic beauty. He'd never been able to make her understand how fortunate she was to be rescued from the mess he'd found her in after that Stillman loser had folded up his tent and ran. If she were still alive, he would have been tempted to make amends for that rare defeat.

Though she was dead, he had been plagued lately by a premonition of his ex wife and could not escape the impression that she was nearby...watching him. Several times over the past few weeks, he would turn, half expecting to see her standing there. Of course, she wasn't, but he still had the disquieting impression that he was being closely scrutinized. Naturally, all of this paranoia was ludicrous. Elizabeth had died in Semelar over five years ago. Officially she wasn't dead and wouldn't be for another two years. Her body had never been found and so she was still classified as a missing person. Dan, however, knew that nothing would keep her away from her son. He very seldom thought about Nathaniel. The boy was a mistake and the first sign of Elizabeth's defiance of his will. He had specifically told her that there would be no children, but she hadn't taken precautions and ended up pregnant. He never accepted the boy as his son and in the end this refusal had been the ruin of their marriage. Years ago, Child Services had approached him about taking custody of the boy, but he emphatically refused. A child would have been a hindrance and there was no room for excess baggage in his rise to the top. He had eagerly agreed when some do-gooder displayed a willingness to assume the burden. It was the ideal solution to a bad situation and an unexpected bit of good fortune, but Dan had come to expect as much from life. There were times when he entertained the idea that he was the only real person in the world and that everyone else had been created for his amusement. It was thoughts like these that occupied his mind as he turned north onto Van Nuys Blvd., heading for home.

2

He pulled the Cobra into his long driveway, made up of geometrically cut pieces of slate set into concrete, and activated the automatic garage door opener. The door retracted on its tracks and he pulled into the garage. He could have entered the house through the door connecting the garage to the kitchen, but instead decided to go back outside and check the mailbox before entering the house. The mailbox was empty and as he came to the front door Dan had the first inkling that something was amiss. He inserted his key into the lock and turned, but nothing happened. He stood examining the lock for a moment, his face wrinkling into a perplexed mask. Then it dawned on him that the door must already be unlocked. He tried the handle and the little click told him that his suspicion was correct.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered. Indecision and a small measure of disquiet gripped him as he stood on his doorstep. Someone had gotten into his house. It had to be, because he made a point of checking his doors and windows every morning before he left. It was a ritual that he had never allowed himself to forego. Habitual caution was another of Dan's traits. Still, God knows what damage they could have done or what they could have taken. He opened the door and stepped over the threshold. As he did, it occurred to him that the intruder might still be here. His heart thudded painfully at the prospect. Despite his virile appearance and his meticulously cultivated macho image, he had no interest in playing the hero. He had much too much yet to accomplish to take any unnecessary risks.

He glanced around the foyer and found that nothing had been disturbed, nor had anything been taken. He decided to venture a little further into the house, prepared to beat a hasty retreat should the need arise. He could feel the pulse in his temple beating as he crept along the main hall towards the rear stairway. He came to a halt near the archway into his den and glanced quickly into his room. He nearly gasped aloud, stifling the cry at the last second. There was someone sitting on his black leather sofa. The intruder sat, their back to the door, casually browsing through one of his art and advertising magazines as if they were in their own house. His fear turned to indignation (mostly because there seemed to be nothing threatening about the figure).

He glanced about and spotted a large silver candle holder sitting on a side table. He crept over to the table and picked up the holder. Then he moved over to the intruder, fully intending to bash the fucker's head in. He raised the holder over his head and was about to bring it down, a maniacal smile spread across his face, when the person suddenly spoke, "I think that it would be wise to reconsider trying to hit me with that."

He halted mid swing, startled that his approach had been detected and astounded that the intruder continued to leaf casually through the magazine. The voice was low, sultry and definitely female. Lowering the candle holder, but not setting it down, Dan stepped around the front of the couch and stood watching the intruder, prepared for any kind of hostile movement. It was indeed a woman. She continued to leaf through the magazine for a moment and then threw it aside, declaring, "Trendy garbage. How can you waste your time reading such trash?"

She looked up at him and again he gasped...not out of anxiety, but rather sheer delight. She was beautiful. No, that was too mild a word. She was absolutely stunning. She watched him through eyes that were large and brown, set off perfectly by high cheek bones. Set in the brown irises, were small iridescent amber flecks, catching the light and reflecting it in a most fetching way. Her hair fell in a mass of curls, spilling over her shoulders to a point just below her shoulder blades.

"Who are you?" he stammered, nonplussed by the improbability of the situation.

"Why, I'm everything that you've always wanted and so much more," she quipped, her words ripe with sexual challenge. She didn't seem the least bit self conscious or unsettled by the lecherous way in which his eyes were crawling over her body. He could feel his fear melt away and another inherent but no less primal instinct assert itself...lust.

"What's your name?" he asked, the anxiety gone from his voice. His gaze settled upon the thin white scar that curved from the ridge of her cheek bone to the corner of her sensuous mouth. He wondered how she had come by the scar. It did nothing to detract from her beauty, but rather accentuated it in some complex way.

She continued to watch him and it seemed like she was not going to respond to his question, when finally she said, "Not that it matters, but my name is Cynara."

"What are you doing in my house?" Cynara responded to his question with a perplexing smile. She stood and casually strolled about the room, stopping to inspect objects that caught her interest. He watched her, enjoying the poetry of her movements, fascinated by her tall, well constructed body. He waited for her to finish, saying nothing; fearing that to speak would break the enchantment.

"Interesting," she mused thoughtfully. He beamed with pride, interpreting her comment to mean that she was impressed with what she saw. "What am I to make of all of this, Dan?" She gestured in the direction of the area above the brick fireplace. "I see a collection of mounted trophies and a fine array of guns, all suggesting your prowess as a sportsman. Yet you've never hunted, never so much as fired a gun in your entire life."

Dan's face collapsed like a condemned building, but before he could stammer out a protest, Cynara continued, "I see a superficial man with a carefully contrived image."

"Look lady, I'll ask you again...what the hell are you doing in my house?" Dan flared. No bitch, no matter how good looking she might be, was going to come into his house and attack him like that.

"I have a close friend who has told me all about you. She portrayed you as more of a myth than a man. I felt compelled to come and make my own judgment." She again looked about the room, her expression conveying a certain degree of disappointment stung Dan's formidable ego. "In all fairness, she said that you display your talents in other...areas. She said that you leaned a little more to the physical side. Being a naturally curious woman, I just had to come and see for myself."

She moved closer, her challenge intensifying. For his part, Dan stood riveted to the carpet, unable to drag his attention away from the approaching woman. As she came nearer she undid the clasp at the back of her skirt and sliding the zipper down, allowed it fall to the floor. She stepped out of the discarded piece of clothing and kicked it aside with a graceful sweep of her long leg. Then her hand passed over the front of her blue silk blouse and that too slipped to the carpet. Dan breathed deeply, feeling the room temperature rise dramatically. Her body was flawless, with large breasts, a tiny waist, full hips and firm tapered thighs. Her glorious face was set in an affected blend of seduction and arrogance. His desire and attraction to her were undeniable and he could do nothing to conceal it as his penis expanded along the length of his thigh with purpose. His clothes suddenly felt too constricting.

Cynara's hands moved nimbly over his shirt and pants and at once he was free of his clothing. Being naked ignited his sense of masculine superiority as his penis sprung to its full rigid length and girth. His size was his greatest source of pride, another of the many ways that he separated himself from the hordes of losers. A brazen smile had come over her face and Dan knew that she was suitably impressed. Taking a step toward him, she grasped his manhood in her hand, cupping it in her palm, while gently running her thumb along its pulsing length. She bent forward slightly, leaning her head on his muscular chest, and whispered, "I think that my friend was right."

Now her voice was fraught with emotion and desire. With the scent of jasmine filling his nostrils, Dan knew he had gained the upper hand over this arrogant bitch. Total conquest was within his grasp. He would teach her the meaning of humility. She had mocked him, but he would take the time to impress upon her a bittersweet lesson that she would not soon forget.

He cupped her full left breast and raised it to his mouth, engulfing the nipple as if it were caviar. Hungrily he bit into it, taking her to the very edge of the pleasure pain boundary. He could feel her body tense as she arched her back, closing her eyes and letting her hair fall in a mass of black curls. With her free hand, she encircled his waist and whispered huskily, "Let's not wait."

Breathing heavily, she pushed him away and still holding him firmly by the penis, led him towards the stairs. He placed his hand on the firm flesh of her ass, delighted by its firmness. In that delight, he gleaned the way in which he would orchestrate her humiliation. He could feel himself throbbing with anticipation as she led him up the stairs to the darkened bedroom where the shades had been drawn against the southern California heat. At the foot of the bed, she pivoted and embraced him, pressing her full, warm lips to his. Her kiss, combined with the sensation of her nubile body against his, slowly drew him away from all conscious thought. His entire physical and spiritual being had been reduced to the flaming organ that pulsed against the flat of her belly.

She placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed him into a sitting position on the foot of the bed. He caught her in his arms and licked the under swell of her breasts. In the darkness, Cynara closed her eyes and ran her tongue over her lips. His expertise could not be denied. It was a pity that she could not take advantage of his talents, but she had promised him to her lover. She pushed him away from her breast and onto his back. Dipping forward, she tenderly kissed the inside of his thigh, feeling him shiver in response. "I have a surprise for you. A rather pleasant one, I think you'll agree."

At once the room was filled with a harsh glare, as some yet unseen person switched on the bedroom light. Dan raised his forearm across his face to shield his eyes from the spears of harsh light. He lowered his arm as his eyes grew accustomed to the brightness. Propping himself up on one elbow, he glanced about in confusion. Cynara had moved off to his left. She stood gazing expectantly towards the bedroom door, her arms folded casually beneath her breasts. His encounter with Cynara must have done something to augment his senses, for he could hear footsteps upon the carpeted risers as clearly as if they were echoing in his own head. The sound stopped as the person paused at the door. Then, with maddening slowness, the door swung open. When Dan's mind registered what his eyes conveyed, he uttered a shrill cry and scrambled up toward the head of the bed.

"Hello Dan," Elizabeth Simpson said quietly and floated into the room.

"No, you're dead. I know it, goddamn it, you're dead," Dan croaked, his voice distorted by shock. His head wagged back and forth in a constant expression of denial. Cynara moved closer to Elizabeth and kissed her lover's cheek, who favored her with a slight upturning of her lips. Then the raven haired beauty moved behind Elizabeth and slid the white lace robe from Simpson's shoulders. Dan inhaled sharply. He had forgotten just how exquisite Elizabeth's body had been. It many ways it was superior even to Cynara's, who now spoke to Dan, "Looking at this vision, could you really say that she is anything but alive."

She moved her fingers along the velvety skin of the blonde's shoulders, then over the front of her breasts; moving slowly over the tanned, satiny skin, with great ceremony, the way a sculptor feels the magic of his art. "Can't you feel the warmth of her skin and the fullness of these lovely breasts?"

With this, Cynara moved her hands over Elizabeth's chest, cupping each breast and raising it to its boldest angle. The delicate pink nipples seemed to swell invitingly before Dan's eyes. "Has a woman ever looked more alive? Do you not long to taste the warm promise of her nipples, to savor the texture of her luxuriant skin? I know you do. I can feel your heat and see your throbbing desire."

Upon seeing Elizabeth, his erection had deflated like a burst balloon. Now, however, seeing Cynara caress Elizabeth's magnificent body, it blossomed with furious purpose. He could feel his lust battering upon him from within, demanding release. Cynara's fingers wandered further and further over the tanned bodyscape, until they at last disappeared between Elizabeth's thighs. "Do you want her Dan? Do you want to revel in her warmth again?"

Cynara's attention elicited a groan of delight from her lover. For Dan, all thoughts of conquest vanished, as the memory of her touch flooded back to him and it became imperative that he have her again.

"I want her," he managed thickly.

"No, Dan. If you are to have her, you must speak the truth. For once in your life, you must be totally honest," Cynara demanded. Dan groaned. The pain in his groin made it nearly impossible to think. A small still thinking part of his mind whispered that there was something gravely wrong and potentially dangerous with this situation, but he was too far under the erotic enchantment to pay it any heed. Cynara seemed to expect something from him and he groped desperately to guess what that something might be. Elizabeth was watching him through her glacial, amethyst eyes (hadn't they been blue?), but in the depths of that coolness, Dan was certain that he could discern a hint of raging fire. He had to feel that warmth and that need bred revelation.

"I need you," he blurted out.

"What was that, Dan?" Cynara asked as a teasing smile blossomed upon her lips.

"I need her!" he proclaimed loudly, all masculine notions of dominance now completely forgotten.

"Then you shall have me," Elizabeth intoned gravely and began to float slowly toward the bed. Cynara stood off to the side, handing center stage to Elizabeth. As she watched the other woman move, Cynara was reminded of a stalking panther about to pounce upon its prey. Though she was not capable of such an emotion, she could almost feel a certain degree of pity for Dan. She knew how this elaborately orchestrated seduction was to end. She crossed to the head of the bed and knelt above Dan, gently stroking his shoulders. He seemed oblivious to her tenderness, so intense was his concentration upon Elizabeth. She was nearly upon him now. Placing her hands on his knees, she let her palms glide along the insides of his thighs, closing around his manhood. Her grip squeezed, then relented, squeezed and then relented, but she stopped when she sensed him nearing the brink of explosion. Not releasing her grip upon him, she climbed onto the bed and laid full length against him. His racing heart thundered against her own breast. Taking his ear lobe between her teeth, she snaked her warm tongue in and out of the small opening. He reached for her, running his hands wildly over her thighs and heady swell of her buttocks.

He tilted his head upwards, fixing his glazed eyes upon Cynara. He reached for her, fondling her left breast; lost in the ecstasy that the two women had visited upon him. Elizabeth lowered herself onto him, crying out as she absorbed his full length. Dan's entire body was ripped by a violent contraction that was part joy and part agony. She began to move her hips in a rhythm that was well near maddening. As she did, Cynara whispered into his ear, "Do you feel her? Do you feel her limitless passion, her warmth? Can you not feel it radiating through you, stoking the fires of your own passion?"

Cynara's evocative patter and Elizabeth's insistent rhythm pushed him into the land of light and white heat, where pressure was the force that moved the universe and release was the ultimate gratification. He burst into her, his seed rocketing upward like a volcano. There seemed to be no end to the deluge as if his entire being were passing through him and into her. Elizabeth smiled down upon him. That smile was enigmatic and unfathomable. Then she exchanged a brief glance with Cynara. With his penis still inside of her, she leaned forward, her warm breasts pressing against his heaving chest, and passionately kissed his lips. The kiss was long and tender. Much to his amazement, Dan could feel himself being aroused. He opened his mouth to accept her probing tongue. As he did, Cynara tightened her grip upon his shoulders and fixed his head in place with her thighs. Elizabeth took hold of his arms and clamped her mouth painfully down upon his. Panic welled up within him and he tried to struggle free of the pair. Each woman seemed to possess incredible strength and he could make no move other than to thrash his legs ineffectually.

He opened his eyes and peered directly into Elizabeth's. He attempted to scream but her mouth was pressed too tightly to his. Her eyes had turned a brilliant, malevolent orange. Dan's mind conjured the image of a malefic jack o lantern glaring down upon him with eyes that blazed with hatred. Something was dramatically wrong but he still hadn't grasped the nature of his peril. All at once he could feel Elizabeth's body convulse against his and abruptly his entire mouth was filled with a hot, bilious mass. ' _She's vomiting. Jesus Christ, she's vomiting into my fucking mouth_ ,' he realized wildly. His eyes bulged with terror and revulsion as he redoubled his efforts to get free. He began to shake and his face had grown bright red. His eyes strayed up to Cynara, who viewed his torment with malicious glee.

Dan attempted to keep himself from swallowing by breathing through his nose. Upon seeing this, Cynara simply reached down and pinched his nose, causing him to gag after a time. The grotesque mass poured down his throat, burning his insides as it went. Elizabeth continued to vomit into his open mouth and despite his best attempt to do so, Dan could not force his jaw to close. Then she stopped, sat back and drew her hand across her mouth. With a frown of disgust, she dismounted him and Cynara released her grip upon his head and shoulders. Dan turned onto his hands and knees and tried desperately to regurgitate the vile mass. To a certain extent, he succeeded. He opened his mouth wide and a glut of bluish sludge spewed onto the bed. It lay in a steaming pile, glowing blue and bubbling as if it were animated lava. Dan half scrambled, half fell off of the bed as he continued to retch. He heaved and heaved, until he felt as if his throat would burst. His diaphragm ached wickedly, but still it would not come. He could feel it solidifying in the pit of his stomach.

He tried to run then, out into the light, out into the day, where such insanity would surely dissolve in the sunlight. Cynara, however, intercepted him and yanked him back by the hair. He fell heavily onto his back. As he tried to regain his feet, he felt the first contraction in his stomach. He came to grasp that Elizabeth had implanted something in the pit of his guts, something which was very much alive and fighting to break free. He could feel it tearing at his insides. He tried to shriek but found that he could not. His stomach began to swell, the flesh looking as distended as the skin of an over filled balloon. White hot tremors of pain ripped through him and he stumbled around the room, flailing at the air like a lunatic. The flesh on Dan's arms had broken into large mountain ranges of swellings, all pulsing eerily as the venom worked its black magic upon him.

A thin red line appeared at the center of his abdomen in the seconds before the muscles ruptured, spewing blood and intestines everywhere. Gore spattered the walls, as Dan instinctively tried to collect his hanging entrails in the cradle of his arms. Pathetically, he attempted to stuff them back into the ruined cavern, but they were slick with a bluish substance and kept slipping from his grasp. As tears poured down his agonized face, his efforts became frenzied. As he struggled, the remaining surface of his body erupted in similar lumps; all of which ruptured to spew the foul blue fluid all over the room.

Dan's knees buckled and his body went into convulsions, flopping about like a landed flounder. Cynara and Elizabeth watched as the thing that had once been a man went through a rapid transformation; swelling and then bursting. The room became fetid with a noxious odor that resembled propane. When the spectacle was mercifully over, all that remained of Dan Wells was a liquefied pile of jelly. The gelatinous substance radiated a dull blue glow as well as a great deal of heat. The heat only served to further melt the jelly, leaving virtually no trace of what had taken place. Dan's only legacy were the stains on the wall and the carpeting.

Cynara drifted quietly over to Elizabeth, eyes fixed upon what had once been her lover's former husband. She placed her hand gently on the blonde's shoulder and whispered, "You were spectacular Elizabeth."

Cynara's voice echoed the intoxication of the kill; the perverse joy of the predator. Elizabeth, however, felt no such joy. She was, in fact, bereft of any emotion. Since the day of her turning, she had been incapable of true emotion; instead functioning with the machine like precision of a robot. She experienced neither love nor hate... desire nor despair. She turned to face Cynara, who kissed her enthusiastically. "You've learned an important lesson, one you must never forget...never leave a debt unpaid. Any enemy left alive is a dagger poised at your back."

Cynara spared the remains one last glance and then led Elizabeth from the room, down the stairs and back into the den. She retrieved her discarded clothes, while philosophizing over the deed. "We are the night creatures, darling. These humans are weak and ours for the taking. They are our main source of prey and we need feel neither compassion nor pity for them. They are a lower life form, animals, and it is our avowed obligation to destroy them. You are the most majestic of creatures now. Intuition tells me that you are destined to become the queen of the night. We shall rule, you and I. Our only enemy is the weakness that grows in our own souls." Elizabeth offered no response, only continued to watch Cynara through her strange, inscrutable eyes. Cynara frowned, but decided to say no more. There were times when Elizabeth's alien nature disturbed Cynara; almost frightened her. Almost, but not quite. Then Elizabeth smiled and Cynara could feel her uncertainties and misgivings evaporate. Her lover rarely smiled, but on those few occasions when she did, Cynara could feel her black heart shiver with pleasure. Elizabeth stepped forward and took her hand. "Thank you Cynara."

As the two women walked out into the daylight, Cynara wondered what the enigmatic woman had thanked her for.

Chapter Two

As he sat on the wooden bench, resting his arms on the wrought iron arm rests, he gave thanks that the day was warm. He closed his eyes and reclined his head, allowing the warm sunshine to caress his face. Despite the prevailing high temperatures in southern Italy during the summer months, he never felt truly warm. It was as if his skin had grown impervious to the heat. Cardinal Giancarlo Fabrizzi hugged himself in an effort to alleviate the chill.

His arthritis had tightened its grip upon him over the last few years, to the point where he was sometimes incapable of performing his daily duties. Simple acts, such as writing, were now painful and arduous by the disease. And so he was here, in the Church's retreat, which he viewed as a rest home for relics and battle scarred soldiers of Christ. It galled him to think that he had now joined their ranks. He supposed that it was only fitting that he be considered a relic, because in many ways, this was exactly how he perceived himself. There had been a time, not all that long ago, when he had possessed strong Papal aspirations. That was before the onset of his arthritis. Perhaps the disease was a punishment for his ambitious nature, his hubris; he wasn't certain and in the end it had ceased to matter. Now, at the age of sixty seven, he was essentially a has-been, who wasted little time dwelling on failed ambition.

His predecessor and closest friend, Cardinal Rossi, had died six years before and with his death, Fabrizzi had begun to feel more and more removed from the world around him. As he sat, he allowed his mind to burrow down through the sedimentary layers of time and memory; dredging up the peaks and valleys of his life. If it was necessary to find a reason for this protracted bout of melancholy, then he could easily look back to Zved Neghev and the sorry episode of Cynara Saravic. The memory of that incident plagued him in his waking hours and terrorized him through sleep. Sometimes, when his arthritis was at its worst, he could almost hear Neghev's name echoed in the agonized refrain of every tortured joint. He had never discovered just what had befallen the Israeli, but he was convinced that the man was most definitely dead. Neghev's death weighed heavily upon his conscience, because he had presumed to know the will of God in the matter of how to deal with Cynara. That presumption had led directly to the Israeli's death far from his homeland.

There had never been another attempt upon Saravic's life. Fabrizzi saw little point in compounding their error by pursuing the demon and so the matter of Cynara Saravic had been closed. Now Rossi was dead and so was Neghev. He was a degenerating cripple, yet the witch lived. The world was indeed an enigma and if there was a justifiable solution to the puzzle, it was far beyond him.

A cool breeze swept over him. To his surprise and chagrin, a mist had taken form over the small lake. It had appeared near its center and had begun to drift towards the shore. He found it rather odd that a mist would suddenly materialize in the middle of such a warm day. Yet, even that had changed. Fabrizzi glanced down at his arms to find that his flesh had risen in great hackles. The temperature had dropped perceptibly, but when he looked into the distance, he could see the horizon shimmer in the heat. He absently began to massage his protesting knees, while considering the rapid change in the weather. It suddenly occurred to him that some portion of his coldness had been induced by a vague, unfocused dread. He scanned the path and the manicured green fields that were surrounded by stands of trees. He was alone and for no logical reason, he was very afraid. He looked back towards the lake, where the baffling mist had thickened dramatically. It had obscured the opposite side of the small body of water. He looked along the shoreline to see a figure gingerly picking their way along the water's edge. The figure appeared to be moving in his direction. From this distance he could distinguish no specific features but he could see that the approaching figure was that of a nun. Fabrizzi felt a momentary flash of irritation at this intrusion, but then the nun turned along the tree line, apparently engaged in a strolling inspection of the grounds. The cloud of cold air which had engulfed him now dissipated under the steady assault of the sun's rays. He could feel weariness began to take its toll and as his eyelids grew heavy, he drifted into a doze.

Time passed, he had no idea how much, though in his post nap muddled state, he sensed that it must have been at least a few hours. The change in the weather confirmed his first suspicion. Where before it had been brilliantly sunny, now the strange mist had again rolled in off of the lake, submerging the grounds in a milky cloud of damp air. He could feel his joints creak and whine after being still for so long. When he opened his eyes, he was staring directly into the alabaster face of the Blessed Mother, whose statue stood directly across the stone walk from where he sat. Next, his mind registered the fact that he was no longer alone. He felt this more than sensed it. He looked down, startled to see that the nun, whom he had seen earlier, was kneeling on the ground before him, resting her head upon his knee. She was crying softly.

"My child, what is the matter?" Fabrizzi inquired. He could feel anxiety skirting around the edges of his mind, like demons cavorting in shadows. At first she did not reply, just continued to weep gently. He placed his hand on the top of her head, hoping to comfort her, hoping to put her at ease. It must have had the desired effect, as she finally spoke, "I have sinned. I have debased myself. I have had wanton thoughts and engaged in impure actions."

Fabrizzi smiled to himself. The smile was embittered and not particularly pleasant. He had heard this all before, this litany of confessed failings; men and women who had been unable to resist the urgings of the flesh and had found sin in these gnawing desires. Yet this is what we have created, in fact demanded. The Church has deemed the natural to be impure. He felt sympathy for this woman and frustration with her torment. "What is your name, sister?"

"My name is Bathsheba, Jezebel. My name is legion of swine," she spat. There was a mocking quality to her voice that elicited an involuntary shiver from the Cardinal.

"Show you," he demanded. The impression that something had shifted into the macabre grew ever stronger. When she did not heed his command, he placed his hands beneath her chin and lifted her face to his. He looked into the very eyes of evil and beyond, into the pits of sulfurous hell. He recoiled as if he had been struck. The face, with its lovely gold-flecked eyes, belonged to the demon, to his demon. She had come home. She seemed to have divined his thoughts, for she said, "Don't look so startled Shaman. Did you not think that I would come for you, in time?"

Fabrizzi tried to scramble to his feet, but she held his shoulders fast, pinning him to the wooden bench. He blasted her with all of the outrage that he could summon, "How dare you come here, to this Holy Place?"

Cynara threw back her head and laughed derisively. "Do you think that I am afraid of your sheep God's wrath?" She looked skyward and bellowed, "I am here in your sanctuary. Strike me dead for my impudence!"

She raised her arms to the heavens in a gesture of brazen defiance. Cynara stood this way for several seconds, then dropped her arms and looked sadly towards Fabrizzi. "Ah well, it is not the first time that he has abandoned one of his flock."

Fabrizzi watched as Cynara removed her habit and cast it aside, shaking out her long flowing tresses. He wondered where she had obtained the robes. "Where did you find the robes, witch?"

She beamed at him, her smile fraught with malevolent delight. "I borrowed it from a nun that I happened to come upon. I promised to return it, though I suspect that she will no longer need it. Don't let that concern you, Cardinal. She was a lesbian slut and hardly worthy of your pity."

"What do you want?" Fabrizzi asked, feeling real fear for the first time. Cynara looked directly into his eyes, the smile fading from her face. "I've come for you, of course. You tried to have me killed and unfortunately for you, your robot failed. Unlike your pathetic God, I do not forgive, nor do I forego my rightful vengeance."

Fabrizzi rose to his feet and began to retreat. Cynara made no move to restrain him. He drew away; five feet, and then ten, then twenty and still she did not move to stop him. The mist around him was so thick that he could barely see five feet into its depths. At once, an eerie howl arose from somewhere within its milky veil. The full throated, visceral quality of that howl conveyed to Fabrizzi that there would be no escape. He turned back to Cynara, who stood beneath the statue of the Blessed Virgin. She was eyeing the Immaculate One with open contempt. As Fabrizzi walked back to her, he saw a notion blossom in her eyes, reflected upon her ethereal face. She turned to the Cardinal with a wicked light flaming in her eyes. "There is no escape Cardinal. There is no place in heaven for cowards, Giancarlo. You are here and so am I. I am the prophet of the ancient evil and you are the soldier of your God; the God of Martyrs. This is to be our arena, so come and do battle, Giancarlo."

She spoke with a stiff formality that conveyed her reverence for the traditions of the battle. Then Cynara gestured him forward and he came, seeing no alternative. In the time it took for him to cross the distance between them, a whole succession of thoughts flashed through his mind. In the end, he decided that it was better to suffer whatever death Cynara could inflict upon him, then to endure the long, slow degeneration that awaited him. He felt some titanic force stir within him; an ancient puissance that thrummed through his muscles and limbs, assuaging away his pain. Thus transformed, he became a Holy Warrior, sent to dispatch the serpent. He clutched the cross that hung from his sash and held it out before him. It had developed an eerie glow in the luminescent fog.

As he advanced towards Cynara she gave ground in the direction of the statue. A bewildered look had come into her eyes as if his resistance had been an unexpected factor in her equation. Discerning this, he felt a savage smile break across his own features. If he would have been able to see his own face, he would have seen a shark like grin there; one he would not have thought himself capable of only hours before. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that the role of the combatant suited him and as he advanced upon his adversary, he bellowed, "Now Satan's harlot, in the name of God, I command you to the return to the pits of hell where you rightfully belong."

The thrumming in his muscles intensified. Fabrizzi felt as though some power was being concentrated within him and focused through the lens of his faith. The crucifix erupted in a blaze of golden flame, which shot through the heavy air, cutting like a scythe through hay, and struck Cynara in the chest. Fabrizzi stood trembling with anticipation, waiting for Cynara to fall, or to vanish as the case might be. Instead of simply disintegrating, she began to laugh. It was a deep rich laughter that rolled upward through the mist. "Giancarlo, you and your ilk are priceless. Do you truly believe that God would intercede on your behalf? Who are you that he should? Are you not a murderer? You killed Neghev as surely as I did. Did you not coerce him into coming after me?"

There was an undeniable measure of truth in Cynara's recrimination. He looked at the cross. The golden glow was gone, if indeed it had ever been. He had been abandoned to face the demon. Now Cynara cast her eyes upon him. The mock levity was gone, replaced by an unmistakable predatory gleam. She pounced upon him quickly, sending him sprawling with one savage backhand that shattered his nose. Fabrizzi was stunned by the blow. He turned onto his hands and knees, only to see a stream of blood pour from the ruined mass of bone and cartilage. Before he could scramble away, Cynara caught hold of his rosary beads and wrapping them around her wrist, drew them tightly around his throat. He uttered a strangled cry and pawed ineffectually at her hands.

"Where is your God to help you now, Shaman?" Cynara snarled in Fabrizzi's ear. "Do you know what I think? I think that your God is dead, but don't despair, soon you will be as well."

With one hand, Cynara began to rip the cassock from Fabrizzi's body, while continuing to strangle him with the beads. At last he had been stripped naked, his flesh hanging from his bones like boiled chicken. Cynara kicked him smartly in the ribs. He collapsed onto his side. As Cynara looked down upon him, she shook her head in disgust. "Aging is repulsive Giancarlo. I believe that I'm doing you a favor by killing you."

She released him and he staggered to his feet, blood pouring from his broken nose, the beads still hanging around his bruised and swollen neck. He stumbled blindly away from Cynara, toward the statue. The witch stooped down and retrieved Fabrizzi's crucifix. Brandishing it like a knife, she raised her hand and brought it down in an arc. Fabrizzi lifted his arms to ward off the blow, but Cynara had delivered it with such force that it shattered his forearms and drove the crucifix deep into his left eye.

Fabrizzi peeled out a harrowing scream of agony and folded to the grass. Cynara towered over him, chest heaving, nipples erect, feeling an excitement that was decidedly sexual in nature. Fabrizzi's thrashing had ceased and she knew that he was dead. Cynara gazed up at the statue of the Blessed Mother. Her stone eyes were the eyes of sorrow. "I've won bitch. I'll always win!"

Then the seeds of a notion blossomed in the perverse depths of Cynara's mind. She bent down and lifted Fabrizzi's body, carrying it as if it weighed no more than a pillow. Effortlessly, she raised it and pressed it against the statue, face to face. Fabrizzi's head dropped against the statue's shoulder. She continued to hold him there until his flesh began to run like wax. She had generated an incredible amount of heat, causing Fabrizzi's body to weld itself to the very stone of the statue.

As Cynara stood admiring her handy work, a large wolf padded out of the fog and licked her hand. She looked down and smiled affectionately, lovingly scratching the beast's muzzle. The beast moved away and suddenly Cynara's robe ignited into flame. The flame consumed the material but did not touch Cynara's flesh. She stood with her eyes closed, apparently basking in its warmth and radiance. The last bit of material ignited and then fell away, leaving Cynara standing naked before the obscenity that she had wrought. Fabrizzi seemed wrapped around the Blessed Mother in a parody of the sexual act.

Cynara turned from the horror and said, "Come my love, our work here is done. Now we shall go home and wait."

With the wolf trailing slightly behind her, Cynara walked into the heart of the fog.

Chapter Three

1

"Nathaniel! Hey Nath, wait up a sec," an insistent voice called out above the general din in the halls of McCavier High. Nathaniel turned his head towards the voice and saw sixteen year old Jennifer Tillman gliding towards him in her inimitable liquid style. Jennifer's approach sent shivers through Nath, who had the sudden urge to either run away or shut himself into his locker until she left him alone. There was something in her beautiful green eyes and her vivacious personality that overwhelmed the seventeen year old, making his palms sweat and his heart pound too hard in his chest. He looked around rather desperately, but saw that there was no way of escaping her short of outright flight. She came up beside him and leaned forward, pressing her delectable breasts against his arm, causing him to draw a shaky breath. "Hello Nathaniel."

Her voice was youthful and energetic, high pitched and sweet. He glanced at her quickly and then looked back into the shadows of his locker. Her mass of red hair cascaded over the shoulders of her blue angora sweater. He found her beautiful to the point where it was difficult for him to look at her for any length of time.

"Hi Jennifer," he replied lamely.

The thing that baffled him the most about Jennifer was her growing attraction to him. To his mind, it was totally inexplicable. She was one of the most beautiful and sought after girls in the whole school, lusted after by just about every player and jock in the school. Conversely, he was looked upon as some sort of weirdo, who existed well below the range of normal vision and was quite content to remain there. There was something about his remote, introverted nature that tended to alienate other people. He was perceived in a whole assortment of ways, ranging from 'that quite kid' to an outright geek. These evaluations did little to put him off his food. The first two years of his high school life had been this way and he harbored the fervent hope that the next two would be exactly the same. All he wanted was to get his diploma and get out. He didn't need relationships or friendships or any of the other high school diversions; the scar on his chest had precluded all of these things thirteen years before.

Things might well have gone on exactly as he had wanted them to. They might have, except now Jennifer Tillman had developed a keen and incomprehensible interest in him. She had a tendency to just spring out of nowhere, when he least expected it, catching him off guard, making him feel childish and awkward.

Jennifer bent forward and tapped him on the forehead as if she were knocking on a door. "Hello, is anyone home in there?"

Then she cupped her hand to his ear and called his name, repeating it again and again in a simulation of an echo. Nathaniel looked at her, horrified by the attention that she was attracting. He could feel the crimson blush spreading across his cheeks. Seeing his discomfort only made her laugh hysterically. He began to feel mildly irritated with her, suspecting that she was deliberately mocking him.

"Is there something you need Jennifer?" he demanded, attempting to sound as curt as his teenager's voice would allow.

"Well, first you can start by calling me Jenny and second you can take me to the school dance Friday."

The very notion turned his knees to rubber and for a moment, he feared that he would faint dead away. He had never danced in his life. The prospect of going to a dance, and with Jennifer Tillman no less, terrified him. He felt an adolescent panic chewing at his insides. Why in God's name did she want him? She was exquisite and a full three inches taller than he was. While he had an attractive face (or so his stepmother kept insisting), he was rather short and quite skinny. The idea of them dancing together in front of the whole school was quite ludicrous. He had to think of a way to beat an honorable retreat.

"I...I don't know how to dance," he croaked, deliberately trying to sound as wimpy as possible.

"You don't know how to dance?" she trumpeted incredulously, as if he had suggested that he didn't know how to use a fork and knife. Heads turned towards them and somewhere he heard a girl snicker. "Two left feet, is it? Fortunately for you, you will have one of the best teachers in town. So, it's a date then."

It was more of a declaration than a question and before he could offer further protest, she turned and strode off down the hall, her swaying hips garnering appreciative glances from all corners. He also noticed that a few people were looking at him with an expression of awe. That was how Nathaniel Simpson discovered that he was the boy who could not die.

2

Despite not being the most experienced teenager in the world, It had not taken Nathaniel long to deduce that Jennifer Tillman had more on her mind that Friday night than just teaching him how to dance. She picked him up at eight o'clock and his first glimpse of her made his breath hitch in his chest. She wore a dark green leather skirt that revealed a great deal of well shaped thigh, as well as a matching pair of strappy heels. Her red hair was pushed up on one side, held in place by a pearl comb. In her 3 series BMW, she looked like the epitome of daddy's rich girl. She greeted him with a long, tender kiss as he settled into the passenger seat.

The night was not the nightmare that he had expected it to be. She had the good grace to confine their dances to simple steps and slower, less intricate dances. The thrill of holding her close to him, feeling her breath on his cheek, was undeniable. The scent of her perfume was intoxicating. He didn't dare think about the way that her breasts made him feel as they pressed against his chest. He could feel some of his nervousness evaporate in the heat of their bodies. When they weren't dancing, they talked. He found her to be witty and incisive, constantly making him laugh, almost in spite of himself. He stared at the dance floor for a moment, where about two hundred undulating couples rocked to Gun and Roses' Welcome to the Jungle. ' _Slaves to the rhythm_ ,' he thought as he watched them. Then he turned to Jennifer. Jenny he amended. She was silently assessing him with her lovely green eyes. Something about her solemn scrutiny made him vaguely nervous.

"Jenny, can I ask you a question?" he said, gazing nervously down at his hands.

"No, I don't have a social disease," she chided, but beneath the humor, he could still sense an odd gravity.

"Not that," he stammered, feeling embarrassed by her brashness. He kicked himself mentally, marveling at how easily she could make him squirm. He wondered, not for the first time, if this girl could possibly be dangerous to him. He knew that he was straying into foreign territory with her and was rather frightened by the prospect, racing headlong through waters that could lead anywhere.

"Why are you here...I mean with me? I just don't see the attraction" he asked. She didn't answer for a long time; just sat there watching him with those beguiling eyes. In later years, he would reflect on this particular moment and be unable to decide if what happened next had been real or if it was the product of a fertile imagination. The gymnasium had been submerged in a blue red twilight that cast an eerie shadow over the hall. As Nathaniel watched Jennifer's face, it seemed as if she were changing. Her eyes appeared to be different. Perhaps it was his imagination or the way in which the light played its dream world hue over her lovely face, but her eyes looked as if they had undergone some type of change. There was an ageless depth to them and an intensity that he had never before noticed. That could be anyone, his mind whispered, anyone at all. This notion filled him with a vague trepidation that made his pulse thunder in his temples. He gazed about him to find that everyone was drifting by in slow motion. When at last Jennifer spoke, it was as if the timber of her voice was different.

"You're special, Nath. I can sense it about you...it's as if you've been somehow marked. This will probably sounds sort of crazy but you're different from the rest of us. It's hard to explain. I mean, I know what I think, but I just can't seem to put it into words that make any sense of relate exactly how I feel when I look at you," she broke off. Her voice conveyed the confusion that shimmered across her lovely face like night mist on a lake. Nath could feel the hair on the nape of his neck standing on end. There was something profound in what she had just said. He could not guess what that something might be, but it was there, buried deep within the riddle of her words. He had the distinct impression that someone else had been speaking to him through her. The thought did nothing to allay his disquiet. His anxiety must have been written all over his face because she asked, "Did I say something wrong Nath?"

He glanced up at her. She was smiling almost apologetically. Something had passed between them. Neither was sure of just what that something had been, but each could feel the electric sensation of being touched. Distantly, he replied, "No, I'm okay."

"What made you ask me that question?" She was leaning forward with her red mane spilling over her shoulders and her eyes sparkling in a mischievous way that reminded him so much of the Jennifer that he was used to. Now it was his turn to feel sheepish. "I was just curious. I just couldn't figure out why such a beautiful girl would want to go out with me, when there's a long line of guys who'd kill each other for the chance to take her out."

She regarded him with total candor. "I see something I like and when I do, I go after it. That's just the way I am."

Nathaniel smiled uneasily, not certain how he felt about being the target of such aggressive affection. She looked at her watch with a theatrical glance. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm all danced out and I'm in the mood for something deep fried and sinful.

Something about her conspiratorial leer told him that food was probably the furthest thing from her mind. He began to feel horny, anxious and a little scared, all at the same time.

"You wanna go for some chicken?" he stammered, feeling extremely green.

"Now you get the idea," she confirmed with a laugh and reaching across the table, pulled him to his feet and toward the door.

3

What happened next probably wouldn't have happened under normal circumstances. Then again, if all of the junctures in one's life are preordained, then perhaps what happened was inevitable. Regardless of how one chooses to view it, what happened did happen and the whys and wherefores don't really matter. What matters is that Nathaniel Simpson discovered things about himself that would set him off down a road that found its end, years later, within the walls of an old Romanian Manor.

Jennifer led him through the wide halls, with the tips of her heels echoing purposefully in the emptiness. His head still buzzed from the thunder of the music, not to mention the inebriating feel of her body next to his. By the time that they reached the double front doors of the main entrance, Jennifer was nibbling at his ear and casually draping her arm about his waist. When they opened the main door, she groaned and trumpeted out, "Oh no! Not rain. God, it will ruin my hair. Dammit!"

Nathaniel felt himself groaning inside as well, cursing his luck as well as the bloody weather. He didn't want anything to spoil her mood. His mind raced desperately for a solution. "Listen Jennifer, give me your keys and I'll bring the Beamer around front, as close as I can to the stairs."

She looked at him dubiously for a second. "Have you ever driven a car before?"

He gave her a reassuring smile and said, "Do I drive? Are you kidding? I was born behind a wheel."

She looked at him for a moment longer with an indecisive expression still set upon her gorgeous face. Then she reluctantly handed him the keys along with a stern warning, "If anything happens to that car Nath, both of us better find a deserted island to hide on."

"Sounds like a heck of an idea to me," he quipped.

"Get out of here," she laughed, cuffing him playfully upon the shoulder. He returned her smile and pushed through the doors out into the rain.

It was about four hundred feet from the main entrance to the parking lot and Nathaniel went at it on a dead run. Despite his speed, he was soaked to the skin in seconds. He didn't care because he was sure that Jennifer would do her best to warm him up. The prospect of this made him sprint just a little harder.

The rain lashed the earth with a vengeance, jumping up a full three inches above the asphalt on impact. The thick rain-impregnated clouds made the night that much darker. The car was moving too fast...too fast by a good bit. It came up the water slicked street doing better than seventy miles an hour, when the driver evidently lost control of the vehicle. He attempted to brake, but only succeeded in speeding up his skid, as the car went hydroplaning along the roadway and up onto the sidewalk.

Nathaniel was in the process of turning to face the oncoming car when it struck him in the thigh. The force of the impact threw him up and over the hood, shattering his left leg. The leg made a sharp snapping sound as it broke, much like a dry piece of hickory. The car continued on, recovering somewhat as the boy went up and over in a crude somersault. He landed badly, his back hitting the edge of the curb and snapping like a twig, while his head hit the concrete sidewalk with a bone crushing thud. He had enough momentum to roll into the gutter before coming to a halt face down in the running water.

Nath was able to raise his head enough to see the car come to a skidding halt about seventy feet ahead of where he lay. It sat there idling for a few seconds and then pulled away with a screech of tires, leaving him lying in the rain washed gutter.

He tried to scream, to cry out for help, but a glut of blood nearly gagged him and he knew that something inside of him had been ruined. He was dying. He was certain of this not so much because of the pain but because of the lack of it. He should have been writhing in agony, but he felt only a dull nagging coldness that was rapidly giving way to an agreeable numbness. He attempted to move his legs, but could feel nothing and came to understand that his back had been broken. His last conscious thought before he slipped into the void was that he had lost Jennifer's keys.

4

Someone was screaming his name in a high frenzied voice that bordered on outright hysteria. That was the first thing that he became aware of as he moved towards the light of awareness. His first actual thought was ' _I'm alive_ ' and hard on the heels of that ' _how_?' There was pain now, but only a small amount of it, diminishing with every passing second. The strongest sensation that he felt was a rhythmic pulsing in his chest right, he realized at once, where the mark was.

Jennifer was bending over him, afraid to touch him, and uncertain as to what she should do. Hot tears were streaming down her face, losing themselves in the driving rain.

"Nath! Please, are you okay?" she begged frantically.

He lay on the asphalt, feeling the rushing water brushing past his face. He experimentally moved his fingers. They were fine as were his toes. Jennifer's constant screeching in his ear was making him a little crazy and he issued a low moan just to shut her up.

"I'm okay, Jen," he muttered thickly and he knew that this was true, though he had no real notion of how or why. Before he had passed out, he remembered that he couldn't feel anything below his neck and had been positive that his back was broken. Now, however, everything had been put back into working order. Suddenly it dawned upon him that the itch that he was feeling was the same one that a broken bone issues as it heals. The bones had knit themselves in a matter of mere minutes. Holy shit, he thought, the bones knit themselves.

He sat up with a grunt and shook the water out of his hair, very much in the same way that a dog will shake water out of its fur. He opened his eyes for the first time and was greeted by the anxiety contorted face of Jennifer Tillman. "Are you alright? What happened? I was afraid that you were...were."

She broke off, unable to articulate just what it was that she had thought. He said nothing, instead testing his limbs again, unable to accept the reality of his good health. Then he looked back at Jennifer and said, with a sheepish grin, "I was running to get the car and slipped on the wet concrete. I hit my head and lost your keys."

"No, I found them," she replied, holding them up. Her face was literally aglow with relief. She had accepted his bald faced lie unquestioningly and that was good. Something had happened to him; something much too big to digest without a lot of heavy contemplation. He stood up and walked back to the parking lot. She put her arm around his waist, insisting that he let her support him, despite his assurance that he was quite fine. Once they were in the car, she began to shiver and then to cry. "It's my fault. I should have went with you and not been so bloody selfish about my fucking hair. I'm so sorry."

Nathaniel was rather disconcerted by her outburst. He put his arm around her shoulder, hoping to allay her guilt. "Jennifer, it wasn't your fault. I was just being careless. I'll be alright and that's all that really matters anyway."

She studied him intently for a second and then said, "All wet like that, you look like a drowned rat."

Relieved to see her smiling, Nath replied, "If I'm the rat, then I sure hope that you're the cheese."

She laughed and he joined her, though inside he felt humorless and as cold as tombstone marble.

5

Several weeks passed after the hit and run incident. He told no one about that night, not even Jimmy, whom he normally trusted in all things. As time passed, Nathaniel felt himself becoming even more disconnected from everything around him. It was as if he had reached a corner in his life and having now turned it, could no longer look back upon his old life. Whenever his thoughts turned back to that rainy night, his mind would seize on the odd pulsing sensation emanating from the mark on his chest. Though he couldn't say precisely why, he was now convinced that it had played a part in his resurrection. Resurrection was another term that kept finding its way into his thoughts. Hindsight convinced him that he had been dead; not hurt or stunned, but stone cold dead. Now he was alive but different, very different.

When had it been, just a few short weeks ago? Maybe, but lately he had begun to toy with the notion that he was now something more than an average person. There was something inside of him; an alien presence that had spared him from death on that night. How and for what purpose? These questions nagged at him and he would not be able to rest until he could find some rational conclusion.

Thus, when he awoke on a dull Monday morning in early April, he had decided upon a course of action; a sort of test of his mortality. He dressed quickly, went down stairs and said his Goodbyes and went out to where he'd normally catch his school bus. Instead of hopping on the school bus, he took a cross-town bus into the retail district where he went in search of a sporting goods store that sold hunting and fishing equipment. He found one about six blocks north of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Murray's Angler and Hunter Haven was a small brick front store that sported a dazzling array of camping equipment and fishing rods in its two large display windows.

Nath entered the store after drawing a deep breath. He had to do this before his resolve deserted him. Inside, his nostrils flared at the pervasive smell of fresh canvas. Murray was a morbidly fat, bearded man wearing tan work trousers and a green and black checkered hunting shirt. As soon as he saw Nath walk through the door, a look of suspicion stole into his eyes, which narrowed to slits in his pudgy face. "Can I be of some help to ya?"

Nath refused to be intimidated by this barely concealed hostility. He had spent the previous night working through a stack of Uncle Avery's Angler and Hunter Magazines so that he could be a little more conversant on the topic of hunting knives. "Yes, I'm interested in buying a hunting knife and I'd like to see what you've got."

Murray extended a meaty paw in the direction of a glass case. "Over there. That's the entire works. If ya see anything that catch's your eye, let me know."

Nath walked over to the case. There were knives of every conceivable shape and size. There was a short handled knife with a long thin blade designed especially for gutting fish. Nath's eyes fell upon a heavy handled, wicked creation that could well have been a bayonet. Though the blade was heavy, it looked as though it could cut through bone and still slice a tomato. "Could I see this one?"

Murray grunted and came over to the counter where Nathaniel pointed out his choice of weapons. "Good choice kid. This is a perfect hunting knife. It'll slice through meat and cut right through an elephant's bone. You see these serrations? They'll rip through just about any gauge of barbed wire. Pretty damn versatile knife, wouldn't ya say?"

"Pretty versatile indeed," Nath agreed as he took the weapon from the man. He ran his finger along the blade gingerly, wincing at the feel of the cold, hard steel. "This will do just fine. How much is it?"

Murray quoted him a price. It was steep but Nath was committed now and counted out the appropriate amount, placing it on the counter. Murray put the purchase into a plastic bag, along with the case, and then heat sealed the top. Nath smiled at the fat man, took the bag and walked out into the cool morning air. He allowed himself a deep sigh, glad that the transaction had gone off so well. He set off towards Puget Sound, hopping to find a deserted spot for his little experiment.

Finally, feeling chilled by the dampness, he came upon what he had been looking for; a large, squat Quonset hut with chained front doors. The property was surrounded by an eight foot high fence, topped with three strands of rusty barbed wire. He followed the fence, hoping to find an opening, until he reached the rear of the property. There was no break in the fence and he spent several indecisive moments choosing whether to stay and try to climb the fence or to go in search of another location. He decided to risk the family jewels and climb over.

What Nath lacked in size he made up for in agility and he was able to scale the fence easily. Holding onto the angle iron, he vaulted over the wire and landed smoothly on the concrete. While the owner had taken great pains to secure the perimeter, he had not bothered to do the same for the actual building. Nath found a window that slid up with a groan of warped wood. He pushed through the window and onto the concrete floor which was covered with a thick patina of dust. The interior was deserted save for a pile of empty crates stacked haphazardly near the front doors.

The windows were similarly covered with white dust that allowed only a murky light to filter through. He closed the window through which he had gained entry. He crossed to the center of the floor and then removed his shirt and jeans, neatly folding them on top of the plastic bag from which he had just removed the knife. All of his reservations came flooding back to him and not for the first time, he wondered if he had lost his mind. He tried to put his doubts aside, but they kept nagging at him like an aching tooth.

He fell to his knees and took up the knife, clutching the haft in both hands and aiming the blade into his abdomen. He had to know. The not knowing was somehow worse than the possible painful consequences of this experiment. He had seized on the word experiment because it was more palatable than the word suicide. Though, in all honesty, suicide was unquestionably what he was planning.

Nath was gripped by indecision and knew that if he did not do it now he would lose his nerve. Steeling himself against the anticipated jolt of pain, Nath plunged the knife inward. It effortlessly pierced the skin, burying itself a full four inches into his abdomen. It hurt. It hurt like hell and he waited for the deluge of blood which did not come. He stifled the scream that was welling up in his throat. The wound was lipless. No trace of blood could be seen. He released his hold on the knife, mesmerized by the way it looked buried deep in his pale flesh.

Nathaniel could feel a pounding in his chest. It was not his heart that thundered like the roar of the surf; it was the scar. It pulsed, ballooning in and out as if it possessed a vitality of its own. He tentatively touched the flesh of the scar and found it shockingly hot. As he did, the ground began to rumble and the walls shook, raising clouds of white dust from the floor. There was a discernible coalescing of forces that pushed the floor towards the ceiling in a shrapnel burst of flying concrete and dust. All along the inside walls, a new wall of stone was forcing its way out of the earth.

Nathaniel was petrified as he watched the brick rise out of the ground, entrapping him inside a chamber of solid stone. The chamber was submerged in total darkness, accentuating his terror. At last the roar subsided, leaving him imprisoned with the silence and the darkness. His breathing came in machine gun bursts. This was all some bizarre nightmare, a horrible side effect of dying. It had to be; nothing else made sense. Brick walls did not grow out of the earth like garden vegetables. Maybe all of this was the way that his mind chose to occupy it's the time while his body fell into a coma.

Suddenly a crack appeared in the wall at the far end of the building. Instead of revealing the corrugated steel walls beyond, it gave way to a long corridor through which filtered a dull blue light. Nath squinted into the gloom and could just make out someone or something moving along the corridor. His flesh had risen in great hackles and he could feel an arctic chill sweep over his nearly naked body. Though unable to make out specific features, he realized, by the curvaceous outline of the silhouette, that it was a woman approaching.

He knew who it was even before she stepped out of the corridor and into the chamber; even before she brought blazing light to its interior with an imperious wave of her hand. He had heard about her often enough. Jimmy had described her again and again in great detail. He did not know her name because his step brother had referred to her only as The Witch. How many nights had she come to him in nightmares, causing him hours of nocturnal torment? Now she was here. Somehow, she was here. Still he could not move. The object of his terror held him transfixed.

The light flashed, revealing beauty beyond all imagining, but through this he could see her eyes blazing with unbridled fury. She quickly crossed the distance between them and seizing him by the hair, roughly hauled him to his feet. Her eyes were smoldering and he feared that she intended to kill him then and there.

"If it's pain that you desire whelp, then pain that you shall have!" she rasped and reaching for the haft of the knife, began to twist it violently back and forth. White hot pain flashed through his midsection, sending him screaming to his knees. As Nath toppled, Cynara pulled the knife out with a savage jerk. "You're fortunate that I don't allow you to die."

"You took my mother," he managed, startled by his ferocity. Cynara moved forward and kicked him smartly in the kidneys. Nath cried out and tucked himself protectively into a ball. "You and I have to come to an understanding pup. Look at me or I'll pluck one of your eyes out."

Nathaniel looked up at her, having little doubt that she would gladly make good her threat. She seemed to be at least ten feet tall. She knelt down beside him, still holding the knife which she jabbed unceremoniously into his chest. "This scar is my brand. It signifies that you are my property. I hold the rights to your body and soul."

She paused to allow him to absorb this and then bellowed, "I will decide how and when to dispose of you...no one else."

She punctuated each word by poking him with the knife tip. He gritted his teeth, refusing to give her the pleasure of hearing him scream. Stubbornly, he repeated, "You took my mother."

She slapped him across the face hard enough to make him see stars. "That is another matter. In time you and I will settle that account, but not now. All things are predestined. Our day of reckoning will come, though not for some years. I'll forgive this one misguided action, but if you ever try to deliberately harm yourself again, I'll introduce you to the real meaning of pain. Know this; you cannot die unless I allow you to. I can cause you to suffer a limitless amount of agony if I so choose."

To emphasize her power over him, Cynara placed her palm on his chest and it exploded in a convulsion of pain, nearly making his heart stop. He turned onto his side and vomited onto the concrete floor. She smiled, pleased by his reaction. He rolled onto his opposite side, facing away from her and lay gasping for breath. She rose to her feet and walked around him. He looked up at her, prepared for another assault, but it did not come. She held the knife out before her, concentrating on it intensely, as if to focus all of her energy upon it. With a blinding flash of white light, Nath watched the knife burst into flame. The flash was bluish white, like a phosphorus strip and it caused the boy to raise his arm to shield his eyes from the glare. By squinting he was able to hold his gaze. He was dumbstruck to find that the knife, as well as her entire hand had burst into flames. He stared at her, mouth open in amazement, while she smiled at him. "Take note boy and try to understand. Try to realize the extent of the power behind this display. When you and that other whelp muster the courage to come, consider what will be awaiting you."

Gradually the flame faded from white to yellow, to orange and at last, to a dull red. All that remained of the blade was a twisted blackened mass. "Remember, if you should ever try such a stunt again, I will return and provide you with a new definition of suffering."

Having said this, she let the knife fall through her fingers. It landed upon his chest, immediately burning his flesh; filling his nostrils with the acrid stench of his own dissolving skin. He wailed in agony, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain. He went on screaming this way, writhing in the dust for a long time, until he discovered that the pain was gone and that his cries were more for the memory of the pain than for the pain itself. He opened his eyes to find that the witch was gone, as were the stone walls. The warehouse was exactly as it had been before he had driven the knife into his abdomen. He looked about, beginning to entertain the possibility that it had all been an illusion conjured up by his adrenalin charged mind. Then he spotted the knife, or more precisely, the thing that had once been the knife. It lay on the concrete floor about ten feet from where he knelt. The charred remains provided a physical corroboration to all that had happened before.

Nathaniel walked over to it and prodded it with his right index finger. It was still warm. The shakes hit him then. His body began to tremble uncontrollably. He feared that he was about to be sick again, but in time the sensation passed as did the trembling. He had relinquished possession of his own soul somehow. He felt like a puppet being controlled by a belligerent puppet master. He sat pondering the implications of this for a long time. No matter how he chose to examine it, his life looked grim as long as Cynara held the blade to his throat. Feeling bleak and drawn, he dressed and exited the way that he had come in. He would not see Cynara Simonovic again for nearly ten years.

Chapter Four

The world had somehow spun off of its axis. A prevailing sense of disorder, of chaos, had descended over everything, shrouding the world beneath a penumbra of consuming madness. He ran through the streets of this alien city, aware of only two things; the pervasive reek of desiccating flesh that filled his lungs as he ran, and the imperative need to find her. He could feel his anxiety mount with every twist and turn that yielded another dead end. A peel of thunder shook the heavens and he glanced up, fearing that time might have expired. His muscles quivered with the strain and his lungs felt as if they might burst, but he was spurred on by the knowledge that to fail would mean death, not only for him, but for her as well.

He had long ago accepted the possibility of his own death. In some ways he found it a comforting notion. Yet if he were to die before he reached her, his entire life would have proved meaningless.

He turned a corner and found himself peering along the length of a street lined with crumbling brownstones. The street was a dead end, which was decidedly odd considering that it was located in the heart of the city. At the opposite end of the block, possibly two hundred yards away, there stood a large, incongruent mansion; an anomaly in the midst of such squalid decay. As he watched, the door opened and a solitary figure emerged. It was the dark lady. His body registered this before his mind could process the information. He had been pouring sweat from his exertion, but at the appearance of the dark lady, his flesh rose in a mountain range of goose bumps, as if he had just stepped out of a desert and into a refrigeration unit.

At once the street sprang to life with a series of shrill cries and shrieks. He looked about with a start, becoming aware, for the first time, that there were actually people in these buildings. Nath could sense their eyes upon him, peering out of the brooding shadows. A growing rumble shook the ground beneath his feet and he staggered over to a wall in an attempt to retain his balance. With a deafening roar, the manhole covers along the length of the street blew out of the ground and went hurtling into the air, flipping end over end like giant dimes. Geysers of red and brown sludge shot a full thirty feet above the pavement, spattering the entire street with the foul smelling mud.

Nathaniel was at once drenched, nearly vomiting as his stomach rose into the back of his throat. The geysers abated but did not stop entirely. A constant flow of sludge dribbled out of the holes, spreading slowly over the street. She spoke to him then and in this new world with its own realities, it seemed as though she were beside him even though she was hundreds of feet away. "So you've come at last. I was beginning to think that you had met an untimely end. There is someone here who I am sure that you are anxious to meet."

A shadow passed in the doorway, just behind the dark lady. It was there and gone in the blink of an eye, but with his new heightened acuity, he was able to catch a glimpse of long blond hair. It was her, after all of these years, it was actually her. He started forward at a sprint, but the thick ground slime made it virtually impossible to get his traction. It felt as if the ground had turned to mud because he sank to his knees at one spot. It drew down upon him like wet clay and he struggled arduously to reach solid ground. About him, doors were opening and people were emerging from the derelict buildings. He screamed at the sight of these mutants. Each had been altered. They gave the impression of having been torn apart and reassembled by a lunatic sculptor. As they lurched down the steps and into the street, Nath could see that their eyes were set upon him, burning bright with a malignant loathing as if he were somehow responsible for their misery. In the context of the dream, he could not say with any degree of certainty that he was not.

They came off of their porches, but they had even less luck moving through the slime than he did. They fell again and again, tripping over each other like keystone cops. He redoubled his efforts to reach the dark lady, who marked his approach with a ghost of a smile playing across her lips. She was deriving obvious pleasure from his struggle as if she found the entire affair unutterably comical.

The mutant's reaction had been slow and he had been able to open some ground between them, but they were rapidly converging upon him now. One was just behind him, but she lost her footing and pitched forward onto her face. As the mutant went down, she groped for his ankle and succeeded in getting a hold on the cuff of his pants. He tried to pull away but her grip was powerful and she held him fast. As he frantically fought to extricate himself, the other mutants grew ever closer. He glanced about with mounting terror as they bore down upon him. He kicked at her head repeatedly, hearing the vivid crunch of breaking bone. At last she let go and he scrambled to his feet, resuming his charge towards the door.

She was thirty yards ahead of him and then twenty and finally ten. He could see her face clearly now. Her beautiful eyes beamed encouragingly as if she wanted him to reach the door. Then, in slow motion, she turned and walked over the threshold, closing the door behind her. He could hear her shoot the bolt, closing him out with brutal finality.

Nathaniel raced up the stairs and began to hammer upon the wooden door. He pounded upon it until his fists began to ache and bleed. He came to see that his efforts were fruitless and sagged against the wood.

There was a triumphant cry from behind him and he turned to see that the mutants were nearly upon him. He looked at their faces for the first time and was horrified to discover that they were people that he knew or stranger yet, should have known. They came up the steps grinning malevolently, while he implored them to stay back. A thing that might have once been Jimmy Simms opened its mouth to reveal needle sharp teeth.

They fell upon him.

Chapter Five

1

Jimmy Simms pulled his Ford Ranger into the lot at Vernon's Diner on Route Five. It was full of pickup trucks similar to his as Vernon's catered mostly to truckers and blue collar workers. Jimmy overheard Vern telling a number of his regular patrons once, "My place is for working Joes like us and not for art farts and yuppie faggots."

Jimmy smiled at the recollection. Still he liked Vernon's because the food was good and he generally liked the crowd that frequented the place. It was five thirty and the place was jammed with the after work crowd. Jimmy parked the Ranger and got out, heading for the diner's entrance. He had come here directly from his job in Richmond Heights, where he was employed as a carpenter by the Findlanson Construction Company. Normally, he liked to go straight home to shower and eat before he went out on any type of nocturnal adventure. Tonight, however, he had come to the diner at Nathaniel's request. The sawdust was still nestled in the curls of his hair.

He received a call from his stepbrother earlier that morning. Nath had asked if they could meet later in the day, but would not be more specific than that. Jimmy had agreed, but found that he was disturbed by the prospect of their meeting. He found that the very thought of it had worked at him all day long. Though he seemed outwardly calm, something in Nath's voice suggested that he was on the verge of hysteria. Oddly enough, now that he had arrived, Jimmy was possessed by the urge to jump back in his truck and drive away. Normally, Nathaniel Simpson was virtually unflappable. There was only one thing that would make him that anxious.

Jimmy opened the diner's door and stepped inside. The place was alive with the bustle of after work patrons and he was at once flooded by a barrage of colors and images. He quickly clamped down his mind's circuit breaker and the colors and pictures disappeared. There had been a time in his life, before he had learned to control his ability, when Jimmy thought that this continuous picture show would drive him mad.

He scanned the booths and spotted Nathaniel sitting alone near the rear of the Diner. Even from this distance, he could see that his brother appeared sullen and weary.

Jimmy moved back to join Nath and was about to say hello when the younger man looked up at him, "Holy shit Nath, are you sick?"

Nathaniel's face was pallid and he looked extremely haggard. There were pronounced black smudges beneath his eyes and even his blonde hair looked dull and lifeless. Jimmy's mind automatically attempted to probe the other man's, but as always he was stonewalled. There was a black misty around Nathaniel that Jimmy could just not penetrate. Still, he didn't have to be psychic to see that there was something drastically wrong with the man. Nath didn't respond to his question; he just gestured for Jimmy to sit down with a wave of his hand.

"Christ Nath, tell me what's wrong. You look like death warmed over."

"I haven't been sleeping," he responded blandly.

"It looks like you haven't slept in a week," Jimmy persisted, but Nath didn't bite at his efforts to lighten the situation.

"It's time Jimmy," Nath left the pronouncement to hang, but no further words were needed. Jimmy felt as if he'd been bludgeoned.

"What's happened?" he asked somberly. So Nathaniel proceeded to tell him the entire story. He had been terrorized by the same nightmare for years. It would visit him on and off with no discernible pattern, but in the last two weeks it had come to him every night, until he was afraid to go to sleep. "Not only that Jimmy, but the scar has begun to ache, to pulse. Sometimes it throbs so hard I think I'm going crazy."

"So what makes you think that all of this is some kind of summons from the witch?"

"I don't know. I don't have a concrete explanation, just this gut feeling that she wants us, or perhaps just me, to come to her and settle our old score. Why now? I have no rational answer to that one either. Then again, is any of this rational?" Nath mused glumly.

Jimmy shook his head, worry furrowing his brow. "No, I guess that it isn't. It's just that I've finally started to build a normal life for myself. I've got a job I like and a house. The idea of giving all of that up isn't easy to accept...especially when you consider the reason."

"You're fooling yourself. The life you're living is a comfortable delusion. Our whole life between Semelar and thus moment has been a pastime leading up to this conversation. That's what the mark on my chest is all about. I can't speak for you, but I feel as if there is some kind of invisible barrier between me and the rest of the world. A passing relationship with the world around me is the best I can expect until this score with Cynara is settled."

Jimmy watched the younger man that he had come to think of as a brother. He was a relatively small man of about five foot, six inches tall and no more than a hundred and fifty pounds. His face was almost angelically beautiful. Despite being handsome and sensitive, Nath had never been able to have a long term relationship with any of the women that he had known. There had been several, all attracted to his looks and shyness, but after a time they would all seem to just drift away. Invariably they would find that there was a kind of strangeness behind his natural reserve. It was as though he were possessed by something that would not permit any real contact. Even though they were closer to each other than any other people in their lives, Jimmy often had the impression that Nath was only here by proxy. He always tried to avoid thinking about his brother's alien nature because, quite frankly, it frightened him. It brought back images of the dark lady...images which he had desperately fought to put behind him over the past twenty years. They all came flooding back to him now and he realized that Nathaniel's words were the pure truth. He was building a fantasy that could collapse around him any time that the witch willed it to. "One thing that I don't understand is why we have to go to her? Why after so long?"

"Cynara is a manipulator. She derives a particular pleasure from having people do her bidding. She could have killed both of us years ago, I'm sure of that, but she wanted us to come to her instead.

"She marked me Jimmy. As long as I bare that mark and she is alive, my life is not my own. I've got to try going and getting it back." There was a marked quiver in Nath's voice, along with something else. Jimmy could sense it concealed beneath the words.

"There's something you're not telling me, something that happened. If we're going to do this, then you owe me the whole truth."

Nath gazed down into his beer. How could he begin? How could he tell his story in such a way that it would not sound like utter lunacy? He looked up at Jimmy, who was waiting expectantly. He told him the whole story, how he'd been struck by the car, his experiment and his warning from Cynara. Jimmy watched him with growing unease. "So you see Jimmy, It's just like she said...when the time is right, she'll call in her claim to me. I think that this is the time."

As he spoke the last words, Jimmy could hear a door slam shut somewhere in the darkest recesses of his mind. He glanced around the room at the other patrons. He envied them their regular everyday lives. When finally he spoke, his words came out dry and hollow, like a wind from the bottom of a tomb. "So what do you think we should do?"

"Go and find her. We have to kill her somehow and get our lives back, because I don't want to live as her property for the rest of my life. For me, there's more than just that. My dream tells me that there is a faint possibility that my mother is still alive. It may be just bait, a sort of a carrot to lure me to her, but I can't take the chance that it isn't. I quit my job this morning and I've turned all of my stocks and bonds into cash. I've got to go, so I'm going. Will you come with me?"

"Yes," Jimmy replied automatically. Nath's argument was so adamant and compelling that Jimmy could not help but believe that Nath was right and all of this was preordained. "Where do we start?"

Nathaniel's features settled into lines of dejection. For the first time he appeared unsure of himself. "Honestly, I have no idea."

Jimmy smiled, "Well maybe I do."

Nath glanced up at him questioningly. Jimmy went on, "Nath, before Uncle Avery died he gave me a letter. He made me promise that I wouldn't open it until you came to me with some sort of proposal. I had no idea what that proposition was, but he said that I would recognize it when I heard it. I've got the letter at home. There were times after his death, when my curiosity nearly got the better of me, but I never opened it. Maybe it's time we did."

2

Jimmy had purchased a small house about ten blocks north of the Puget Sound Naval Base, not far from where Nath had had his first encounter with the Dark Lady. As he looked around the neat interior, Nath felt a twinge of sorrow for Jimmy. The house spoke of a man who was laboriously attempting to build a new life for himself, while trying to live down the ghosts of his past. Nath had effectively torpedoed that hope and Jimmy found himself deeply wounded by the loss.

"Here it is," Jimmy said, returning from his bedroom. In his hand he held a letter sealed within a Ziploc bag. He carried it over to the coffee table and handed it to Nath. "I think that you should be the one to open this. It was intended for you anyway I guess."

As Nathaniel reached for the letter, the image of Avery Mathis came to him. His eyes were haunted, giving him a look of age and dispirited resignation. The horror of Semelar had shattered Uncle Avery. Nath suspected that the man had begun to die the very day he left his hometown. His failure ate at him like a cancer of the soul.

Nath took the letter and ripped open the baggy, taking the white envelope from inside. He held the letter between his fingers, noting that the tension had thickened the air within the house. This was the first step along a road that was certain to be dark and perilous. He glanced up at Jimmy, who smiled and nodded for him to continue.

He did. Withdrawing the single sheet from inside, he began to read:

For Jimmy and Nath:

If you're reading this letter, then you have come to a point in your life that I prayed you would never reach; you've decided to go after Cynara. I wish that I could talk you out of it...that you would just let sleeping dogs lie, but as much as I wish this, I understand that you can't. It's in both of you. Too much has happened to just ignore it.

In many ways I admire your courage. It is a strength that I never had. I watched men like Neghev and Stillman die, but I never raised a finger to avenge them. Ultimately, I guess that that makes me a coward. This is an idea that I have had to live with ever since. I won't try to dissuade you from going, but I genuinely wish that you didn't have to. Jimmy, nothing can bring back your parents or repair the hurt that she has done to you. Nathaniel, regardless of how many times you kill her, you will always carry her mark.

I'm not telling you this so that you will change your mind. No, I'm telling you because if you should kill her, I want you to know that there won't be any moment of great redemption. You will have done what you had to do and what is right, but the past is the past and it is indifferent to the future. There is no glory or redemption in revenge. When she is dead and in Hell where she belongs, try to forget all of this and go on with what is left of your lives.

There are a few things that may help you in your search. Nath, we were never able to find the body of your mother. Both Stillman and Neghev believed that this Cynara coveted her. It is remotely possible that she is still alive. I don't know if this helps, it probably makes it worse. There was a time when I entertained the illusion that I would someday go after the vile bitch.

That was a self serving lie of course, but I still kept track of her movements. After Semelar, she moved to Los Angeles and remained there for six years. Then, for some unfathomable reason, she left the country and moved to a small town in Mexico named El Zaltaro. This town is located near the west coast of Mexico, between Santo Domingo and San Felipe.

After this I kind of outgrew my fantasy and thus lost track of her, but I doubt if picking up her trail would be a difficult task. A monster like her leaves scars where ever she goes. If you know what you're looking for, those scars should be easy to come across.

I want you boys to know that, though Vera and I weren't a substitute for your real parents, we loved you as best we could and tried to give you back some of the family life that you lost. Take good care of each other. Do what you have to do and come back alive. I ask only this - when you do come back, learn to live your lives, not only for yourselves, but for all of the others who have lost theirs.

Love,

Uncle Avery

By the time that Nath had finished reading the letter, his voice was choked with emotion...Emotion for a broken man who had served as a substitute father for both himself and Jimmy. Avery Mathis had opened his heart and his home to the two parentless boys, making them a part of his family. Along with his wife, Avery had helped to ease the pain of their losses.

Nath looked at Jimmy and ventured, "So? What do we do first?"

Jimmy rubbed his palm over his bearded face and replied, "We settle our accounts here and then we begin searching for Cynara. Let's make a pact Nathaniel; we don't give up searching and we don't come back until either we're dead or she is. No compromise."

Nath felt the all or nothing gravity weigh upon him. An image flickered through his mind then. With nauseating clarity, he saw a headless corpse lying on a carpeted floor. The image was there and gone in an instant and he had no way of knowing who the corpse might have been. He heard himself say, "There are times when I feel as if I've just been living someone else's life anyway, so what do I have to lose."

With twilight filtering through the large bay window, the two men stood and shook hands. Outside the wind gusted, raising dust and other debris against the house. Nath looked from the window to Simms and nodded, knowing that the gauntlet had been thrown down.

Chapter Six

1

One week later, with their affairs in order, the two men left Seattle, heading south along Route Five, in Jimmy's Ford Ranger. They had lived in this city for twenty years, yet they felt no more than a passing sadness at leaving it. Both had been raised there, yet they had never come to consider it their home. For that matter, Uncle Avery had never been able to consider this city his home either. Both Jimmy and Nath had come to the conclusion that this had simply been the spot where Mathis had decided to serve his self imposed exile. Semelar had been his home, yet the shame of failure had permanently banished him from its borders.

It had been Nath who first suggested the idea of stopping in Semelar. They had just passed through Turano with the intention of continuing south along Route Five, when Nath blurted out, "Jimmy, let's go to Semelar."

Jimmy was caught totally off guard by this suggestion and with a quiver of apprehension strident in his voice demanded, "Why?"

The smaller man's eyes appeared distant and again Simms was struck by a sense of the space between Nath and the world around him. He wondered obliquely what it might be like to be so removed from life, to exist behind some insurmountable wall. Nath spoke, not looking at Simms, instead gazing out of the passenger side window, "It just seems like the right thing to do. Something like a new beginning or maybe more like picking up where the last episode left off. The first part ended there and it seems appropriate that we begin our search there. I suspect that if we're to ever find the witch, all of our actions are going to have to follow some kind of choreographed flow."

Jimmy turned his attention back to the road without comment. Nath's explanation sounded confused, but he suspected that very little of what was to come in the months ahead would make a great deal of sense. They were giving up their normal lives to go in search of a creature who defied normalcy. In the course of such an adventure, sanity and logic were likely to be a scarce commodity. "Alright Nath. Why the hell not."

2

They drove for the next eight hours, first heading west and then south through the state of Washington. Eventually they stopped for lunch in Aberdeen, at the junction of Highways 101 and 12. There had been little conversation since they left Seattle and lunch proved to be no different. Each ate silently, sitting in a window booth that overlooked the cafe's parking lot. It was Nath who finally broke the silence. "I feel different, as if some massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders. This feels right. I don't mean that it's going to be easy or even that we'll succeed in finding and killing Cynara. I just think that this was what we were supposed to do. It's almost as if we've frittered the last twenty years away, pretending that this moment was something that we could avoid if we chose to. "

Jimmy nodded his head in agreement, but said nothing. He was experiencing a subtle change as well. The colors and images strobing through his mind were becoming brighter, more intense. He was becoming more attuned to the world around him. As he was growing up, he came to understand more about his 'sight'. He felt positive that it would play a pivotal role on the outcome of their final confrontation with the Dark Lady. If what Nathaniel had suggested proved correct, then he was virtually immortal. Perhaps this, combined with Jimmy's own ability, would give them a better chance than Stillman and Neghev had during their confrontation. The notion proved somewhat comforting, if only for awhile.

After lunch they headed south along Highway 101 and then turned east along Highway 6. An hour later they came to Lisbon, where they turned south for the twenty mile drive to Semelar. There seemed to be a thickening of the air, causing the cab of the Ford to become charged with the electricity of anticipation. They were going home, Nath realized. After so very long, they were going home.

Crossing the Semelar County line, they spotted a brass plaque that had been erected to commemorate the flood, which had been the worst disaster in State history.

"If they only knew what really happened," Nath murmured to no one in particular.

"You and I are probably the only people left alive who do," Jimmy mused as the sign disappeared in the rear-view mirror.

It had been twenty years since the last occasion either of them had been to Semelar and they were both disappointed by what they found. Nathaniel had been too young to recall much of anything, but Jimmy still had vivid memories of the Semelar of his early childhood. He could still recall the tracks and the slums (the Lowlands he believes they were called) as well as the industrial warehouse district. It had been there that he had first discovered the sight. "It's all gone. All of it."

Nath gazed about, not certain what it was that was gone, but the bitter nostalgia was evident in Jimmy's voice. Everything that Jimmy recalled was indeed gone. After the flood and subsequent gas explosion, the Lowlands had been ploughed under and left to stand, like an ugly blight on the land, while Semelar decided whether it would live or die. Even the famous tracks had been ripped up years before. The town council had rezoned the whole area for residential use.

"It's all changed," Jimmy repeated dreamily.

"What's changed?" Nath asked.

"Everything. Even all the tracks are gone. When I was a kid, this whole place was a depressed slum land. All of this was built after the fire. I suppose I should be happy to see what has replaced the slums, but the circumstances surrounding the way they were destroyed makes that impossible." He took one hand off of the wheel and made a broad sweeping gesture at the rows of new houses through which they were passing. Nath gazed at them almost indifferently. He could remember almost nothing of Semelar, as if he were visiting some strange town for the first time. Jimmy, however, felt surprisingly melancholy over the radical changes as though a portion of his life had burned along with the tenements and run down houses that had once stood here. He shook his head and said, "This is just a waste of time. Everything is so different. Almost nothing of the old Semelar is left."

Things change a great deal in twenty years," Nath offered, hoping that his words hadn't sounded as flippant as they did to his own ears.

Jimmy glanced up at him sharply and then back to the road. "I guess they do, but I'd be willing to bet there's one place that's pretty much the same."

"Really? Where would that be?" Nath asked, though in his mind he already knew.

"The witch's den."

"Where else," Nath uttered an exaggerated groaned and both men laughed.

3

That laughter had pretty much curdled by the time they had reached the Simonovic Mansion on Rothman road. It was just as Jimmy remembered it to be; sprawling, brooding and vaguely frightening. It had been the focal point of a good many of his recurring nightmares. It blazed like a beacon, leading him towards insanity then death as he wandered through some hideous nocturnal nightscape. And here it was, after nearly twenty years, unchanged except for the ravages of age.

Jimmy pulled the Ranger onto the gravel shoulder and both men got out and walked to the head of the driveway, where they stood looking up at the mansion for a long time. It was Nath who finally broke the silence, "It doesn't look like anyone's lived here for years."

"The place is falling to pieces. Do you want to look inside?" Jimmy asked, not taking his eyes from the decaying structure.

"Is there really any point?" Nath replied, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. He didn't like the house. Not one bit. To his eyes it looked to be more than just an old and dilapidated house, it resembled a moldering corpse.

"Nath, I think we have to. This is part of it. She wanted us to come here. Cynara has left something for the two of us. I can feel it. There's a type of low intensity energy burning around this whole place. It keeps pulsing from black to gray and then back." Nath watched Jimmy, knowing that he had seen that now familiar expression before. There was a mixture of distress and intensity that came over him whenever he allowed his mind to open to the colors.

Nath turned his own gaze back to the hulking mansion. For a brief interval, perhaps the space of mere seconds, he imagined that he too could see the colors, the aura. The structure was indubitably forbidding. Even the fact that the structure had fallen into disrepair contributed to the impression that it had become a place of evil enchantment.

Jimmy crossed over to the main gate and gave it an experimental push. It opened with a tortured whine of rusty hinges, grating along the heaved paving stones. The two men stepped through and began to walk towards the house. Technically they were trespassing, but the property appeared to be deserted and they gave no real thought to being discovered. Both were caught off guard when a man came around the side of the house and hailed them as they made their way towards the main entrance. "Hey, what're you fellas doing here? This is private property."

The two men wheeled to face him in unison. He was an older man, possibly in his late fifties, wearing old green work pants and a faded blue denim shirt. His head was adorned by a shapeless fishing cap that threw a shadow across his eyes. He slowly shuffled across the drive and stood before them. He appeared harmless enough, yet Jimmy could detect no aura, as if he were looking upon a ghost. He could feel an icy chill begin to tickle the base of his spine. It was Nath who spoke first, "Sorry Mr....er?"

"Benton's my name. William Benton."

"My friend and I once knew someone who lived here a long time ago. We were passing through town and decided to stop and see what's become of them...of this place. Hardly anything in Semelar is what it used to be when we lived here. This is about the only thing that we were actually able to recognize," Nath concluded with a broad sweeping gesture in the direction of the house.

"You're right about that sonny. There ain't too much left of the old town. It's like that fucking flood ripped the heart right out of her. Who was it you said lived here?" The question seemed innocuous enough, but an indecipherable light had stolen into the old man's watery blue eyes.

Jimmy spoke for the first time. "She was a doctor actually. Her name was Cynara Simonovic. She lived here just before the flood."

Did a shadow pass across Benton's face? Simms thought so but that could have been either a trick of the light or his imagination. Still, there was something off kilter about this man. "Don't remember any Doctor Simonovic. Nobody's lived here for about six years now. The last people to live here was a lawyer and his wife. Nice enough couple. She hung herself in the basement. Nobody's lived here since. Townsfolk go about whisperin' that the place is haunted."

Benton emitted a high cackling laugh that grated upon Nath's nerves. He too had caught a sense of intrinsic wrongness to the man. He could see that Jimmy was thinking the same thing; let's get the hell out of here. Somewhere between his brain and his mouth the words got scrambled and he instead asked, "Would you mind if we take a look around inside. Only for a moment or two and then we'll leave."

Benton considered this for a moment and then smiled, "Couldn't really hurt anything, besides I don't really see too many people around here."

"What is it that you do here Mr. Benton?" Jimmy inquired.

"Caretakin' and carpentry mostly. There's a new owner and he hired me to look after the place. Come on in and have a look around." With the invitation offered, he turned and shuffled to the front door. Jimmy and Nath exchanged glances and reluctantly followed. William withdrew the key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock. As they stepped through the front door, the three were assailed by the odor of a house in serious need of a good airing.

"A trifle ripe ain't it," Benton offered with an amused smirk. They made their way from room to room, with Benton acting as a tour guide, giving the other two a running monologue. As a carpenter, Jimmy felt mildly piqued at the obvious neglect of such a fine structure. It would take a great deal of work to make the place livable once again, never mind actually restoring it to its former stately condition. After they had seen the ground floor, Benton asked them if they would like to go through the upper rooms. For the third time that day Nath said something that seemed to originate some place other than his own mind. "Mr. Benton, do you think that we could take a look at the basement?"

Jimmy shot Nath a weighty glance and frowned. Benton also looked at him with an oddly intense expression that quickly faded to his now familiar smirk. If there was anything to be seen in the house, any residue of the days when Cynara had been its master, it would be found in the basement. Though Nath didn't have Jimmy's foresight, he had a certain sense that something was about to happen. The very air was alive with palpable tension as if some unseen force lay poised for the opportunity to spring upon the two. Benton's speculative glance lasted only the space of a few seconds, but in that time Nath had gathered the impression that the rustic carpenter was more than he first appeared to be. Benton smiled, as if divining Nath's thoughts, and said, "Sure, if you'd like."

The very instant that Benton unlocked the door leading down into the cellar, the feeling of impending calamity intensified for both men. The darkness of the basement looked to have a substance...a vitality, as if some malign creature cavorted under its cover. Benton flicked a switch and a dull, yellow light cut ineffectually at the shadows. The three descended the stairs and Benton flipped another switch, bathing the basement in a healthier light which revealed a corridor that cut the basement into two equal halves. Halfway along the corridor, a heavy wooden door was set into each wall. The three moved to the two doors. The one on the left was locked but the door on the right was slightly ajar. Jimmy and Benton came to a halt before the locked door, but Nath paused by the partially opened door, attracted by a barely audible whisper that had evidently come from somewhere within the room. Nath squinted and peered into the blackness, but could see nothing. He paused for a moment and the sound came again, a little louder this time. The sound was a moaned exclamation of some sort, but he couldn't tell if it was a cry of pain or pleasure. He knew only that the voice had a decidedly feminine edge.

Nath turned back to Benton and Jimmy to see if they had also heard the sound. Benton had just stepped through the other door and Jimmy was about to follow. Nath peered indecisively into the darkness. Something was in there, he was certain of that. An abrupt cry came to his ears and he pushed open the door quietly, stepping inside.

"Hello," he called softly, immediately feeling silly for having said anything. He groped for the light switch, but when he flipped it nothing happened. He was about to turn and rejoin the others, when a door at the far end of the room swung open with a muffled crash. A blue light filtered through the opening and the sound of a woman moaning drifted to his ears. He walked slowly over to the open door. The sound of his loafers scuffing the bare cement seemed impossibly loud in the darkness. Coming to the doorway, he halted and peered inside, not crossing the threshold. Some instinct warned against this. Inside was madness. Inside was an evil apparition. His senses rebelled against what he saw.

The room appeared to have once been a sauna. A naked woman lay on a rotting wooden bench, moaning in obvious ecstasy. Her face was turned to the wall, away from Nathaniel. She had large full breasts which heaved to the jagged rhythm of her breathing. Her legs were splayed open and someone was kneeling between them, orchestrating her pleasure with obvious relish. The woman's arms were stretched above her head as her cries rose and fell, rose and fell, like the tides. The blue light, which had no apparent source, cast a surreal glow over the insanity. The woman inclined her head towards Nath, causing him to cry out. It was her.

It was his Mother.

Those clear blue eyes were a lingering memory from his distant childhood. He had gazed into them often enough, hovering over him in the darkness, full of love and warmth. Now they were filled with lust and a dark passion as she writhed under her lover's spell.

"Mother?" he whispered tentatively. She did not respond, but the other swiveled its head towards him. At first he could not comprehend what it was that he was seeing. Then its countenance resolved into madness and he started to scream, backing slowly away from the door.

"So you've come. You'll join us I hope. A ménage-a-trois would be especially nice. She's very pleasing. I can promise you a most intoxicating encounter," it croaked in a high, insectile voice. Its head was a mass of suppurating lumps and its eyes were yellow lanterns, cut by vertical black slashes. Even in the subdued blue light, he could see the profusion of sharp fangs set in its gaping jaws. "Come in and close the door; your submission for an eternity of carnal delight."

His mother reached forward and laced her fingers around the creatures head. Waves of pus erupted from the lumps, washing over her hands in a putrid tide. She forced its face back to her hungry groin, crying out when the thing's tongue touched her smoldering flesh. She fixed her eyes upon Nath. They were alive with an odd mixture of gratitude and desperation. It was more than he could stand, so he turned and fled blindly.

4

Jimmy hadn't noticed how Nath had wandered off. He followed Benton into the other room. When the caretaker switched on the light, the room was empty. The lights were sunk into the ceiling and gave out columns of near blinding light that left shadow zones between them.

"Not much to see here I guess. This was where it happened though," Benton added dramatically. It hadn't been necessary of course; Jimmy had sensed as much. The moment that he had stepped through the door, he was accosted by the psychic residue of the woman's death. It drew him to the spot very much in the same way that a magnet will attract a piece of iron. He moved past the caretaker as if in a trance. He had begun to perspire, though the room was quite cool. It rolled down his face and under his collar in hot rivers, but he was oblivious to the repulsive feel of the cotton shirt clinging to his clammy skin. About him, the room was going through a subtle metamorphosis. He looked back to see Benton leaning casually against the wall. The caretaker's face was lost in the shadows, but Jimmy felt certain that he was grinning. ' _Who is he really_?' Jimmy wondered to himself.

The first creaking sound found his ears then and he knew what he would see before he even turned around. A new shaft of light had sprung to life, illuminating a gently swaying noose. There was a dreadful finality in the pendulum swing of the rope. A woman of medium height swept out of the shadows. Her face looked as though it might have been carved out of stone, showing no real sign of animation. Only the rapid darting of her eyes gave any indication that she was anything more than a grotesque statue. Whatever emotions lived behind those eyes were well beyond Jimmy's sensibility. His gaze was drawn to the ugly, livid purple bruises that ringed her neck. The deep burns, where the rope had gradually choked the life out of her, spoke of resignation and despair.

Try as he might, Jimmy could not move as he watched her glide towards him. Her feet seemed not to touch the floor. Jimmy wanted to retreat but his traitorous body would not do his bidding. He wondered briefly what vision of horror had led her to put her head into the noose and take her own life. As if she could divine his thoughts, she intoned, "To seek the comforts of death."

' _This has to be a trick, an illusion_ ,' he thought. The whole thing since we left the cafe has to be a dream. Soon the alarm will go off and I'll get up and go to work in Richmond Heights.

No braying alarm came to rescue him from the nightmare and the woman drew ever closer to the noose. She glanced about her slyly and whispered, "This house is alive. The walls themselves spoke to me. They told me of the eternal comfort of death. No extremes. No heat. No cold. Only a blissful moderation. This house showed me a road to the better way and this is where that road must find its origins."

She gestured towards the noose, which continued to sway hypnotically in the dull light. In her blue gray eyes there was such a look of contentment that Jimmy felt a momentary twinge of envy. There was an undeniable serenity to this woman that he had never felt in his entire life. She was a sensuous, alluring woman and he felt himself drawn to her. His keeper attempted to speak to him, but something had muffled and distorted his voice making it easy to disregard. It didn't matter because she was speaking to him once again. "Time passes so slowly here. At times it can be quite lonely."

Then her eyes flared and she cried excitedly, "You could stay with me. Together we could weave an eternal spell of ecstasy. A moment of pain for an infinity of pleasure."

As he watched her, Jimmy could sense his desire growing, not only for her but also for that gleam of contentment in her eyes. She was dead, yet she seemed so much more alive than he. Even her skin, which had at first appeared pallid, now looked creamy and enticing. She held the noose in both hands and offered it to him. He didn't want to go, didn't want to die; he was sure of that. Despite that certainty, there was a hypnotic element to all of this and he felt himself being compelled forward. He took a halting step towards the noose and then another. At last he stood directly before it, trembling as hot tears coursed down his cheek. There was a broad maniacal grin spreading over his face. He bent forward and the apparition slipped the noose over his head as if he were a king accepting his crown at a coronation. The rope prickled against his skin as it slipped over his neck. He was about to draw the noose tight, when a frantic cry broke his trance. "Jesus Christ! Jimmy, what the hell are you doing?"

He had been looking directly at the shade when the cry shattered his enchantment. The thing dissolved before his eyes like a thin sheet of plastic before a flame. His eyes widened and he could feel the drag of the rope upon his throat. For a horrible instant he feared that events would run their course and he would be hanged. Then the pressure abated and the rope went slack. Near panic now, he lifted the noose over his head and cast it aside. He turned to Nathaniel and was overcome by a wave of trembling so violent that he feared that he might collapse.

"Fuck. Fuck, oh fuck!" he wailed miserably.

Nathaniel turned away, not knowing what to say, understanding that Jimmy had very nearly been bedeviled. For the first time, but certainly not the last, he suspected that this whole venture would prove futile if not fatal. If Cynara was capable of such dark magic, how could they ever hope to vanquish her? They were heading towards their death as surely as a lemming that is sprinting headlong towards a cliff. As much as he knew this, he also realized that there could be no turning back.

"What happened?" he asked softly.

"I...I don't know," Jimmy replied in a voice that reflected the strain of what had just happened.

"I came in here with the caretaker and there she was. She kind of hypnotized me. She...she turned everything around, making it seem like death was the sweetest thing that you could ever hope for. I damn near killed myself," he moaned in a voice rife with both shame and grief.

"You boys sound like you're havin' a spell of trouble," Benton called out from behind them. His voice carried a flicker of amusement. They both turned to see him leaning against the door fixing them with the ghost of a grin. He looked different now; younger and more vital. His sagging shoulders were now erect and his once white hair had turned jet black. "I would advise you fellas to get ready for a good deal of the like from now on. It baffles me why two pissants like you would even try to go up against Cynara. She'll have yer nuts as sure as night follows day. You boys have been lucky, but I think that luck is going to be a scarce commodity from here on in."

The caretaker paused and then added ominously, "Fighting Cynara is sorta like fightin' the tide; death and madness are the only two possible outcomes. Maybe you boys would do well to reconsider that rope."

He shuffled forward and as he did, his flesh began to slough off of his body, hitting the floor in sickening liquid plops. The hair fell from his scalp, floating to the floor like gossamer on a gentle breeze. An arm's length away the caretaker collapsed into a dried heap of bones, which continued to jump and twitch long after he had taken his final step.

"All an illusion," Nath croaked as if doubting his own words.

Jimmy was stunned to silence. His mind could simply not accept what he had just witnessed. Still staring at the caretaker's remains, he whispered, "Let's not wait to see if there are any more surprises. Let's get the hell out of here."

Being careful to give the detritus a wide berth, the two quickly fled the basement and then the house. They burst into the comforting sunlight and sprinted to the truck. Looking back, Nath saw the old man standing on the porch, watching them with an unreadable expression stretched over his face. Leaving Semelar, each knew that the opening shots had been fired and they had survived. Barely.

Chapter Seven

1

The dulcet strains of Chopin floated pleasantly through the lower floor of the mansion; a gentle counterpoint to the wailing of the wind beyond the window. Cynara found herself drawn to the parlor of the east wing. She stood and listened as Elizabeth's fingers flew across the ivory and ebony keyboard with the effortless precision of one who is a natural talent. Cynara had never had the patience or the inclination to devote herself to music, though listening to her lover play was well near intoxicating. This, as much as anything, epitomized the essential difference between the two. Cynara was an impassioned creature, whose moods and desires were as capricious as a spring wind. Elizabeth was the model of machine like precision and patient reserve. As Cynara had witnessed, the blond could be brutal and merciless, but only in a dispassionate, remote manner. There seemed to be no emotion within her as if she were incapable of feeling.

As she stood listening to the lovely melody, Cynara pondered her enigmatic lover. Elizabeth was a true individual and her uniqueness was reflected in everything that she did. She had been turned, not to service the Dark Prince, but to service only Cynara and thus she was not tied to the beast.

Unlike all of the other demons of the turning, Elizabeth seemed to have no alter ego. At least, it had never manifested itself in the twenty years that they had been together. She did, however, possess some unparalleled shape shifting ability. Cynara herself, was limited to only a few possible forms. Elizabeth could assume whatever shape she desired, though she displayed a particular fondness for the wolf.

These physical oddities were only a small portion of this creature's mystique. Cynara found herself totally mystified by the blond goddess. She was like a hieroglyph that defied translation. She was obedient, serving Cynara without question or hesitation, but Cynara had the distinct impression that Elizabeth looked upon her in a way that was almost condescending. As a lover, Elizabeth had no equal, reaching Cynara in ways that the witch had not believed possible, but there was a distance between the two that no amount of physical contact could bridge.

Nonetheless, for all of her aloofness, Elizabeth had provided Cynara with a source for her limitless passion. What she felt for Elizabeth was as close as Cynara could come to actual love. It pained Cynara to find that Elizabeth did not hold her in equal regard, did not feel the same consuming need. More than this, it frightened her. She felt certain that deep within the sealed interior of Elizabeth's mind and soul there grew a power of immeasurable magnitude. The prospect of a confrontation terrified Cynara, but no more than the idea of losing Elizabeth.

The Dark Lady had felt herself growing complacent over the years and that too worried her. Since the day that she had disposed of Fabrizzi, she had been content to return to her Native soil and enjoy her lover's company. Still, complacency was like stagnation and stagnation was death. It was amazing how simple it was to slip into niches, into ruts. Before one was even aware of it, they had dug themselves in so deep into the gray dirt of mediocrity that it was well near impossible to get out. Regardless, the two would come, as would the human witch, and she would sharpen her claws at their expense. She would...

Cynara shook her head angrily. She had been drifting into a reverie. It was alarming to discover that this was happening more and more often of late. Something about living here, so removed from the mainstream of life, made it so easy to lose touch with the world. Elizabeth's playing had segued into a harsh, obscure piece that Cynara did not recognize. It was very possibly her own composition. She decided to experiment, to test her ability against her lover's perceptive skills.

Cynara's brow furrowed slightly and almost at once she rose a full six inches above the Persian rug. Then, as if on a carpet of air, she began to glide towards Elizabeth. Elizabeth played on, apparently unaware of her sponsor's approach. Cynara had bridged the distance between the two, a triumphant grin set upon her face, and was about to lay her hand upon the witch's shoulder, when Elizabeth spoke, "Hello Cynara. Do sit and join me for awhile."

There was a mirthful ring to her words as if she fully understood Cynara's intentions and derived some small measure of delight in thwarting her efforts. Cynara's smile dissolved into an expression of disbelief.

How had she been able to detect my approach?

The old fear revisited her. She had unknowingly created a creature whose power could well exceed her own. She stepped off to the side and sat in a dusty pink wingback, drinking in Elizabeth's beauty. In the face of such beauty, it was difficult for Cynara to harbor any fears or misgivings. "Your playing seems to improve every time you sit before the piano."

"Thank you," Elizabeth replied. In that tacit reply there was neither modesty nor arrogance, only acceptance. Cynara felt herself to be momentarily exasperated by Elizabeth's reserve. She had a strong compulsion to throw the other woman down and force her to cry out; to react or respond, thus giving some indication that the old Elizabeth still existed. The playing stopped and Elizabeth turned her enchanting violet eyes upon Cynara. "They've survived Semelar."

"Yes," Cynara answered simply, though the other woman's words had been more of a statement than a question. Almost defensively, Cynara went on, "The house was more of a test than anything else. It was intended to rattle their confidence, which undoubtedly it has."

Cynara waited for Elizabeth to concur, but the blond continued to watch her, her expression inscrutable. "El Zaltaro is next. It may well end there. At least for one of them."

"They will not be deterred. They will come and you will have to kill them. The same is true of the human witch," Elizabeth declared flatly. Cynara chose to ignore the subtle suggestion that her intuition was incorrect, but decided that this might be an appropriate time to confront Elizabeth with Nathaniel.

"I'll be forced to kill Nathaniel. Even worse, it may be necessary for you to kill him." Cynara hesitated, waiting to see how Elizabeth would react. When her expression did not change, the Dark Lady continued, "Would you be able to do this, Elizabeth?"

A hint of a grin touched Elizabeth's lips, though her eyes became as hard as flint, "Do you question my loyalty, Cynara?"

There was a charged silence as the two women regarded each other coolly for several moments. Eventually, it was Cynara who looked away from the cold amethyst of Elizabeth's glare. "Of course not. It is simply that this boy is your son and it may one day become necessary for you to dispose of him. I must be able to rely upon your compliance, should the need arise."

Cynara regarded Elizabeth watchfully, trying to detect even the slightest of vacillation. The blond smiled and stood without replying. With maddening slowness, she extricated herself from her clothing and stood before Cynara invitingly. As always, Cynara was helpless to resist the glorious perfection of her lover's body displayed so fetchingly before her. Shedding her own clothes, she fell upon Elizabeth with all thoughts of loyalties and confrontations forgotten.

Later that night, as the two lay beside each other in an ornate sleigh bed, with the wind howling cryptically about the eaves; it occurred to her that Elizabeth had mastered the art of manipulation. Something else occurred to Cynara; Elizabeth had never answered her question.

2

She pretends to sleep, but sleep has eluded her; not just tonight, but always. There is an incessant buzzing in her head and it is this buzzing that stands between her and normal thought. Her mind is afloat with a barrage of images that keep her constantly unbalanced. She is trapped inside this chamber, this membrane, along with some immense power. The power is growing geometrically, causing her to fear that it might well consume her.

Outside, life went on. Some alien force controlled her body, leading her into action which she did not understand. She had killed, taken human life in ways that sickened her. Yet, despite this revulsion, she was powerless to seize control of her actions. Worse still, there was a presence that never left her, but her body seemed bonded to it somehow and she was compelled to do its bidding. She felt trapped. No, entombed. The best that she could do was hide herself and hope that she would survive both the presence and the power. The thing that troubled her incessantly and threatened to drive her into the stark refuge of madness was that she had forgotten her name.

Chapter Eight

1

The heat beat down upon the roof of the Ranger, making the inside seem hotter than Hades' oven. Even the air conditioning could not totally offset the Baja's fury. Jimmy switched off it and opened the power windows. It had been five hours since they had last stopped and the mid afternoon heat was making both himself and Nath drowsy. The desert was absolutely still, as its creatures sought refuge from the merciless sun. They had not spied a trace of life since the last gas station some seventy miles back.

Highway 1 had been wide and straight and as well maintained as any other major highway in Mexico. By contrast the secondary road that connected Santo Domingo to San Felipe left a great deal to be desired. The asphalt had been bleached by the sun, making it difficult to distinguish from the lifeless desert sand on either side of it. The Mexican Baja, unlike its American counterpart which had been ravaged and raped by the advance of civilization, was still very much preserved. When the winds sang sheets of sand would be thrown into the air, scouring everything in its path as it marched over the open expanses. Jimmy reached down between his legs and retrieved the canvas covered, metal container from the floor of the cab. Taking the cap off, he raised the canteen to his lips and took a long, satisfying pull. Cold water flooded into his dry mouth and down his parched throat, making him shiver with delight.

The Ranger crested a rise and there, in a hollow between two ridges, was El Zaltaro. Jimmy winced, emitted a strangled groan and jammed down on the brake pedal. Nath was hurled forward, almost smashing his face on the dashboard. Jimmy had dropped the canteen. It spilled its contents onto the seat, soaking through into the foam rubber below. Nath's heart thudded painfully in his chest, and his anxiety gained new depth and breadth when he turned to face Simms, who was sitting bolt upright in his seat. His eyes were opened wide as was his mouth. He appeared stricken as if he was gazing down onto the central plains of Hell.

"Jesus H. Christ, what the hell is wrong with you, Jimmy?" Nath screeched.

Jimmy would or could not reply. His terror had rendered him inarticulate. He could only look down in horrified disbelief at the floor of the hollow. He could see no town, only a field of pure black which stretched from one side of the hollow to the other. ' _This place has been thoroughly corrupted_ ,' he thought. It was evil, unholy...haunted. Call it what you would, it was just plain fucking bad. It oozed from the scorched sand like pus from a festering sore. She had been here and whatever spell she had worked, it had corrupted not only the people but the buildings and the earth as well. He wanted to be gone, to throw the truck into reverse and drive until all of this was a distant nightmare. As much as he craved this, he understood that he lacked the means to carry him to a place beyond the reach of her evil. The course of his life had been meant to run through this town and beyond. "She's been here Nath. She's left something for us."

"What are you seeing Jimmy?" Nath demanded, unsettled as always, by the mysterious workings of the other man's sight. He was both mystified and wary of Jimmy's precognitive ability, but he never doubted its legitimacy or reliability. If Jimmy claimed that there was danger here, then they had both better be prepared.

"The whole place has a black aura. Christ, I've never seen anything like it. I'm sure that this is the kind of aura that Buchenwald or Auschwitz would give off. No place here is safe," Jimmy concluded. ' _He's frantic with terror_ ,' Nath realized. It occurred to him obliquely that Jimmy's talents were more of a curse than a gift. Being able to perceive threats and dangers might appear to be an invaluable asset, but it would inevitably lead to deep rooted paranoia. "We've got to go down there, Jimmy."

"I know," he replied softly. "There's danger here, but there is also an answer to where she is. This is just another piece in an elaborate puzzle that she has designed for us. She wanted us to come here. She's prepared this place for exactly this moment."

During all of this he had not once looked at Nath, instead staring fixedly at the tableau stretched out below him. It was a small town composed mostly of identical small white bungalows. The main road bisected the town. The town square was dominated by the obligatory Church and the two men were immediately struck by the size and lavishness of the parish. It was quite large and beautiful; seemingly disproportionate with the modest town about it. Three reaching spires highlighted the facade of the structure; each topped by an ornate gold cross. The central cross featured the tortured body of Jesus, enduring his eternal moment of agony.

"That's quite the Church they've got there," Nath remarked, whistling at the grandeur of the stone structure.

"It's magnificent," Jimmy agreed. As a carpenter, he could appreciate the workmanship that had forged the lavish structure. "Seems rather large for the size of the town though."

"I was thinking the same thing," Nath agreed, seeing no way that an isolated village could have raised the money for such a place of worship. The two men exchanged glances and a current of understanding passed between them. Jimmy threw the truck into gear and descended the hill into El Zaltaro.

2

The two men decided to make the Church their first stop, reasoning that it was possible that the parish priest might be able to speak some English. They parked in front of the Church and got out, relieved to be out of the confining cab. The square was utterly deserted, which Nath found rather peculiar despite the blazing sun. "What do you suppose people do here?"

"Try to stay out of the sun I would guess," Jimmy quipped. "Take a look at that."

Nath followed his gaze to a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary which stood near the stairs of the Church. At first he could see nothing extraordinary about the work, but then his eyes fell upon the Holy Mother's face. Absent was the expression of calm serenity, replaced by a wolfish almost predatory leer. The two men again exchanged puzzled glances but said nothing. They continued up the steps and into the Church. The heat inside was stifling, causing both men to gasp. Two ceiling fans whirled sluggishly above them, doing nothing to alleviate the oppressive heat.

Near the altar a small child of no more than eight was singing. His voice was high, sweet and ethereal. It rose up to the heights of the Cathedral, filling the church with its beauty. Though the child sang in Spanish, the melody was familiar and Nath could almost hear the words echoed in English:

Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,

Calling all sinners come home.

Come home, come home,

Yee who are weary Come home.

Jimmy could feel a lump forming in his throat, surprised to find how profoundly the hymn touched him. Perhaps he grasped how he and Nath were men in dire need of salvation. The song, which should have been inspirational, sounded mournful and bereft of hope to his ears.

"A lovely sound, isn't it?" someone said from behind them. They whirled to see a priest regarding them benignly. He had an olive complexion and mild, brown eyes. He was a fairly diminutive man, being no taller than five feet, six inches in height and his hair was black sprinkled with a generous amount of gray. Though he wore a heavy cassock, the priest did not seem to sweat. Jimmy was relieved to find that he emitted a bright yellow aura and a series of reassuringly serene images.

"It's a beautiful sound indeed, Father...?" Nath replied, extending his hand.

"Father Valesquez," the priest said amiably, taking his hand and shaking it with surprising firmness. "It is not often that we have American tourists in El Zaltaro. It's such an out of the way little town," he concluded. His words hinted at some deeper meaning that neither Jimmy nor Nath could decipher.

"Actually, we're looking for someone," Jimmy offered, watching the other man carefully to gauge his reaction. There was a brief flare as his yellow aura turned briefly orange; a color which usually indicated anything from eagerness to anxiety. His face pinched briefly, but then settled back into its original neutral expression.

"Oh, who might that be? I don't mean to appear forward, it's just that I know everyone who lives here or has lived here during the past fifteen years," the Father offered by way of an explanation.

This time it was Nath who answered, "We're looking for a woman we both knew as children. Neither of us has seen her in about twenty years. Her name is Cynara Simonovic."

"Ah, Doctor Simonovic. You knew her?" he asked excitedly. "She lived here for about four years, though she left about eleven years ago much to the town's dismay."

"You seem to be rather fond of her, Father," Jimmy ventured cautiously.

"Oh yes. Doctor Simonovic was admired by of the residents of El Zaltaro. She provided gratis medical care for the less fortunate members of the community. Her boundless generosity led to the construction of this Church. It was a sad day for the town when she finally departed," the priest concluded sadly. A mixture of fondness and regret glistened in his eyes as he spoke of the woman. Jimmy and Nath both had other less pleasant, but equally vivid recollections of the good doctor.

"Did you know her well?" Velasquez inquired conversationally.

"It wouldn't be unfair to say she had a big influence on our lives," Jimmy replied without the slightest hint of sarcasm.

"Father," he interjected quickly, "Do you have any idea where she might have gone after she left El Zaltaro?"

"Actually I don't. She always struck me as a wistful, transient soul and grew restless after a time. I wasn't particularly surprised. After all, how long could a small town hold the interest of such a continental woman? I believe she was bound for Europe, though where specifically, I could not say," He watched them for a moment and Nath decided that it would be best if they dropped the inquiry. Valesquez misinterpreted his expression for one of disappointment. "I'm sorry that I couldn't be of more help."

"No, you've been most helpful Father. Is there a place in town where we might be able to rent a room and get a hot meal?"

"Yes, just across the square you may there's a Cantina and a boarding house. Do you plan on staying for a while?" he asked casually.

"No. Just long enough to have a good night's rest and then we'll be off," Nath replied guardedly. The three men gazed at each other for several seconds and then Jimmy added, "Thanks for your time Father. This is a beautiful Church."

Valesquez gazed about with obvious pride and then commented, "Yes, it is. Well, I hope that you both sleep well and I especially hope that you find Dr. Simonovic. Please give her my regards if you do."

"We will and thanks again, Father," Nath said with a smile. He and Jimmy strode out of the Church, crossing the square in search of the Cantina.

3

Father Valesquez moved to the door and stood in the shadows of the Church vestibule, watching the two Americans as they crossed the sun baked square. Gone was the smile that had graced his face as was the congenial expression in his eyes. Could these possibly be the demons that the Dark Angel had prophesied would come? They didn't appear particularly terrifying or horrible, but the priest knew that evil could come in many forms. Before she had left, the Dark Angel had entrusted him with the task of disposing of the one called Jimmy. She had said that the other was too powerful and that she would deal with him personally.

He had waited for years and still no one had come seeking her out. Valesquez had begun to despair, fearing that her prophecies would prove false; that he had been deceived. Now, much to his relief, the two demons, moving in the forms of common men, had come in pursuit of the Dark Angel. Her magic had not been false. He cursed himself for lacking faith in her promise. He rejoiced at the opportunity to do God's work, to take up arms in the ancient battle. He experienced a surge of ecstasy, knowing that, should he succeed in fulfilling his role, she would return and reward him handsomely.

There was a stirring behind him and he pivoted to see a man emerging from the nearest confessional booth. The man was a heavy set Mexican wearing a Sheriff's uniform.

"You heard, Sheriff Mendoza?" Valesquez asked.

"Yes, Padre," Mendoza replied meekly. Though the Sheriff was a much larger man, he viewed the priest with a mixture of reverence and fear. He had been touched by the Dark Angel after all and invested with her authority. "What would you have me do?"

The priest looked to the bigger man impatiently. They had discussed and refined the plan hundreds of times during the long, lazy nights of the past eleven years. They had prepared for this moment as if it were to be the apex of their lives. Which undoubtedly it was.

"You know what we have to do Roberto," he snapped.

"Yes, Padre, but who should we take?" Mendoza inquired, still not reconciled with the notion of human sacrifice.

The priest considered the options for a long moment and then decided, "I think that it's time that Miranda is made to answer for her transgressions."

Mendoza smiled knowingly. "Yes Padre, a most commendable choice"

"Go and arrange it. Make it as conspicuous a display as possible," Valesquez instructed. Obediently, Mendoza withdrew.

Chapter Nine

1

Upon first stepping through the doors of the small restaurant bar, they were struck by two things. The first was a redolent mixture of contrasting aromas which came to them, wafted into the air and carried about by the three overhead fans. There was the heady smell of spices and baking breads. The second thing that made itself obvious was the reaction of the cantina's patrons. All conversation had ceased and every eye turned to mark their entrance. Some appeared merely curious, while others glared at the two with undisguised and unaccountable belligerence.

Both Jimmy and Nath could sense a cold thread of tension weaving its way through the room's atmosphere. They quickly made their way to the rear of the cantina and took a seat at a small table near the back wall. After a few moments the crowd drifted back into their conversations, but the Americans still had the disconcerting impression that every eye was upon them.

"Jesus, this place is creepy," Jimmy whispered. Nathaniel nodded, sensing the other man's growing unease. Jimmy glanced about, anxiety welling in his eyes like in a flood. "When we stopped at the top of the hill, the entire town radiated an aura of pure blackness, but now that we're here, all of the town's people have normal psychic emanations. There's not even a hint of evil coming from any of these people, other than just a basic mistrust of outsiders...especially Americans. I probed Father Valesquez and he was perfectly normal. Still, I can't shake the notion that this entire town is hostile to us. Cynara has staked some kind of claim here. Cynara is definitely not here, but I believe that these people might just know where she is."

Nathaniel stared into his palms as if her path and purpose had been inscribed into the lines there. To Jimmy he appeared dispirited or disillusioned. At last he spoke, "I think that we should stay here for few days. Like you say, this place is a part of it. Cynara didn't set up shop in this way station just to escape the chaos of the big city. I'm sure she had some insidious motive for coming here. This is like a deadly treasure hunt. She wants us to follow a series of clues that lead us directly to her doorstep. Only, these clues are likely to have nasty teeth. Does that make any kind of sense?"

No, Jimmy didn't see it, or perhaps he didn't want to see it. He remembered the noose and how he had nearly succumbed to its black allure. He was more susceptible to Cynara's devilry than Nathaniel. He was about to say this when a shadow fell across the table. The two men looked up to see a wizen old man staring down upon them.

He had long white hair that fell to a point just below his shoulders. It was impossible to guess his age with any degree of accuracy. The milky white membrane of a cataract obscured his right eye. Nath was tempted to reach out and touch him just to confirm his solidity. The way he was looking at the two suggested he had deliberately sought them out and they expected him to speak. He did not. Instead he turned and shambled out of the cantina, sparing them one final glance before going through the doors. All eyes had turned to chart his progress and once he'd made his exit, the buzz of conversation resumed.

"Do you ever get the feeling that all of this is like a badly scripted play. It's as if these people are stock actors. Despite that, I sense that forces are gathering here rapidly, like a nexus of power. You're right Nath. Something is gonna happen here and it's going to make what happened in Semelar look like a Girl Guide convention," Jimmy intoned gravely. Again the door to the cantina swung open and a burly man in a sheriff's uniform shuffled into the middle of the room. He scanned the patrons with obvious purpose. For an anxious moment the two Americans feared that he had come in search of them. His gaze flicked over them briefly, but then passed on, settling upon a young woman who was sitting near the far end of the bar.

She was a beautiful Mexican girl with a mass of black hair and dark, mischievous eyes. Those eyes proffered a wild promise and were absolutely compelling. She wore a long black skirt with a bold side split that came up to mid thigh and a white blouse that did nothing to conceal her full, ripe breasts. There was something primitive and exciting about the girl. She was talking with the bartender and a tall, thin Mexican man who was virtually drooling over the exposed length of bronze thigh.

The Sheriff approached the trio and his chest seemed to swell with authority. To Nath he looked like a preening peacock. A sudden hush had descended upon the room. As Nath gazed about, he saw that the other patrons wore an expression of lustful eagerness as if they knew precisely what was to follow. The girl finally noticed the dramatic shift in mood and spun about to see Mendoza towering over her like a dark mountain. A whole spectrum of emotions passed across her lovely face: surprise, disgust, bitterness and finally terror. In a quavering voice, she ventured, "What do want, Mendoza?"

He scowled and his eyes crawled over the enticing swell of her breasts. Her male friend had slipped away, making a hasty retreat through the exit. "There have been complaints, Miranda."

"By who, eh? Tell me what complaints you've had Mendoza," she sneered derisively. The terror had gone from her eyes, replaced by grim defiance. From where he sat, Nath could see that it was only a thin veneer. The girl was afraid. In fact, she was terrified.

"It doesn't matter who. You've been warned about your lewd behavior before, Miranda. This time your lewd behavior will not be overlooked," Mendoza answered in a paternal tone. A general murmur ran through the crowd as the Sheriff reached forward and clamped a hand over her wrist, yanking her roughly from the bar stool.

"What the hell is happening here?" Jimmy muttered to Nathaniel. Nath made no reply only raised a finger to his lips in a request for silence. His attention was riveted on Mendoza and the woman. She tried to resist, but the bigger man literally dragged her to the door. The other patrons watched the big man drag the Miranda, kicking and screaming every foot of the way, but made no protest of this unwarranted rough treatment. If anything, their eyes glowed with approval. Many of them exchanged self satisfied, knowing glances that the two Americans could not fathom. The closer the two got to the door, the more desperate Miranda's struggling became, forcing Mendoza to pick her up and throw her over his shoulder.

Long after the two had made their exit, Jimmy and Nath could still hear Miranda's high, piercing curses and screams. At last the cries faded, leaving both men badly shaken. Repeating his previous question, Jimmy asked, "What the hell just happened?"

Nath shook his head, still visualizing Miranda's horrified face as Mendoza manhandled her through the door. In the few seconds that he had seen her, she appeared to be an independent, possibly promiscuous woman. Her fiery nature made it unlikely that she would frighten easily, but Mendoza had reduced her to utter screaming panic in a matter of seconds. Why? What was she so afraid of? He could still feel the covert glances upon him, as if this crowd was trying to evaluate their reaction to what had just happened. Nath suspected that Jimmy's deduction was right. This was all part of some show that was being staged especially for their benefit.

They would have to be on constant guard.

2

By nine o'clock that night, the brutal heat of the day had begun to relent, if only by small increments. Large, malevolent thunder heads had taken shape along the western horizon. They moved towards the town like angry giants, swollen with destructive intent. The day's heat had been replaced by a stifling humidity causing everyone to squirm with discomfort. Jimmy and Nath had taken a double room atop the cantina. While Nath showered, Jimmy stood at the window staring down into the deserted street. He wondered briefly if the town had some sort of enforced curfew that prohibited strolling after twilight hours.

A sudden and much appreciated breeze blew through the window. He glanced up at the purple clouds. ' _It'll be raining soon_ ,' he thought, with no small degree of relief. He wondered what the weather was like in Washington. Home seemed so very far away. At times he felt as if that life had belonged to someone else and he had just lived it as a temporary substitute. He looked back to the street, startled to find that groups of people were congregating in the square and drifting towards the Church.

"Must be evening Mass," he commented to the empty room. As if in confirmation of this, the three brass church bells began to ring.

"What is it?" Nath questioned as he emerged from the shower. He crossed over to the window and glanced down into the street.

"An evening Mass I guess, but this is a funny time," Jimmy replied. Nath deduced that this sudden activity troubled the other man. He could feel it as well; the certainty that things were coming to a crucial juncture. It abruptly struck Nath, that one or both of them might not leave El Zaltaro alive. Jimmy had gone rigid, the color draining from his face. The heavy muscles in his shoulders and arms were bulging. The priest, Father Valesquez, had emerged from the Church, greeting people as they made their way up the stone steps. Nath breathed a sigh of relief. It was indeed only an ordinary evening Mass.

He was about to comment on this, when a patrol car turned out of one of the side streets and came to a screeching halt in front of the Church. Mendoza jumped out of the cruiser as Father Valesquez came down the stairs to meet him. The Sheriff unlocked the back door and hauled Miranda out onto the pavement. She staggered and fell, but Mendoza caught her elbow and pushed her up the steps and into the Church.

Jimmy inhaled sharply. There was a look in his eyes so alien to his normal expression that Nath took a backward step. "It's that girl Miranda. I think they're going to kill her."

"Jimmy, you told me that none of these people gave off a tainted aura," Nath reminded his friend. He didn't want to go down there, didn't want to see what was going to happen to the lovely Mexican girl.

"She's beguiled them. I don't know how the fuck she's done it, but I can feel it in my guts. I'm positive that she's tricked them into doing her dirty work. I don't think that they even knew what she was. That's why the town radiated an evil aura but the people appeared untouched by her evil."

"I don't understand," Nath objected. "Why would she want to go to such elaborate lengths to fool us?"

Jimmy ran his fingers through his sweat slicked hair. He looked both beleaguered and confused. "I don't know what she's trying to do here, but all of this has been planned down to the last detail."

"Maybe this is going to be another example of Cynara flexing her supernatural muscle just to dishearten us. I'm fairly sure that these people know who we are. They've been expecting us for years now."

"But how does this," Nath gestured towards the Church, "fit into her plan?" Jimmy fixed Nath with a crooked, rather feral grin. "The only way to know for sure is to go down and find out."

The two men took the back stairs which led to an alley that ran along the back of the Cantina. They paused at the door. The lane was extremely dirty, but otherwise unoccupied. Slipping through the door, they made their way soundlessly to the street. Neither noticed the person standing in the shadows further up the alleyway. When the shadowy figure saw the two men slip around the corner, he stepped out of the darkness and began to follow the pair.

The two men ran across the square to the small walkway alongside of the Church. Jimmy wished that they were armed, fearing that there would be much violence before the sun rose tomorrow. In the sky, the clouds thundered by but did not give up their much needed moisture. It was obvious that they could not enter through the front door, so they darted into the laneway, searching for another way into the Church.

"What's going to go on in there?" Jimmy wondered aloud.

"I'm not sure, but it's going to be trouble for that girl and probably for us as well," Nath replied softly speaking softly from intuition.

They stole along the building until they came to a set of double bulkheads located near the rear of the Church. The first set of double doors was bolted securely from the inside, but the second set had been left open. As Jimmy threw them open, the metal hinges screamed a rusty protest. He descended the steps quickly and gestured for Nath to follow. They closed the doors and bolted the latch. The stairs led down into a small storage area which was cluttered with boxes and crates. A series of ventilation transoms had been set into the ceiling to allow better air circulation through the Church. Bright shafts of light poured through the transoms, piercing the darkness. Jimmy paused beneath one of these and could hear murmuring from above as the congregation readied itself for whatever was to follow.

"Jimmy, over here," Nath beckoned urgently. He had discovered a door only ten feet from the cellar entrance. Nath saw that it must lead up to the rear of the Church. He was suddenly possessed by a sense of urgency. Something pivotal was about to happen in the Church. Something spoke to him, with great conviction, of a key hidden in the things that were soon to follow. He became convinced that it was imperative that they understand the implications of this night's drama.

The door was unlocked and the stairs beyond were hidden in complete darkness, but by keeping their backs to the wall, they were able to make their way to the top. There they came to another door. Nath opened the door a few inches and found that it provided him with a full view of the entire Church. A waist high rail ran along the width of the Church some fifteen feet behind the altar. A heavy velvet drape had been placed over the rail and the two men decided to risk crawling over to it in hopes of gaining a better view of the proceedings. Getting down on their hands and knees, Nath and Jimmy crawled over to the railing. As they reached it, Father Valesquez took the pulpit and began to speak.

3

Snow was falling like a whisper over the mountains. It lay like a virginal white blanket across the land. As Cynara looked out over the pristine vista, she allowed herself a smile, knowing that this was a shoddy illusion. The world was an old and rotting whore and no amount of window dressing would change that fact. It was dying slowly, choking on its own sanctimonious vomit. Every passing day brought it another step closer to the abyss. When the day came that it finally went over the edge, she would be among those to give it the final push.

She turned away from the window, losing interest in the haunting beauty of her homeland. Elizabeth was gone, as was her habit on nights such as these. She loved to assume the form of the wolf or the eagle and simply wander through the night, which she had claimed to be enchanted. Cynara never knew what Elizabeth did during these nocturnal ramblings, but when she returned, the blond appeared somehow revitalized. Cynara was often tempted to accompany Elizabeth, but always decided against this, reasoning that she would be intruding upon the other woman's demonstrated need for solitude. Cynara was surprised to find how sensitive she had become to the other woman's needs. In some ways this growing respect for the other woman and her state of mind troubled the Dark Lady and so she willed herself not to dwell upon it.

She was grateful that Elizabeth was away because her absence allowed the Dark Lady to devote her full attention to the situation in El Zaltaro. It had come to her that her priest, that pious fool Valesquez, was about to set the ritual in motion. He had called upon her to guide him, which meant that the two 'demons' had arrived. The irony of this caused her to chuckle heartily. She had surpassed herself in deceiving Valesquez and the entire town of El Zaltaro. By performing a series of ' _miracles_ ', she had convinced them that she was divine and that they were chosen. She had maneuvered them into abandoning their philosophy and their religion, substituting her own special brand of idolatry and worship in its place.

Tonight she would see the culmination of her well laid scheme. If all went well, then one of her enemies would be dead and the other would be left shaken and vulnerable. He would still come to her, as his body and his soul dictated that he must, and she would ensnare him in her trap.

She crossed over to a French provincial armchair and folding her long legs beneath her, sat and prepared her spirit for the journey ahead. Closing her eyes, she commenced the process of astral projection that would carry her soul over the land and the sea like a current on the trade winds.

4

As Father Valesquez took the altar, he looked up into the lights that were set into the Cathedral's ceiling. The shadowy zones between the lights appeared to be thick and substantial; brooding with a coalescing force. He knew that this was to be a night of magic and wonderment, deliverance and divinity. As he gazed about the congregation, he could see the general expressions of wonder and expectation emblazoned upon every face. They shared his certainty that they were about to witness something profound. There had not been such an intense feeling of anticipation at one of his masses since the Dark Angel had declared herself all of those years ago. He stepped forward, genuflected, and began to speak. His words echoed the gravity and significance of the moment.

"My children, you have gathered here to witness the dispensing of divine justice. Not the sheep justice of the docile ones who only pretend to know his will, but the true justice as laid down to us by his Dark Angel. All of you can well recall how she came among us, how she led us out of the perdition of ignorance and delusion. How we followed her into the kingdom of enlightenment." He paused as a murmur rippled through the gathering. Valesquez could see the rapture that such memories evoked.

"The Dark Angel entreated us not to turn away from Sin, from Evil. To do so is to become party to its machinations. We must confront the unholy one and extirpate him from our lives. Those who sin must be made to atone for their transgressions. Those who sin must repent. We shall not suffer the unrepentant. We must strike them down before they spread their corruption. The duty of dispensing justice to the miscreant has fallen to us, "He bellowed, orchestrating their mood masterfully.

"Yes. In the name of Jesus we must strike down the evildoer," the congregation cried in unison.

"On several occasions we have been forced to dispense the Lord's justice. There are those among us who refuse to bend to his will. They must be chastised. It is our duty, as decreed by the Dark Angel. We have meted out justice several times in the past few years and though it has pained us, we have not been deterred from our obligation to Him. You know why we have been called here tonight." With this, the priest clapped his hands. A side door opened and two men led the girl, Miranda, into the Church. She was greeted by a chorus of jeers and catcalls. Though neither Jimmy nor Nath had understood a word of what Valesquez had said, it was not difficult to guess that the mood of the crowd resembled a school of blood frenzied sharks. From where he crouched, Jimmy had a clear view of Miranda's face as they pushed her towards the altar. Her features were twisted and contorted by fear as well as indignation and hatred. In that moment he felt a tremendous surge of admiration and pity for her; she was afraid but refused to surrender her dignity. He was also struck by her beauty. He was sure that they intended to harm her in some way, but realized that he was in no position to intervene. He loathed that impotence, that uselessness. She was about to die, while he hid behind a railing like a coward. He twisted back to Nath and whispered, "We've got to do something. They're going to kill her."

Nath could plainly detect the seething frustration in his voice. He felt the same, but understood that they were helpless to forestall what had obviously been planned for years. "Jimmy, there isn't a damned thing we can do about this," he rasped, being deliberately harsh. "Whatever is going to happen has been long since planned and the best that we can do is watch and try to learn."

Jimmy's nostrils flared, but he accepted the intrinsic truth in Nath's words. Grinding his teeth helplessly, he returned his gaze to the altar. Father Valesquez had come around the pulpit and descended the stairs...Hovering some five feet from Miranda. She had been dressed in a loose fitting white cassock which provided a stark contrast to her lovely olive skin. Bright hatred and fierce defiance blazed in her eyes as she scowled at the priest. The priest flinched beneath its weight and quickly looked away, beginning to speak again, "You all know this woman, Miranda Valez. You know that she revels in the pleasures of the flesh. She openly flaunts her licentious ways."

"Harlot. Puta. Lewd slut," came the frenzied response of righteous condemnation, though the mood of the congregation would have been better suited to that of a lynch mob.

"Have we not toiled to show her the error of her sinful ways?" Valesquez inquired of the assembly.

"Yes!" came the unanimous reply.

"And still she will not repent...will not give herself to the path of the Holy One. She is a miscreant in the eyes of God. Has she not invited upon herself the Dark Angel's sanction?" Valesquez demanded, becoming intoxicated with the power of the ritual and exhorting the congregation to an even greater frenzy. The ugly eyes of the mindless mass had opened at his beckoning.

"The Dark Angel's justice. The justice of the dagger," they screeched as one. Theirs was the multi layered voice of the blood beast. It served only one purpose and that was death. It had reared its hideous head in Salem, in Germany and at innumerable other times through the ages. The two Americans recognized it from their nightly news cast. Miranda Valez would die in its jaws.

"And so it shall be!" Valesquez roared. He gestured to a young boy, who stood stationed near the altar. The boy looked to be no older than twelve, but his eyes had the same vapid gleam as the others. The boy had witnessed the ritual once before and knew how it was destined to end. He stooped down and retrieved an oak box from where it lay beneath the altar. With great reverence and ceremony, obviously proud of his part in the ritual, the boy carried the box to the Priest.

Miranda saw the box and began to tremble violently.

She had never witnessed the ritual, but had heard the stories often enough to know what was in the box. Her two guards seized her wrists and painfully jerked her arms up behind her back. Still holding the box, Valesquez moved closer to Miranda. So close that he could feel her hot, sweet breath on his face. He could smell her fear and feel the intense heat of her body. Both excited him, making him glad that he was required to wear a cassock.

"Miranda Valez, before God, in this Holy place, do you promise to repent? To relinquish your sins? To ask Him for forgiveness?" Valesquez intoned formally, knowing that her answer was irrelevant to what was to follow. She did not answer. Instead she pursed her lips and spat into his face. Valesquez recoiled as the spittle ran down his cheek in a slow, viscous stream.

A sharp gasp of disbelief ran through the crowd, followed by an even more vehement exhortation for ' _justice_ '. Behind the railing, Jimmy was barely able to restrain the urge to applaud the woman.

"You have displayed your wanton ways for all to see. Now you shall have to bear the consequences of your flagrant irreverence," Valesquez rasped harshly. As if on cue, the altar boy strode to the altar and pressed inward on the silver ornamental cross embedded in its front panel. Slowly, the front of the altar folded downward to reveal a hidden table. Four shackles and a torso restraint had been bolted to the table. The appearance of the table was greeted by wild cheering from the death beast as it danced on the thin edge of hysteria.

Miranda had begun to kick and struggle, valiantly fighting death to the bitter end, cursing both the priest and the mob to a thousand hells, each worse than the last. Valesquez could feel the spittle coursing down his chin and felt compelled to humiliate the harlot. "Remove the devil's vestment."

One of the men holding her, a big man named Martinez, ogled Miranda with unconcealed lust and gripping the robe by the shoulders, ripped it away from her body in one sweeping arc. Valesquez could feel his heart skidding madly in his chest as he let his eyes roam over her full breasts and the luscious curves of her hips. How many nights had she led him into sin as he imagined the velvet feel of her skin and the grip of her thighs as they held him in their hypnotic cradle? How many times had he turned to stone as he constructed a mental picture of her poetic ass and shamefully spilled his seed, while caught in the erotic picture of her warm lips engulfing his manhood.

The reality was even more beautiful than the fantasy image. Still, he must do as the Dark Angel wished. What the Dark Angel had offered him made Miranda's allure seem pathetic and tawdry.

The two men lifted Miranda off of her feet and pinioned her to the table. Martinez held her down, while the other secured her hands and feet in the shackles. Once she was firmly bound, Martinez released her, trailing his hands over her nipples as he did. She cursed him, but he only laughed and stepped back from the table. Meanwhile, Valesquez had opened the case and removed the ceremonial dagger. It was a well crafted killing tool, with an eight inch blade and a sapphire emblazoned haft. When he held it aloft, the mob rose to the feet and began to chant, "Justice! Justice! JUSTICE!"

The dagger caught the light, reflecting it to all corners of the Church, banishing all of the shadows with its deadly radiance. Jimmy whimpered before its lethal beauty. His cry was lost in the general clamor of the mob. An ominous new element had stole into the chemistry of the ritual; one that was lost upon everyone except Nathaniel. The floor beneath the gathering had begun to vibrate ever so slightly. The vibrations were subtle, barely perceptible, but there nonetheless. He laid his palm on the flat of the floor and discovered that the entire building was shaking slightly. Something was gathering around the Church, readying itself to break loose. He wondered if the locals were even aware of this. Looking at them and listening to their euphoric cries for blood, he doubted it.

Father Valesquez held the dagger above his head, poised to strike just above Miranda's magnificent breast. Clinging to it, he intoned the climactic words of the ritual, "Miranda Valez, you have refused to renounce your wicked ways. Now, in the name of the Lord God, I consign your immortal soul to the Hell it deserves."

He brought the knife down in a swift, brutal motion, plunging it deep into her heart, just above her left breast. As it entered, the knife glanced off a rib and tore into her heart, bringing a tremendous cry of agony from the condemned woman. It carried to the rafters of the Church, seemingly shaking the very walls. In the past, this had proven to be the climactic ending to the ritual, as the blood spattered priest would intone a prayer for the dead. This done, the body would be taken out into the desert and the person would essentially ' _disappear_.'

It didn't take Father Valesquez but a second to realize that something was different this time. As he withdrew the dagger, a jet of dark red heart's blood cannoned out of the wound, spattering most of the people in the front pews. This brought several cries of revulsion from the parishioners as they scampered out of range of the geyser. Valesquez found himself mesmerized by the outpouring of life's fluids and could not move away. Transfixed, he seemed not to notice as the dagger slipped from his numb fingers.

"Dear Lord!" he exclaimed, lips contorted into a quivering frown.

The deluge of blood stopped at precisely the same time that all of the stain glass windows blew inwards, scattering shards of glass to every corner of the Church.

Panic hot and raw, tore through the mob as they turned and bolted for the doors. Several people near the rear of the Church were knocked onto their faces, screaming and crying as they fell. Their cries of pain went unheeded by those desperate to be out of the madness. Much to their frustration and growing terror, they found the doors of the Church to be inexplicably locked. The throng surged forward, but the heavy wood would not yield. Then the earth beneath them convulsed, sending people scattering to the floors and overturning anything that was not bolted down.

Like Father Valesquez and his two assistants, both Nath and Jimmy were oblivious to the tumult. Their eyes were fixed upon the body of Miranda Valez. Father Valesquez was the nearest and he could only watch with horrified fascination as Miranda's flesh spasmed and jerked as if it were being subjected to huge doses of electricity. The corpse quivered violently as it tugged at its restraints. Then the back arched and the hips thrust forward obscenely, ripping apart the torso bond that had held her waist to the table.

As quickly as they had started, the seizures subsided and the body settled limply the table.

The furor ceased and everyone stood completely still as the silence gathered about them. Again, it was Father Valesquez who first realized that Miranda had undergone some sort of metamorphosis. The wound, which had been jagged and bloody, was now gone, the skin once again restored to its former flawless state. The priest could feel his throat constrict with fear, could feel his muscles go rigid.

The girl's left hand had begun to twitch.

Overcome by a vapid curiosity, Martinez stepped forward to inspect the girl. There was a sharp snap as the thing on the table ripped its wrist bonds asunder. Martinez screeched and attempted to scurry back out of range. Before he could take a backward step, Miranda's right hand pistoned out and clamped down on his throat like a steel vice.

His eyes bulged with naked terror as he stared down into hers. They were bottomless and terrifying, like the blackest depths of Hell. He attempted to wrench himself free, but one fluid contraction of the fingers tore his throat out. The flesh came away like boiled chicken sloughing off the bone. Clutching at his ruined throat, Martinez staggered about the foot of the altar before collapsing heavily onto the front pew. His fatal wound spewed blood in all directions as he toppled like a fallen tree.

There were a few seconds of incredulous silence and then a renewed furor as the people redoubled their attempts to flee the Church.

"You will all go back to your seats," Miranda commanded, so loudly that the walls reverberated with her thunder. There was a tone of undeniable authority in the voice that was not only compelling but oddly hypnotic as well. The mob stopped their frantic scrambling and slowly, cautiously made their way back to their seats. Each face was marked by a similar expression of trepidation as they gaped at the woman who had returned from the dead. She slipped off of the table and stood watching them.

During her life, Miranda had been an easy, carefree spirit, but this incarnation had the imperious manner of one who expected and received respect and obedience. Her nudity gave her the bearing of a Greek Goddess. She slowly gazed about the huddled mass and then turned to Valesquez. "Bring me that cassock."

Father Valesquez darted forward and snatched up the bloody robe, then carried it over to Miranda. She snatched it from him and then wrapped it about her waist, fashioning a crude skirt but leaving her torso bare. She gestured towards the fallen corpse of Martinez and ordered. "Have that lecherous piece of excrement removed."

Valesquez motioned to two men, whom quickly gathered up Martinez's blood soaked body and dragged it away. Valesquez then turned back to Miranda, who was scrutinizing him closely. Her eyes were cold and cruel, undoubtedly capable of anything. Her voice echoed like dark ice glaciers...frigid juggernauts. "Do you not recognize me, Father Valesquez?"

"Yes. You are Cynara. You are our Dark Angel," he whispered. Then he crossed over to her, knelt at her feet and kissed her hand in a gesture of supplication. He did not rise, but continued to kneel with his head lowered, at her feet.

"Rise, Valesquez," she commanded. She then mounted the pulpit, her lovely breasts swaying as she did. With a brusque wave of her hand, she motioned for silence. "I have returned. Just as I had vowed I would. You have served me admirably, but there remains one final task yet to be completed. I had told you that I would return when the demons came to walk among you. That time has come and I have returned to protect and guide you in the fight against these vile abominations."

Jimmy yanked Nath away from the rail. When the smaller man turned to face him, Nath could see that Jimmy was frantic. "It's her. Christ, she's here. Cynara has taken possession of that body. We've got to get the hell out of here."

Nath concurred and the two started to crawl towards the door through which they had first entered the Church. Before they were even halfway to the door, the drape which hung over the railing had been ripped away. The thing that had once been Miranda stood watching them with a smile of triumph on its lips and an expression of unmitigated hatred in its eyes.

"These are the very demons that I have come to battle," she informed the mass. "Look how they cower before me," The two men bolted for the door, but of course it was locked. She advanced upon them. Jimmy stepped forward to confront her. Though she was eleven inches shorter and seventy pounds lighter, she lifted him off of the floor and flung him towards the crowd as if he were no heavier than a pillow.

Then she turned her fury upon Nathaniel. He crouched against the wall, not certain what he should do or indeed if there was anything that he could do at all. Her physical strength defied all reason awesome and he intuitively realized he could never stand against it. He opened his arms in a gesture of invitation. "Go ahead Cynara...kill me if it's what you want. I'll do nothing to resist."

Her eyes blazed, but she hesitated. Though her lips were curled into a feral snarl, she appeared momentarily confused. Then it came to him, like a solar flare that he could only die by Cynara's hand. She had told him this herself. He was beyond the reach of these engines of destruction. He brayed sardonic laughter. "You can't, can you? At least not in this form."

"No, but I can make you suffer," she snarled, and struck him in the face with a back fist. His head slammed back into the door and his knees buckled, but he refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing him fall. He could feel the warm trickle of blood as it coursed over his cheek. Seizing a handful of his hair, she spun and propelled him towards the altar. Nath hit the wooden structure head first, causing it to collapse under his weight. He struggled to rise, but his shoulder gave a scream of protest, so he lay back onto his face, docilely waiting for her next blow to fall. Inexplicably, it did not.

Pleased with her handiwork and growing more confident as events took their expected course, Miranda chose to forego torturing the two. She returned her attention to the crowd, who had watched the drama in a beguiled daze. "Take these two away. They are agents of the Unholy One. One will be put to death and the other will be allowed to live. He will be the messenger who shall spread the word of terror to his ilk. He will tell them that evil has no place in El Zaltaro."

She pointed towards Sheriff Mendoza and motioned him forward.

He was a big man, but Martinez also had been a big man and she had disposed of him with brutal efficiency. He shuffled forward timidly, recalling how he had manhandled Miranda earlier in the afternoon. Cynara looked down upon him, through Miranda's eyes, despising his cowering posture. "Take these two away. House them in your jail until I decide how best to deal with them. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Mendoza said in a small voice. She nodded and he led the two away. Jimmy was still dazed and Nath shivered in the clutches of his pain. Mendoza herded them away, glad to be gone from the woman with the piercing eyes. The two Americans went without resistance. To Mendoza, they appeared completely dispirited, which the Mexican found easy to understand in light of what had just transpired and the position in which they now found themselves. Still, as he led them away, he considered how he was glad that he was not in their shoes.

5

When the two men had been removed from the Church, Valesquez surveyed the carnage. The altar area had been destroyed and the wooden floor was slick with the blood of the unfortunate Martinez. The priest felt as though he had just wandered into a numbing fog, not certain whether the fog concealed things friendly or evil.

The Dark Angel stood with her back to him. He found her to be a fearsome yet strangely compelling creature; very much like death itself. He wondered and not for the first time, if she was truly a creature of God. Could an angel take life so casually? He steered his thoughts away from the question, afraid of the answer.

After her two enemies had been ushered away, she addressed the crowd and randomly selected a dozen men and women. Valesquez could see each shudder noticeably as she singled them out. "It will be your task to prepare the execution site," she instructed the chosen. "Erect a single wooden cross and pile dry wood at its base. When this has been done, one of you will come to inform me. Now go!"

In the blink of an eye, the chosen exited the Church. Each wore stunned, sickened expressions. Then Cynara dismissed the rest. "The remainder of you will go home. Tomorrow at dawn you will assemble in the chosen spot. There, you shall have the privilege of witnessing the triumph of light over darkness."

As the crowd turned to disperse, Valesquez noted the procession of oddly vacant faces. The last person out closed the door behind them, leaving the priest alone with his Dark Angel. She turned abruptly, startling Valesquez. "Are you afraid, Father?" she inquired in a teasing voice. "I would hope not, for if you are truly faithful, what could you possibly have to fear?"

There was a subtle mocking quality to her voice that made Valesquez want to flee blindly, but he knew that there was nowhere to run. "I...I have no reason to be afraid."

"Come here," she said softly, the harsh edge gone from her voice. He obeyed. When he had reached her, she touched his shoulder and smiled. The smile was radiant and captivating. All of his disquiet melted like ice in spring. "You have served me well, Roman. Your efforts on my behalf will not go unrewarded."

She placed a long finger on his cheek and traced the firm angle of his jaw. Her touch was a light as a feather's, yet elicited an explosion of pleasure in its wake. "It must be difficult to subjugate one's natural urges?" she mused. "It was the contention of the Church that the servants of God put their love for him above all else. This was true, but they misconstrued this to mean that you must love God at the exclusion of all others; an erroneous contradiction of his true intention. Their misguided edicts have unmanned the lot of you. By doing this, they have sown the seeds of corruption in otherwise perfectly good men."

The priest's heart thundered as he listened to the Dark Angel. She had touched upon his greatest source of contention with his beloved Church. Perhaps they were wrong. She was the Dark Angel and she would not deceive him, would not lead him into sin. He had long suffered under this particular restriction. He was a virile, healthy man after all. Was it not normal that he needed relief...that he needed to demonstrate his masculinity? As if in direct response to this thought, she let the cassock slip away. "Am I not exquisite? Is it in any way unnatural to want to touch this body, to feel it? Do you not wish to luxuriate in its warmth?"

She stood with her hands upon her hips, chin turned to the side and slightly up tilted, with her breasts thrust gloriously forward. Completely enthralled, he whispered thickly, "No, it is not unnatural."

She could see the slight trembling of his shoulders and knew that his resolve was melting like butter in a skillet. "Is it sinful to want to share the delight of intimacy, to experience the natural pleasures of closeness and physical contact?"

His theological training urged him to renounce her, to declare his purity. The intellect within him shouted that contact without love was debasing and wanton. The allure of her full breasts and her erect nipples made such logic seem utterly fatuous and sanctimonious. His primitive urges had been repressed for too long and now they asserted themselves with a vengeance. His cassock tented out beneath his waist and he knew that his vows were about to be forsaken.

She smiled wickedly at the sight of his blossoming erection, coming to him then and literally tearing the cassock away from his body. She cast it aside contemptuously. "You will be cloistered by this no more. From this day froth, you shall be the prophet of a new order, my order. This shall be your reward for your exemplary service."

Her words and touch ignited an alien fire in his mild brown eyes. That fire was translated into physical desire. He stood with his chest heaving and his penis thundering; wanting her, needing her. Stripping away his shirt and trousers, she sighed, "Tonight, my dear Valesquez, you shall become a man...a complete man."

She ushered him over to the first pew and pushed him onto the floor. He was too caught up in the passion of the moment to recognize the blaze in her eyes to be one of conquest. Straddling him, she knelt, surrounding his face with her silky thighs.

"Praise your Angel, Roman," she breathed, gripping his hair and raising his faced to the center of her passion. He complied willingly. In his distraction, he failed to notice that she had forced him to lie down in a pool of congealing blood.

Chapter Ten

As he led them down the stairs to the jail's holding cells, Sheriff Mendoza concluded that the two men had been broken. They were neither distraught nor frantic, as many in their position would have been. No, they were simply defeated. They moved along, offering no resistance, with their heads bowed and their eyes on the ground. They hardly seemed like the satanic henchmen that they had been accused of being. Both appeared to be as human as Mendoza himself. Regardless, he had no choice but to handle them as if they were the very embodiment of evil.

What he had witnessed in the Church tonight had left him feeling both shaken and numb. He could clearly recall the lady who had come here over a decade ago. She had indeed possessed extraordinary ' _talents_ ', but he had never believed her to be angelic. At times, he had suspected that her ' _miracles_ ' were not inspired by the desire to do good so much as by the intent to mesmerize. There had been a decidedly ungodly glint in her eyes that had secretly frightened Mendoza. He had not been particularly sad to see her go.

The night's spectacle had forced him to reconsider his view of the woman. Over the years, he and Valesquez had conspired to rid the town of the few parasites that there had been. They had been nothing but worthless, troublesome trash. Mendoza had possessed no strong moral reservations over these ' _removals_ ', had never lost any sleep at nights thinking of them, even though he didn't subscribe to Valesquez' religious gibberish. The town had been the better for what they had done. Yet Miranda had been another matter. She had not been a criminal. Perhaps morally misguided, but not criminal. Their actions tonight were a flagrant miscarriage of justice in any context of the concept. The end result had horrified Mendoza. The thing that had come to life was an abomination. The perfunctory manner in which it had killed Martinez proved to the Sheriff that it was anything but divine.

As he directed the two men to their cells, he decided that this was to be the end for him. He felt like a man who had strayed into deep water and was sinking fast. He would do what had to be done, but when things settled down again he would resign before the current pulled him under. If he left now, it was slightly possible that time would give him back a tiny portion of his self esteem. Centuries would not be enough to rid him of the specter of Miranda's haunted, terror stricken eyes. If there was any justice to be garnered from this madness, he failed to determine what it might. Tonight he had witnessed Hell come to life in the world.

The stairway opened onto the jail's central holding area, which consisted of three tiny cells. The cell nearest to the stairs was occupied by a single man, who the two Americans immediately recognized to be the disheveled derelict from the Cantina. He was apparently sleeping in the cell's cot, with his face to the wall. Mendoza was rather perturbed to find the cell occupied. He turned to his Deputy, an overweight man with drooping features, and demanded, "Why is this man here? The cells were to be emptied before the mass."

"He was drunk at the Cantina and causing a real disturbance. I had no choice but to bring him in," Deputy Mesa explained in his whining voice that grated on Mendoza's nerves like fingernails on a chalk board. The Sheriff grunted and pushed the two towards the middle cell. Opening the door, he gently prodded the pair inside. Nathaniel read the sheepish, apologetic expression in the Mexican's eyes. He could sense the other man's struggle. "Why don't you help us? I can see that you don't believe in what is happening here."

Mendoza stole a quick glance at his deputy, who was standing by the stairs, sulking openly. In broken English, he said, "I'm sorry...I like to help. My Manos...my hands are tied."

He shrugged his massive shoulders and strode away. The deputy followed him up the stairs, closing and locking the door behind him. Nath faced Jimmy, who sat on the cot, staring dejectedly at the floor. "We're not going to get any help, Jimmy."

Simms only nodded. He had read the colors and the prevailing mood of the mob. They were totally beguiled by the witch and would do her bidding without question. The chase seemed as if it were about to end before it had even really begun. They had been foolish to think that they could stand against Cynara.

"That really isn't Cynara, is it?" Nath asked, wanting to bring Jimmy out of his torpor. They were already in dire straits and if they fell apart they would be lost.

"It is and it isn't. Cynara has taken possession of her body. Does it really make a difference?" Jimmy concluded glumly.

"It just might. Maybe this robot doesn't have the abilities that Cynara, herself, possesses. She has tried to destroy us through others and has always failed," Nath observed, hoping that this had established some sort of precedent.

Jimmy shrugged noncommittally. "Luck of a child, I guess. This Miranda appears to have all the power she needs."

"Appearances can be deceiving," came a voice from behind them. The two men whirled about to see the derelict sitting up on his cot, regarding them carefully. He had undergone some amazing regeneration. He watched them through eyes of the deepest blue. His face was the epitome of male beauty. His hair, which had been white, was now golden blond. It was impossible to judge his age. He appeared to be young, but his deportment hinted at tremendous age. He stood and sauntered to the bars. Jimmy had gone as white as alabaster. The man projected a pure white aura, something that he had never seen in his life.

"Good God, what are you?" Jimmy stammered, unable to grasp what his mental detector insisted was true.

The man turned his serene gaze upon Jimmy, who felt his spirit begin to soar like an eagle.

"I think that you know or at least suspect. I am the counterpoint to Cynara's evil. The universe is a place of balancing forces. I am the force of light which is balanced against Cynara's darkness. Do you understand this?"

"Yes!" Jimmy exclaimed. "Have you come to help us? To free us?"

"No. I have not," The angel replied. Jimmy could feel his heart wrench painfully in his chest. "But why not?"

"An ancient covenant has decreed that man must face the serpent on his own. His faith must sustain him and thus prove his worthiness. Only then can he gain the kingdom of heaven. If I were to help you directly, I would be violating that covenant. That I cannot do."

"Then why have you come? Haven't Nath and I endured enough misery? Now we find ourselves in the company of an angel only to be told that he can offer us no aid. How many more disappointments do we have to endure?" Jimmy demanded bitterly.

The man didn't seem flustered or offended by this outburst. His voice remained calm and level as he spoke. "I have come to be your guide. Your oracle, if you will."

"What have you to tell us then? Will we survive this place?" Nath asked, half of him dreading the answer.

"The key to survival is in your hands. Each of you has a unique resource at your disposal; special talents that may be employed to deliver you from the jaws of immolation. If you use them wisely, you will walk away from this evil place."

"I know what you mean, but how do we use them?" Jimmy questioned. Their special abilities were meager and woefully inadequate when placed in juxtaposition to the Dark Lady's.

"That is for you to discover on your own. I am not allowed to divulge that information. You must seek the answers inside yourself," the angel replied. Disappointingly, both men could see that it would be fruitless to press him. The man was adamant about the limits of what he was prepared to reveal.

"Suppose that we were to survive, where do we go from here?" Nath asked, forcing himself to look beyond this nightmare.

"Your future is obscure. Much of what will happen is veiled in a shroud of possible futures. I will tell you what I know. There are certain things that have been preordained. They are the demon's will and the will of God and so they shall come to pass. Should you escape this place, you will wage your final battle against the demon on her ancestral soil. This is how she wishes it to be."

"Where is her homeland?"

Cynara was conceived in the land of the gypsy; what was once called Walachia, but is now called Romania. If you find it within yourselves to survive this place, then you must seek her out there."

Jimmy asked the question that both he and Nath had long pondered by seldom voiced. "Should we find her, can she be killed?"

"Yes, but there is only one way in which she can be destroyed. She has gone to great lengths to protect herself from this fate."

"Can you not tell us how she can be killed?" Jimmy pleaded.

"I can tell you only this; the agent from which she was created is also the only means by which she can be undone. I can be no more specific than this."

"Will we kill her, Oracle?" Nath said gravely. The angel's expression became rather pained. He saw them as valiant foot soldiers in a desperate battle against a virtually invincible enemy. He wished that he could arm them with more than just this vague augury. He genuinely wished that he could confront the demon in their place and end her reign of terror. Sadly, he could not. He was forced to abide by the ancient rules of battle. These two must challenge Cynara and hope that fickle coin of fortune would turn in their favor. "The end result of your quest is hidden from me, but I will tell you what I know. The number of your fate is four. The two of you comprise half of this number. How you shall fare will be partially dependent upon your courage and strength. Two others will have a profound influence upon your destiny. The first you shall encounter in the course of your search. Mark this person well, for they shall serve you despite their closed mind. The second is the hinge upon which this struggle will turn. Your lives will hang in the balance of that turning."

"These two factors, who or what are they?" Nath prompted. It was critical that they know who their friends were and who their enemies were.

"I can tell you only this; one is unknown to you and the other will wear a familiar facade. Beware the second for appearances are skin deep and may hide things which are dark and vile." The angel looked to the night sky beyond the bars. His blue eyes narrowed into pensive slits. Nath wondered how such eyes would perceive the flawed, dirty world. The angel nodded his head absently and continued, "That is all that I am able to tell you. The demon's tide is coming to a crest. You are the only two that might cause that tide to ebb. If you fail, her tide will swell and her reign will be long and bloody."

Nath was about to speak, to try to dig a little deeper, but Jimmy placed a silencing hand upon his arm. The bigger man abruptly rose and walked across the cell. Clasping the angel's wrist, Jimmy asked, "You're not an apparition? You are truly what I think you are?"

The angel looked directly into Jimmy's eyes. They held a beauty and serenity that spoke of purity and an eternal splendor. "You have been granted a rare gift. At times, it may seem to be more of a curse, but it is in this gift that you must find your strength. The truth of what I am is alive in the chambers of your own mind."

"Can you tell us no more, angel?" Jimmy implored.

"This is the devil's soil now. She has claimed it in his name. To do battle here you must abide by his rules. Each of you has been endowed with a special talent. You must employ that talent ruthlessly, giving no quarter to both your enemies and to yourselves. If you come to understand this, it will enable you to persevere. I can say no more." With this, he turned away from them and went back to his bunk. Within seconds he had fallen into a deep sleep.

The two men looked after the man, baffled by his appearance and the puzzle of his augury. Jimmy returned to his cot and sat down heavily, trying to digest what he'd been told. Nath peered through the window, his face set in deep lines of puzzlement. "What did he mean ' _we must employ our gifts_ '?"

"Our gifts Nath...I can see things and you can't die. He was telling us that we can get out of here if we take advantage of those talents. It's up to us to think of how," Jimmy finished. Nath could sense Jimmy's churning frustration. He had once been a perceptive boy, but as he had grown, Jimmy had become a bit of a plodder. Nath had long suspected that this may have been Jimmy's unconscious way of insulating himself from his talent. Perhaps it was all speculative bullshit, but Nath had become convinced that Jimmy chose to hide himself behind the guise of a plodder. Both men had displayed the same desire to keep a safe distance from the world around them. Still, reasoning was a process and when not applied, that process grew dull and rusty. "Who is he, Jimmy?"

"I think that he's just the town derelict, but the creature who spoke to us through this man is an angel. His aura was an immaculate white. I've never come across one so pure. He said that, whatever we have to do, it is important that we get out of here. To do that, we might just have to kill some of these people," he said quietly, watching Nath closely.

Nath drew a sudden deep breath. The notion had occurred to him, but hearing Jimmy give it voice made the prospect somehow more real and somehow unpalatable. "Christ," he sighed, "I never bargained for this. I want to stop Cynara and I want to find out what happened to my mother, but killing innocent people, I'm not sure that I'll be able to do it."

"Goddamn it Nath, we're going to have to, because they're sure as fuck going to kill us!" Jimmy flared. Nath was startled by this rare display of ire. He watched the other man guardedly, sensing that some vague transformation was reshaping his soul. "I don't want to kill anyone either, but if it comes down to a choice between them and us, then you can be sure that there'll be bodies scattered all over the Baja before they put me down."

"Holy shit Jimmy, what are you saying?" Nath demanded, bewildered by both the tone of voice and the expression on the other man's face. "These people are victims, just like us. She's using them. If we start killing them wholesale, then we'll be slaughtering innocent people. Don't you see...this is always how it starts; people start killing, one group in the name of something bad and the other in the name of something good. After a time it becomes impossible to distinguish between who's who. Eventually, there's nothing left but corruption and death...an insatiable thirst for senseless violence. If we start killing now, by the time that we find Cynara, we'll be almost as evil as she is."

"Bullshit Nath. This didn't happen to these people; they let it happen to them. Ultimately that is what true faith is all about; the ability to recognize and resist temptation. They gave their souls away in exchange for some promise. That has always been Cynara's real power over people. We've gone through too much to just lie down and die to preserve some false sense of morality." he stopped and looked away from the other man, whom he had come to consider his brother. Nath's mind was caught in the jaws of the dilemma. It was not an easy thing to simply divorce yourself from a long held moral maxim, even if survival hung in the balance. Conversely, if they did not fight, they would surely die and Cynara would triumph. Perhaps the most cogent question that he could possibly ask himself was; could he do it? Could he actually kill someone? He did not know. He saw that he would be diminished regardless of which path he chose. In the end it would all boil down to one basic truth; he didn't want to die before he saw the witch lying dead before him. If he were to die before that day, his whole life would be proven a miserable failure. In a soft, somehow distant voice, he said, "Jimmy, if it's what we have to do, then it's what we will do."

They looked at each other for a long moment, both feeling that they had arrived at a crucial middle ground. "Okay, so we agree that we won't let anyone stop us from leaving here, but just how are we going to get out. My watch tells me that it's just past four in the morning. In just two hours they're going to take us out for a little entertainment."

He had no sooner said this when the door to the holding area swung open.

Chapter Eleven

1

Roman Valesquez lay on his back, staring languidly up into the dark eyes of Miranda Valez, except the eyes were no longer truly Miranda's eyes. He could recall her floating about the streets, her eyes alive with a thirst for living and a mischief that had been so beguiling to some and so infuriating to others. The eyes that now looked down at him were cold and devoid of caprice or mirth. Even in his ecstasy he had never felt so vulnerable, so defenseless. Nor had he ever felt so alive or vital. This creature had taught him things here in this small rectory bed that were unheard of in his scriptures and theologies. She had skillfully demonstrated how physical pleasure could sweep a person away to a place where all other considerations were banal and superfluous. They had made love repeatedly over the past few hours and still his penis was as hard as the baked brick of his church. And he wanted her again. She seemed to sense this, for she smiled and gripping his length, moved to take him.

At that moment, an urgent rapping came at the door, both startling and frustrating Valasquez. He groaned softly, but Miranda whispered, "Don't fret Roman. There will be plenty of time for this, just be still."

She stood, with the sheen of their lovemaking still upon her, and walked to the door. Miranda opened it and ushered a woman into the chamber. Valesquez recognized her to be Magrita Guerrero. She was obviously disconcerted by Miranda's brazen nudity, but when her eyes fell upon Valesquez, with his raging erection, she stopped as if she had just walked into a brick wall.

Instead of feeling embarrassed by his nudity, not to mention his incriminating hard on, Valesquez felt distinctly satisfied. True, he had broken his vow of celibacy, but that really didn't matter anymore, did it. He was a man of God but he was not a eunuch. The Dark Angel had shown him that most of the old values were gone, meaningless in this new age. The new order would disavow many of the old fallacies and he would be its prophet, spreading the new gospel while dispelling old nonsense.

Unable to restrain the smile spreading over his face, he spoke, "Hello Magrita. What have you come to tell us?"

She looked from Valesquez to Miranda, drawing the obvious conclusion, appearing too flustered to even speak. Miranda grew impatient and snarled "Have you come to ogle the Padre or is there another reason for this intrusion?"

"I'm sorry...it's just that..." her voice grew small and trailed off to nothing."I'm a member of the group that you sent to put up the cross. It's finished and we're wondering what we should do next?"

Miranda grinned and Magrita flushed. The grin was repulsive and somehow reptilian. "Take the one named Jimmy and secure him to the cross. Keep the other in his cell under guard. When all is prepared, come back and tell me. Do you understand?"

Magrita nodded briskly, clearly cognizant of the implicit threat beneath the directive. "I'll see that it's done."

"Good, now go. I have something to attend to," Miranda said, dismissing the woman and turning back to Valesquez with a wicked smile. Magrita backed towards the door, watching with horrified fascination as the thing walked towards the priest. When the woman fell to her knees before the priest and took his penis in her mouth, Magrita turned and fled the room.

2

As soon as the door to the holding area swung open, the two men realized that they'd run out of time and the Mexican sideshow had reached its fateful climax. Mendoza's deputy, along with three other rifle bearing locals entered the holding area and approached the cell door. Jimmy tried to read their thoughts, but to his surprise, found that their minds were as blank as their eyes. They would do whatever the witch demanded without compunction or reservation. Jimmy could see of no way to stop them. He and Nath were going to die; he saw this with a terrible, brutal clarity. He swiveled his face to Nath, who stood watching the approaching executioners with only marginal interest, as if their coming had nothing to do with him. Yet, when he looked deeper into Nath's mild eyes, he could see another emotion; one that he could not fathom.

The four Mexicans approached the bars of their cell and stood silently for a moment. Their expressions ranged from undisguised hostility to carefully veiled pity. The deputy said something to a tall, thin man, who looked rather gaunt in the dull light of the holding area. He turned to the Americans and in broken English, said, "The one named Jimmy is to come out, understand? Come out now!"

Jimmy's heart sank. They had singled him out. He would be the first to die. The deputy trained his service revolver upon the two, waiting. Then, like a resentful flame of white phosphorus, he saw why he had been chosen. He could die and Nath could not. The scar upon his chest was like a pass to immortality. He was not immortal. For him it was over. He cursed himself for giving up his home and his life only to meet a gruesome death in some pissant little Mexican back water. He wouldn't give them the pleasure of subjecting him to one of their ghoulish fucking rituals. When they tried to transport him, he would turn on them, hopefully killing one of the bastards in the bargain. He was about to step forward, when Nath moved to the bars.

3

Things had suddenly shifted to slow motion for Nathaniel. Jimmy had insisted that they had been visited by an angel. He had granted them some manner of obscure prophecy, most of which made no sense to Nathaniel. He suspected that it eventually would, at some point in the future perhaps, but for now the angel's words were as indecipherable as chicken scratches. Yet that was not entirely true. The oracle had said that they must turn to their gifts if they were to come out of this alive. His only gift, and he scoffed bitterly at the gross misuse of the word, was his immortality. Somehow he could use that, when combined with Jimmy's psychic talents, to get out of this Mexican hell. He was not sure how but felt positive that the hows and whys would make themselves clear in the course of things. So when the man called for Jimmy to come forward, Nath darted past his brother and declared, "I'm Jimmy. What do you want with me?"

"You are to come with us. Dot's all you have to know, Diablo," the sallow scarecrow replied.

"Well fuck you! I'm not going anywhere," Nath snarled, deliberately trying to raise their ire.

The deputy, whose name was Emilio Sanchez, demanded to know what the Yankee was saying. The interpreter translated and Sanchez aimed his gun at Nath's head and barked a command in Mexican. Nath just shrugged his shoulders and smiled disdainfully. Sanchez handed his keys to another of the escorts, a fat, balding man, and bid him to open the cell door. The man looked both nervous and hesitant, so the deputy gave him an impatient shove. The fat man inserted the key into the lock, turned it and swung the door open. During this, he averted their gaze, as if to look into their eyes would mean certain dissolution.

All of this had transpired in the space of less than thirty seconds. In that time, Jimmy had stood dumbfounded, unable to understand the nature of Nath's game, thinking that he'd lost his mind. Then, with dawning horror, he grasped what Nath was trying to do. "Jesus Christ, Nath. What the fuck do you think you're doing? I won't let you do this. Goddamn it, don't you do this."

Nath fixed Jimmy with a smoldering expression that declared that he'd do what he had to and then spoke in a voice fraught with grim determination. "This is what the angel meant when he said that each of us must make use of our gift. This is mine and I'm going to use it."

Jimmy shook his head adamantly. He would not allow this. Better that he die then have Nath be subjected to hell on his behalf. He shoved Nath away from the cell door, pushing him heavily into the back wall. "I will not let you do this."

The four Mexicans watched this unexpected drama with identical expressions of confusion. Sanchez grabbed the interpreter's arm and wheeled the man about, suspecting some kind of ruse, "What is happening? Why did he do that?"

"I...I don't know," the thin man shrugged helplessly.

"Then find out idiot," Sanchez barked, startling the interpreter and causing him to shrink back against the bars. Sanchez took a menacing step forward with his gun held high. Jimmy glared at him defiantly and the gun faltered ever so slightly. "I'm the one you want. He's gone crazy. Now take me."

Such acts of sacrifice were well beyond the deputy's mentality, who stolidly believed that no man in his right mind would sacrifice himself up for the sake of another. Jimmy took a step towards the Mexican, trying to force the issue. He had been raised as Nath's brother. He'd always looked out for him as they had grown up together. More than this, he had carried Nath in his arms on that fateful night more than half of a lifetime ago. He could never let Nath die for him or even suffer on his behalf. His sudden advance had frightened the other three Mexicans, but it provided Sanchez with the excuse he needed to pull the trigger. The report within the small holding area was huge and deafening, stunning everyone into a motionless silence. Jimmy's eyes had popped as wide as silver dollars.

"You shot me," he exclaimed with a comically amazed edge to his voice. The blood started to flow from his left forearm seconds before the wave of pain announced its presence. Then a bolt of white hot agony rocketed up his arm, along his spine and then into his cerebral cortex. He gasped, staggered back and then tumbled onto the cell's cot.

Confident that he had regained control of the situation, Sanchez ordered the other three to drag Nath from the cell. Nath pretended to cower there and when they took a hold of him, he resisted as much as possible. Jimmy tried to protest, but the pain in his arm was making him dizzy and nauseous. Before he could utter a sound, the cell door had been locked and the four were leading Nath towards whatever torture had been designed for him.

4

The makeshift cross had been fashioned using a telephone pole, to which the execution committee had spiked a wooden cross slat. At the base of this they had piled a mixture of dry wood and newspaper. The air was virtually crackling with a palpable lust for blood and violence. With the brightening of the eastern horizon, the anticipation increased until the laborers were possessed by an almost painful need to see the pyre ignited.

When Deputy Sanchez and the three others came around the corner of the town hall, pushing the damned devil before them, the mob actually began to cheer and applaud. As the group grew closer, the applause turned to jeering and rhythmic chanting. Though he could not speak their language, Nath was able to absorb the gist of their outcry. He wondered if this was how Jesus felt as he carried his cross up Golgotha.

Nath caught sight of Mendoza standing at the foot of the makeshift cross. Unlike the others, his face bore no trace of lust or jubilation. To Nath he looked like an unwilling participant in a hideous play. Despite this, Nath doubted that he would hesitate to light the match when the moment came.

Sanchez bolstered by the way in which he had handled the holding cell situation and excited by the prospect of spilling more blood, ignored his superior and called to the bystanders, "You two, take him and tie him into place."

They came forward and roughly shoved Nath towards the base of the cross. One of them, a sadist named Alvaro, punched Nath in the kidneys. There was an explosion of pain in his lower back and he sank to his knees, falling onto his face in the bleached yellow sand. This must have struck the crowd as uproariously funny for they brayed hysterical laughter in unison.

Encouraged by their exhortations, Alvaro kicked Nath savagely in the shoulder.

"Do you want another one, you little fucker?" Alvaro screamed with malicious glee and then turned to solicit approval from the mob. They gave it with a resounding roar. He was just about to deliver another kick, when his legs were swept out from under him. He landed flat on his back with a large explosion of air.

"That's enough. We've been told how to deal with him. This isn't necessary," Mendoza growled. He glanced about, looking to see if anyone, especially Sanchez, would challenge his authority. No one did. To save face, Sanchez grumbled, "That's right Alvaro, tie him to the cross as you were told."

Like a whipped dog trying to ingratiate himself with his master, Alvaro leapt to his feet and with the aid of two others, began to bind Nathaniel to the cross.

Once this had been done, Mendoza abdicated his authority. He walked up to Sanchez and in a voice dripping with sarcasm, said, "See what needs to be done gets done and try not to burn yourself."

Sanchez glowered at Mendoza, but said nothing. The Sheriff turned and walked away, leaving the mob to their sport. Sanchez watched him go, feeling a black hatred for the man who had been his boss if not his reluctant mentor. He was sorely tempted to put a bullet into the back of the man's head, but was smart enough to realize that even in their present frame of mind, the people would never tolerate such an action. You're lucky tonight Mendoza, but I'll settle our score soon enough he thought as the other disappeared into the night.

Sanchez turned his back to the mob, which stood watching him, waiting for him to do something to demonstrate his authority. He pointed to a spindly man named Emilio Napales and motioned him forward. "Go to the jail and bring the other one. I want him to see this."

Napales nodded and turned to go, but Sanchez put a restraining hand upon his shoulder. He thrust his service revolver and a set of keys into the other man's hand. This done, he dismissed the man with an impatient push. Finally free of Mendoza's intimidating presence, Sanchez turned to the cross where Nath had been tied into position. He strolled over to his cruiser and returned with a five gallon Jerry can of gasoline. Staring Nath straight in the eye, the Mexican emptied the contents onto the wood and paper. The pungent odor of gasoline came quickly to Nath's nostrils. The Mexican smiled. "You're going to die. You're going to burn slow enough to smell your own stench."

Nath didn't understand the specific words, but the mordant tone and the grating smile conveyed the basic message. They wanted to see him burn, to roast to a blackened husk. He would burn all right, but when the flames were finally extinguished, they would be in for a nasty surprise. This thought made him smile. Sanchez had expected blubbering and pleading, not this slightly amused, cryptic grin. There was a certain knowledge in that smile that frightened Sanchez, causing him to look away. Nath lay back his head against the cross piece, trying to steel himself against the hell of agony that was about to engulf him.

"Magrita, go and tell the Dark Angel that we are ready to begin," Sanchez commanded. Magrita blanched, repulsed by the notion of returning to the rectory. Detecting her reluctance, Sanchez stormed over to where she stood and digging his fingers painfully into her shoulder, shouted, "I've given you an order, now do as I say."

Magrita flinched, and then ran off to fetch the Dark Angel, hoping that this nightmare would soon end.

Sanchez pivoted back to the cross. All was ready for the fall of the match. The wood and the paper were thoroughly doused with gasoline. One spark and the cross, and the pig tied to it, would be in flames in seconds. He could wait for the Dark Angel's return or he could show her that he was a man of initiative, one who could be entrusted with power and responsibility. Deciding, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a book of paper matches. He struck one, and then held its sulfur tip to the tips of the others. They sprung to life in a blaze of orange and yellow.

He stared at the flames for a moment and then dropped the book into the wood pile.

5

Emilio Napales had run all of the way to the jail and down the stairs into the holding area. He jammed the key into the lock, turned it and swung the heavy door open. He was grateful to Sanchez for granting him a role in the night's great drama. He would bring this American back to the cross and if he tried to resist, he would soon learn the drawbacks of fucking with Emilio Napales. Moving into the cell, he held the revolver out before him, liking its cold, professional feeling as it lay in his sweaty palm. He saw the American standing at the back of his cell.

He was staring out of the window, into the fading darkness. Napales could not see his face. If he had, he might well have turned and run, not only from the jail but from the town itself. Jimmy's face had been contorted into a lunatic grimace. Napales couldn't see any of these things so he advanced, affecting a gunslinger's swagger. "Come out Yankee. There's something we want you to see."

Jimmy was too deep into his own personal world of torment to have heard the Mexican's initial entry. He was snapped out of his trance when the cell door banged against the bars. He spun about to see a thin man pointing a revolver at him and grinning an arrogant, butcher's grin. Jimmy was struck by a paroxysm of rage so great he feared that he might combust on the fuel of his own fury.

Then it happened, just as it had when he had been chased through that junkyard as a child.

He felt a jolt rock his mind and an image took shape there. The image was vivid and ghastly, but he derived a great deal of pleasure from it all the same. In his mind's eye he could see this arrogant bastard raise that service revolver, put it into his own mouth and pull the trigger. A broad, satisfied smile spread over Jimmy's face. The smile was shark like and humorless and it wiped Napales' own smile right off of his face.

Despite having the gun, the Mexican retreated several paces. There followed a sharp pain in his head as if some unseen intruder had smashed his way into his skull. This assessment was not far from the truth.

The intruder seemed to have usurped control of his physical faculties because Napales tried to turn and flee, but found that his muscles would not heed his command. The hand that held the gun lifted slowly but inexorably. He tried to drop it but could not. His dismay turned to horror when his wrist turned the gun towards his own face.

He looked from the gun to the American, who stood watching him with intense concentration. Rivers of sweat ran down the captive's forehead and his entire body shook slightly. Then it dawned upon Napales that he was doing this to him. He began to plead, to blubber madly, but his cries fell on deaf ears. His bladder let go as he opened his mouth and inched the gun barrel between his lips. His eyes were bulging and Jimmy could see the pulse pounding in his temples.

He could find no sympathy in his heart for this man; only unmitigated hatred. The civilized part of his mind called for mercy, but a more primitive voice told it to fuck off in no uncertain terms.

In his mind he visualized it and a second later the Mexican pulled the trigger. The gun's ammunition was a mushroom shell type and it blew the back of Napales' head to shreds, coating the ceiling of the cell with a thick slime of blood and brains. Napales' body fell to the floor with a muffled thud where it continued to twitch for several seconds.

Jimmy watched, feeling both repelled and fascinated by what he had just seen and done. His new power filled him with a malefic delight. He was not precisely certain what exactly had happened, but it seemed that he had been able to compel Napales to kill himself simply by picturing the man's suicide in his mind. It was as the angel had said; both he and Nath must use their powers if they were to survive El Zaltaro.

Nath! Dammit, he had very nearly forgotten about Nath.

Jimmy picked up the service revolver, the tip of which was slick with the dead man's saliva. He then raced out of the holding area and into the main office. He frantically scanned the office and then saw what he was hoping to find; a heavy wooden case with padlocked doors. He aimed the gun at the padlock and fired twice. The heavy slugs blew the lock apart as if it were a ripe cantaloupe. Jimmy swung the door open and began to laugh. To his own ears, the laughter sounded demented. He had opened the door to a full rack of M 16s and pump action shotguns, replete with ammunition clips.

Stashing a half of a dozen clips into each pocket, Jimmy selected one of the M 16s and hurried into the street, which was deserted. He reached into his jeans pocket and his laughter became nearly hysterical. In their smug certainty and their haste to do the witch's bidding, the Mexican's had neglected to take away his truck keys. Things, which had appeared so dismal only a few hours ago, now appeared rather rosy. With this thought in mind, he sprinted back to the hotel where he had parked his Ford Ranger.

6

Miranda sat atop Valesquez, casually straddling him as she stroked his cheek. ' _She is such a splendid beauty, so alive, so primitive_ ,' he thought. "What will you have me do when this is over?"

She gazed down at him with eyes that exuded an infinite wisdom. The intricate mysteries of the future were hers to unravel...or so Valesquez now believed. "When this battle has been won, I must leave for a short period of time. When I have conquered the final enemy, I will return and grant you your true reward. One that I promise will be sweeter than even this."

She seemed about to elaborate, when she stiffened, bellowing an agonized cry. Every muscle in her body contracted violently. Valesquez could feel the crushing pressure of her thighs as they squeezed his rib cage. He was about to cry out, when her hand slid from his cheek to his throat. Her clenched fingers dug deep into the soft meat there. Despite the vice grip, the defiled priest managed a soft groan as the sharp nails punctured the skin and sunk ever deeper.

"The fools. Damn them, they've taken the wrong one!" she raged, her voice distorted and terrifying in its fury. Valesquez began to flail at her with both hands, but she continued to stare into the distance, oblivious to his punches, which fell heavily upon her breasts and shoulders.

Finally one of the blows clipped her jaw and she snapped out of her trance. She fastened her scorching gaze upon his. Deep in her eyes he could see a well of fire. Miranda snarled and closed her fingers like the springing of a bear trap. They sliced through the tissue without resistance. When they had come together, Miranda ripped her hand away, pulling the life out of the man who believed he might become her prophet. Blood spewed upwards, coating her body and slicking her hair, but she seemed not to notice. "Stop them," she panted. "I must stop them before it's too late."

She dismounted Valesquez and unmindful of her nudity, sprinted towards the door. She raced along the path between the rectory and the Church. As she went, she berated herself for entrusting any kind of responsibility to such a worthless collection of imbeciles. Miranda turned the corner and ran headlong into Magrita, sending the other woman sprawling to the dirt.

"What has happened bitch? Tell me quickly," Miranda rasped, her voice high pitched with fury. Magrita tried to scramble away, but the demon was too quick. She reached down and caught the terrified woman by the hair, wrenching her to her feet. "Tell me what you've done or I'll gouge your eyes out."

"We've taken the American to the cross, just as you asked," Magrita stammered, bewildered by the inexplicable anger in the Dark Angel's eyes and sickened by the blood shining on her body. Magrita's saliva had dried up and her tongue felt thick and gritty, like desert sand blowing across ancient cobblestones. "Sanchez sent me to bring you back."

"Which one did you take?" Miranda barked.

"Which one?" Magrita echoed dumbly, not grasping what was being asked of her.

"You're trying my patience, cunt. Did they take the short man or the taller one with the beard?"

"They took the shorter man," Magrita whispered, realizing the error that had been made and understanding what the consequences of the failure were likely to be. Miranda's nostrils flared and her upper lip curled back. She began to pound Magrita's skull into the brick wall of the Church, again and again, pausing briefly between each sickening thud. The demon battered the woman's skull until the bricks were slick with blood and fragments of bone and brain. At last, she let the ruined body fall soundlessly to the grass.

They had failed her and now they would pay.

She began to run towards the crucifixion site. Her eyes had narrowed into predatory slits and her breasts and shoulders were covered in gore. She moved through the night like a dark avenger, intending to vent her anger upon those who had failed her.

She was unaware that another was converging upon her with exactly the same murderous intentions.

Chapter Twelve

1

For Nathaniel, time had slowed to a veritable crawl. He watched the flaming match fall end over end into the gas soaked pile of wood. It landed and then disappeared from sight. A fraction of a second later a single tendril of flame bloomed in the night air and suddenly the whole pile was ablaze. Wide eyed with terror, he gazed down to see that part of his right pant leg had just caught, preceding the wave of pain by less than two seconds. His first cry was greeted with a volley of approving shouts and bitter denunciations. In less than two minutes Nathaniel was engulfed in flames. Anyone witnessing the spectacle from a distance would have seen a ball of fire hanging suspended in the night sky.

For Nath the pain was monstrous and consuming. Every nerve ending lent its voice to a chorus of incredible agony. The hiss and crackle of his own flesh accompanied his shrieks. Then the pain mercifully vanished as his circuitry overloaded and burnt out. There was a blissful numbness, though he was still cognizant of his being consumed by the flames.

His first thought, after the pain had abated, was ' _Maybe I was wrong_.' Perhaps he'd overestimated the efficacy of the witch's spell. Surely mortal flesh was not equal to the ravenous hunger of the flame. His flesh was being ravaged by the flames and so he must die, unless his charred bones would spring to life once the fire had run its course. He found the image blackly humorous.

Then a cool breeze washed over him. His mind balked at the thought. A breeze? Surely Not. The world was a blazing hell and there could be no breeze, and yet there was. He could not feel it so much as he could sense it. A door had opened in the inner most chamber of his mind and it was through this door that the breeze had come. The open door gestured to him, beckoned to him. It promised sanctuary. He understood that he had little to lose and so he went through it without hesitation. The door slammed behind him and he whirled around to face a monolithic wall. He touched it. It was cold and damp beneath his finger tips. ' _This is not real_ ,' he told himself. Yet, even as he uttered the denial, Nath understood that it was very real. He knew this as certainly as he knew that demons were not horror story creatures.

Nath now found himself deep in the interiors of his own mind, locked in a requiem which the Dark Lady had created for him. He concentrated and the world swam into focus before his eyes. This is what he saw:

2

A sibilant shriek ripped the air as the pervasive smell of burning flesh wafted through the town. The cry had not come from the figure on the cross. He had ceased all movement over a minute ago. Sanchez had seen the head slip to the chest and knew that the fire had done its work. He was momentarily prickled by disappointment, wishing that the wails and screams of agony had not been cut short so quickly.

The cry, which had come like a dull razor through his brain, had been one of anger and frustration, not panic or terror. The crowd spun about as one to see the Miranda thing bearing down upon them. She was covered with blood and her face was contorted into a malefic mask. Sanchez began to tremble. Something had gone awry. Something was drastically wrong, though Sanchez had no idea what that something might be, he correctly surmised that it would prove fatal for him and his group of followers.

She closed the open space between them like a charging rhino. The others must have discerned her fury for they began to drift slowly apart. She came to a skidding stop no more than fifteen feet from where Sanchez stood. "Who is responsible for setting this blaze?"

Her eyes whirled and bulged in their sockets and her voice had the cutting edge of jagged glass. Sanchez began to sweat profusely as all around him people cast accusatory glances in his direction.

"You did this?" the Dark Angel demanded venomously.

"I just thought that..." his voice failed him as unadulterated terror washed over him in a numbing wave. Her furious glare told him that there would be no reprieve and this spurred him to one final desperate act of courage. He drew his service revolver and pointed it directly at her. "Stay back. If you come any closer I'll blow your fucking head off!"

He then swung the gun around to dissuade the others from any acts of heroism. As he did, Miranda darted forward with the speed of a mongoose. Sanchez reacted quickly and managed to get a shot off before she hit him. The shot took her in the pit of her stomach. The mushroom tip entered, leaving a dime sized hole, but exited by creating a crater, the size of a fist, in her back. Blood and ruptured intestines spewed out in a bloody arc, turning the sand into a red mud.

Miranda's momentum carried her into Sanchez, knocking him backwards and tumbling them both to the ground. She made a wet, gurgling sound deep in her throat and raised her head, looking directly into Sanchez' petrified eyes. She opened her mouth to speak and a glut of blood spewed down her chin. "You'll die."

Sanchez screamed and Miranda jammed her fist into his gaping mouth, clutched his lower mandible and ripped downward. His jaw broke in four places with a sickening series of snaps. The deputy attempted to bellow his pain, but a torrent of blood choked off the scream. The pain became too much and the Mexican fainted.

Miranda released her hold on the corpse and rose to her feet. At first she tottered, but gradually managed to find her balance. Cynara looked down through Miranda's eyes and knew that her chosen vessel was about to fail. She would have to retrieve the situation as quickly as possible. First she would deal with the despicable pile of shit that had ruined her plan. She picked up the gun and aimed it at the battered remains of the deputy's head. She was about to pull the trigger when an insidious notion flashed through her mind. The gun shifted, now pointing at his groin. She pulled the trigger three times. Then she let the gun fall from her fingers and traipsed over to the cross on wobbly legs.

Nathaniel was horrified by the savage manner in which Miranda had dispatched of the deputy. Her capacity for unspeakable cruelty knew no bounds.

Miranda walked slowly towards the grizzly human torch, bewildered by how rapidly her scheme had gone to ruin. Though he could not die, what would remain of Nathaniel Simpson would be nothing more than a tortured, charred mass of human suffering. As she stood there, surveying the carnage, the wooden pole groaned. As she peered into the depths of the pyre, she came to realize that his bright blue eyes were staring unblinkingly into hers. Even Cynara, who had been the architect of many ineffable nightmares, gasped in astonishment at the ghastly creature hanging before her. It was at that exact moment that the first of the shots rang out.

4

When Jimmy first swung his Ranger around the buildings, he felt as if he'd been transported into an impressionist nightmare vista. He was unaware of the low groan that had escaped his lips. The despair quickly gave way to a towering rage. The cross was totally engulfed in flames. A body, which Jimmy recognized to be that of the deputy, was laying about thirty feet from its base. The mob had began to disperse, leaving a solitary figure standing at the base of the impromptu cross, apparently transfixed by the hanging nightmare.

"Fucking savage bastards," Jimmy muttered. He could feel hatred building in his skull like an unbearable pressure and knew that there would be only one suitable release. He swung the vehicle hard to the left, jamming on the brakes as he did. Jimmy picked up his M 16 and jumped out of the truck. His mind abdicated control of his body, leaving his murderous rage in command. He propped the weapon upon the hood of the cab and switched it to fully automatic.

"Hey motherfuckers, I've got something for you," he bellowed with maniacal glee. He knew that they couldn't understand, but he wanted them to see him; wanted them to realize what was about to happen to them. At first many of the faces were disoriented, but when they recognized the man who held the rifle they began to scatter like flies. Uttering a primal howl, Jimmy opened fire.

5

The dying entity turned her head just in time to see Jimmy open fire. In the pandemonium that ensued, she saw three people fall as the first hail of bullets ripped through the mob.

"Cynara," a raspy voice croaked weakly. She whirled back to Nathaniel. Suddenly the fire weakened restraints gave and he fell upon her. Miranda's legs collapsed. Nath threw his arms around her neck and plunged his flaming hands into her mass of black hair. There was a sharp crackle as her hair ignited into a bonnet of flames. The pungent reek of burning hair filled the air. The night was alive with insanity as if hell had burst to earth in this tiny desert town.

Miranda uttered a strangled groan and flipped Nath off. He landed in the desert dirt and lay still. Miranda rose to her feet and began to flail ineffectually at her burning hair, while dancing a jig of agony.

Jimmy had witnessed Nath's fall and came out from behind the truck firing. The desert was strewn with bodies now and crimson pools now soaked the dun-colored earth, but still his killing frenzy had not been sated. He sprinted towards Miranda, stopped twenty feet from where she struggled, spread his legs and opened fire. He did not stop until he had emptied the entire clip into Miranda's body. He did not stop even though she had collapsed after the third shot. He continued to fire into her prone body, not realizing that he was screaming as he did.

"Take it bitch. You've tried to kill me three times and you can't do it. Three strikes and your out in this game. Now it's my turn. I'm coming for you, cunt. I'm gonna rip your heart out and eat it while you watch me. Do you hear me you fucking bitch? I'm coming for you!"

He fell to his knees beside the wreckage. Tears flowed down his cheeks in streams and he buried his face into his hands, letting the M 16 fall forgotten to the sand. He was sinking deep into his own sea of despair, when a weak voice moaned, "Jimmy, get me out of here."

6

Elizabeth adjusted her cloak against the night chill as he strolled about the estate grounds, though she did this out of habit and not necessity. As a creature of the darkness, she was immune to the ravages of the elements. The moon was full and shone down upon her with a golden luminescent splendor, reminding her of a celestial spotlight. She stood watching it for a time, indulging her wistful nature.

On nights such as this one, she would usually shift her shape and move through the forest as a wolf or an owl. Tonight, however, she had elected to remain in her natural form. Some instinct instructed her to stay close to the Dark Lady tonight. Cynara seemed pensive and distant all day and appeared genuinely glad when Elizabeth departed for her nocturnal prowl. She had tried to draw Cynara out, but the Dark Lady remained evasive and vague, providing nothing by way of explanation for this sudden reticence.

So, Elizabeth had left, but decided not to stray too far from home. She came around to the front of the mansion and could see lights blazing in the east wing study. Making her way to the folding windows, she peered through, being careful to remain in the shadows. What she saw jolted her out of her usual cool reserve. Cynara lay sprawled on a black leather sofa, writhing in obvious discomfort. Her body was bathed in perspiration, while her arms and legs flailed and jerked spasmodically. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her neck and back were arched and driven deep into the soft leather.

Elizabeth watched, fascinated as Cynara stiffened and released like a woman suffering an epileptic seizure. Her left arm swung violently, knocking a wine goblet off of a nearby end table. The goblet spilled its contents onto the ivory colored carpet. While this did not inspire open panic in the night creature, Cynara's torment did arouse a strong sense of urgency. Elizabeth waved her hand across the window lock and the double windows swung open. Placing her hands upon the window jam, Elizabeth vaulted gracefully through the opening.

As she crossed the distance between herself and Cynara, the hand which that knocked the goblet from the table erupted into a torch of orange yellow flames. Cynara held the hand up before her as though she were proffering the fire to some unseen God. Elizabeth watched the dark beauty, now understanding that she had projected herself into some other astral plane. Elizabeth placed the flats of her palms on Cynara's temples and then closed her eyes, with the intention of tapping into Cynara's projection. Normally a demon's mind would have been closed to all other demons save the master, their thoughts and emotions concealed behind a wall, but Elizabeth was a unique creature in that she was a direct extension of Cynara. Her soul belonged to Cynara as did her allegiance, but what Cynara failed to understand was; as much as she belonged to Cynara, Cynara, in turn, belonged to her. Each woman was an extension of the other. What flowed through one into the other also flowed invariably back, very much like a tide. For some incomprehensible reason, Cynara seemed unaware of this. Elizabeth had no intention of apprising her of this little idiosyncrasy. She could divine Cynara's thoughts by mere touch alone.

As Elizabeth laid her hands upon Cynara's forehead, she was shaken by an apocalyptic thunder bolt. Through Cynara's eyes, she viewed a night world where ruined bodies lay everywhere like refuse. The vessel into which Cynara had projected herself was mortally wounded. The man, who had evidently inflicted this damage, stood over the vessel raving madly and waving a gun. Cynara's mind informed Elizabeth that the man's name was Jimmy Simms. There was something else. Something had gone horribly wrong with Cynara's plot. She had intended to kill Jimmy, but he had managed to destroy her vessel instead. Cynara had failed yet again, but still there was some crucial thing wrong. Elizabeth willed Cynara's mind to reveal it.

Nathaniel Simpson had been put to the torch. The vivid picture of a grotesque, blackened husk came to Elizabeth. Nathaniel had been her son in another lifetime.

Her exquisite lips mouthed the word ' _NO_ ' and an alien presence battered at the fabric of her mind like a powerful gale. Some unseen force surged forth in an attempt to wrestle control of her physical body. Elizabeth fought to throw back the invader, but found her hands slipping slowly, inexorably down Cynara's cheeks to her throat. She could feel Cynara's body stiffen as the invader forced her to place a knee upon Cynara's chest and drive her nails deep into the demon's throat. Elizabeth could feel the satisfying sensation of her nails sinking deep into the tender flesh there. Frantic now, she redoubled her efforts to cast out the intruder, succeeding only with a monumental exertion of will.

She dropped her trembling hands from Cynara's throat, distressed to see the red half crescents which her nails had left in the otherwise flawless skin. Her legs betrayed her and Elizabeth fell to the carpet, upending the small table as she did. Some foreign presence had well near succeeded in usurping control of her body and compelling into a monstrous act of betrayal. As she shook uncontrollably, it occurred to her that the invader had in all probability not been an alien presence. No, this force had originated from deep inside of her own body. The blinding light of revelation declared that it had been the true Elizabeth who had risen to strike out at Cynara. Miraculously, she existed deep in the recesses of the demon's body; imprisoned there. When Cynara's thoughts had turned to Nathaniel's torture, the true Elizabeth had struggled to break free of whatever prison held her and had very nearly succeeded.

Cynara came back to herself with an audible snap. The rancid smell of burning flesh filled the study, although Cynara was unscathed by the flames. Her eyes flew open like broken shades and she clutched at her wounded throat, gasping for breath.

"Elizabeth, please, I..." she exclaimed, her voice distorted with a desperate vulnerability. The beseeching quality prompted the blond to her feet. She rushed to Cynara and enfolded the perspiration soaked beauty into her arms, greatly relieved that Cynara seemed unaware of what she had nearly done.

As she held Cynara's face to the soothing warmth of her breast, Elizabeth recalled how Cynara had once asked her if she would be able to kill her son, should the need arise. Though she had shrewdly avoided an answer, there had been no doubt in her own mind that she would be able to kill Nathaniel Simpson. Now, as she gazed through the window into the cold, thin darkness beyond, Elizabeth found that she could no longer be certain. Cynara had again failed to rid herself of these two and so they would come to confront her on her native soil.

There would be a grim battle; one in which Elizabeth would be forced to play a major role. Elizabeth, the demon, now understood that she had her own grim battle to fight. The outcome of that inner war would dictate who she would stand for and who she would stand against, when the day of the final confrontation at last came.

Chapter Thirteen

1

Yuma baked like the ovens of hell. The blistering midday sun beat down with a 98 degree intensity of a belligerent dragon. Jimmy pulled his Ford Ranger into the gravel drive and shut down the engine. He reached across the seat and scooped up the two bags of groceries which he had purchased at a nearby market. As he mounted the crumbling steps, his mind was involuntarily drawn back to the grim spectacle of Nathaniel's slow crawl back to humanity. They had settled in a nameless Mexican village near the border in the terrible days after their flight from El Zaltaro. It had been the occasion of one such homecoming that Jimmy realized that Nath would actually survive his ordeal on the witch's cross.

Nath looked up at Jimmy and smiled a hideous carnival horror's smile and declared, "Jimmy, something is happening to me. I think I'm starting to heal. Watch this, watch my left hand."

Jimmy's gaze was drawn to the left hand. It looked as it always did; a thin, black, crusted parody of a normal human hand. He then noticed a slight trembling in one of the fingers and then the black crust shattered with a tiny puff, falling to the blanket in a shower of black powder. When Jimmy glimpsed at what lay underneath, he very nearly screamed. Several seconds later Nath had started to shriek in agony. The crust had given way to raw red muscle and exposed vulnerable networks of nerves. The muscle and nerves had regenerated, but the skin had not, causing Nath to experience wave upon wave of excruciating pain as the exposed nerves were assailed by simple exposure to air.

"Cover it up, please Jimmy!" Nath wailed miserably. Jimmy complied willingly, relieved to be rid of the gruesome spectacle. He wrapped the blanket delicately around the hand and then went out to throw up the entire contents of his stomach in the dirt behind the trailer. He then covered up the vomit and sank to the dirt, feeling hollow and profoundly shaken.

In the following few weeks, the process repeated itself with increasing frequency, until finally, all of the black crust had fallen away to reveal great expanses of newly formed red muscle and connective tissue. Prepared for this contingency, Jimmy had purchased roles of gauze and medical tape to bind the exposed areas and protect them from the ravages of open air and infection. Jimmy couldn't bring himself to contemplate the pain that Nath must surely have endured during this ghastly ritual of reconstruction. Somehow, Nath managed to bear his pain with grim stoicism. He displayed few signs of suffering or very little emotion of any other kind. Then, one hot afternoon while Jimmy was sitting on the makeshift porch of the trailer, daydreaming about home, he was startled by a cry from within.

"Jimmy, Jesus Christ Jimmy, come and look at this!"

Jimmy automatically jumped to his feet and dutifully rushed into the trailer, dreading whatever horror might be awaiting him therein. He was delighted and surprised to find Nath standing tentatively on his feet, grinning delightedly. He had peeled off his bandages to find that a fresh layer of skin had grown upon his cheeks and forehead. The skin was a thin, translucent white, which could not entirely hide the red tissue beneath, but it was quite obviously the first step in the final stage of the healing process. This, combined with the thin blond hair that had already grown back, gave his face an almost human appearance.

"I'm actually going to be whole again, Jimmy," he whispered and then a sudden rush of tears came, unbidden, to his eyes. They came in a deluge, shaking the other man's frail body much in the same way that a spring wind will shake a sapling. Jimmy experienced his own dark brand of relief just then. He felt partially exonerated from the debt which he felt that he owed to the other man. It was a debt that could never be adequately repaid. Not even dying for Nath could make up for the hell that he had endured on Jimmy's behalf. Being thus indebted very often breeds an ugly resentment. Jimmy shook off these dark thoughts and enfolded the other man in his arms.

Three weeks later they left Mexico and returned to the United States. They had crossed the border into Arizona and had decided to settle in Yuma. Neither spoke of returning to Washington. There was a tacit agreement between the two that they would not return home until they had accomplished what they had set out to do.

2

When Jimmy entered the house, Nath was sitting at the kitchen table, wearing only his slippers and a pair of faded Levis. With the sun streaming through the dust coated windows and the oppressive heat thickening as the day progressed, Nath appeared gaunt and tired, like a man who has gone to sleep in one time and land only to awaken, disoriented and terrified, in another.

"How are you feeling, Nath?" Jimmy inquired, setting the groceries on the counter.

"Pretty good, though the heat is really draining me. I can't seem to cope with it these days." It was true. Nath appeared even more enervated than usual. His skin gave the impression of being thinner than normal and there were large black smudges beneath both of his eyes.

"Maybe you should try to rest a little. I could move some of the box fans into your room if you'd like," Jimmy offered, not at all caring for the man's lethargic behavior or unhealthy pallor.

Nath dismissed the suggestion with an impatient wave of his hand. "No, I'll be okay." He offered Jimmy a token smile as if to illustrate just how well he felt, though the grin fell well short of the mark. Then his expression darkened and he came directly to the point. "Jimmy, we've got to talk. The mark on my chest has come back - her mark. It's as if she's scarred me to my soul. It's started to tingle and sometimes it aches like hell. The cease fire is over, Jimmy. She wants us to come and end this thing and she isn't prepared to wait any longer."

Jimmy pulled out a chair and sat down on the opposite side of the table. "You're just not ready Nath. It's as simple as that. Look at yourself. You're barely able to stay on your feet for more than an hour at a time. In this condition you'd never be able to stand up to a long journey. You know that as well as I do."

Nath's expression shifted from troubled to grimly determined. His blue eyes, which were normally accessible and placid, had become hard and flinty. "I'm ready, Jimmy, and I'll stand up to whatever I have to. I think I've more than demonstrated my resolve in that regard"

Jimmy studied Nath closely, looking not only at him but into him. His ordeal in the flames had not only purified him, but had vulcanized him as well, making him subtly tougher. The toughness was concealed behind the man's predominant aura of serenity. Jimmy envied Nath's newfound spiritual tranquility. He craved it. He coveted it. In his entire life, Jimmy had never experienced true tranquility. He was like a battle-worn soldier who wanted the fight to be over irrespective of the outcome. "I'm so tired Nath. I know how pathetic that must sound to you, but I just want to go home and rest."

Nath smiled sympathetically. "I realize what you've been through Jimmy. I also know where I'd be if it hadn't been for your care. I wouldn't have died, but I might well have become a grotesque monstrosity, rambling aimlessly through the desert. I can't imagine the torment you must have suffered while I was recuperating. I'll never be able to thank you for that."

Tears glistened in Nathaniel's eyes as he spoke. Jimmy could feel his own emotions threatening to overwhelm his delicate composure. It had not been lost upon Jimmy that Nath had neglected to mention precisely why he'd endured those long months of agony. Looking at the table, Simms whispered, "Nath, we both know what happened in El Zaltaro."

Nath shrugged as if he had done something as mundane as lend Jimmy a cup of sugar.

"Jimmy, I have no choice in the matter, so you can see that this is a pretty simple decision for me. This mark on my chest has forged my path in iron; predetermined my every action. When she summons me, I must go. No matter how badly I might want to turn away, inevitably I will confront Cynara. You have a choice. If you so wish, you can go home and put the entire thing behind you...except we both know that you have no more volition of choice than I do. The witch has left an indelible mark in your heart and conscience as well. Why? Because you're a man of morals, Jimmy. You're basically a good man. When a good man sees that something is wrong, he is compelled to at least try to rectify that injustice. You know what has happened to us, even if you don't want to admit it to yourself. You and I have become embroiled in this ongoing struggle between good and evil. Once your eyes have been opened to a monster like Cynara, it's impossible to deny her existence or ignore her heinous actions. If we did, would we not just become silent accessories to her every act of evil. There is no such thing as neutrality in this war. Jimmy, you and I may be the only people in the world who know what Cynara is. If we were to turn our backs on what we're morally obligated to do, then every person, every child that she butchers would be an indictment against our souls."

Jimmy nodded glumly. Nath was right of course. There would be no real peace for either himself or Nathaniel as long as that hateful bitch lived. "You've gotten pretty wise little buddy. A regular philosopher."

Nath flashed a brief and all too rare smile. Jimmy winced inside. That smile had looked too much like a tortured contraction of flesh and muscle. "Obligation and ethics aside, it comes down to something much more prosaic. If we don't find her, she'll find us. Any other way of looking at it would be dangerous wishful thinking."

"Dammit Nath, wouldn't that be better?" Jimmy snapped, frustrated and tired, not with Nath, but with the terror that had plagued his life for over twenty years.

"The notion of going half way across the world to play hard ball in someone else's park doesn't exactly strike me as wise. From the way I see it, things would be a damn sight better if we could take her on at home," Jimmy stopped, gasping for breath. His face had flushed with passion and beads of sweat had popped up on his brow, glistening conspicuously in the brightly lit kitchen. Nath only continued to watch him in his calm, almost detached way. Jimmy wondered, not for the first time, what had really happened to Nath that night. From the superficial skin deep point of view, he appeared unchanged, but inside, the man had undergone some fundamental yet radical metamorphosis. When Jimmy probed Nath, he discovered that the man's aura was white with a thin patina of yellow. He had been sanctified by the flames. They had forged him into some type of angelic avenger who would pursue Cynara as doggedly as Arthur had pursued the mythical grail.

"I can understand that sentiment, but I'm guessing we have to go there. It's a preordained part of this. My intuition tells me we're living in a tightly Manu scripted play, one where only the ending remains to be decided. Remember what the angel said back in that cell?"

Jimmy reflected back on that macabre encounter. That had perhaps been the strangest chapter in this whole bizarre odyssey. Time had colored that meeting in surreal shades, as if it had all been a vivid dream. What had he said? Jimmy struggled to draw the recollection forth and finally it came to him. "That the final battle would take place in her homeland."

"Yes. Her homeland was and is the land of the gypsies: Romania. Though he hadn't come right out and said it, the angel implied that we could only hope to destroy her there."

Jimmy considered this and then shook his head in acquiescence. "I think you're right, but we don't have a clue as to how we might achieve that destruction. Our friend was a little vague in the specifics department. Trying to find it would be worse than trying to find the bloody needle in a haystack...even if we had a clue what we were looking for."

"True, but you must remember that we're not going to be alone in the hunt for this bitch. He said there would be two others who would play pivotal roles in the final outcome. If we're going to find them then we have no choice but to go there," Nath summarized.

Jimmy didn't reply. He propped his chin upon his left fist and gazed sullenly out of the kitchen window. In the sun bathed street, a young mother in a flower pattern house dress, pushed a stroller along the sidewalk of the Yuma inferno. Jimmy could see a hint of a smile playing at her lips, which appeared smooth and untouched by tribulation. He wondered absently what her life must be like. On the heels of that thought came the image that urged him implacably toward a final battle with the dark queen. His mind constructed a mental image of mother's grief and despair were she to lose a child at the hands of the monster. How many mothers had Cynara subjected to the ineffable horror of having to look upon their own children lying torn to pieces before them? Nath was right. Wanted or unwanted, they had an obligation to all of the mothers who had suffered through such abjection and sorrow. "All right, we'll go. I'll make all of the arrangements. It could take some time though. Romania is a communist country and there is probably still a good deal of travel restrictions in effect. While I'm doing that, you've got to promise me that you'll rest. We're going to hell and there'll be no allowances for weakness there and no quarter given once the last battle begins."

With that grim declaration, Jimmy stood and walked out onto the porch, just wanting to sit and forget about everything, if only for a few hours. Nath understood this and left him to his privacy.

"Hell? I've been there already," he murmured to the silent kitchen, his expression inscrutable.

3

Though the room was rather cool, its sole occupant was bathed in perspiration. The room itself was empty, save for the occupant and a large granite boulder. The figure was diminutive, but an aura of power gathered about her like a mantle. She knelt in the darkness, having extinguished the three small candles that had been illuminating the room. There could be nothing that could disrupt her concentration. She needed no light to visualize the boulder. She could picture it in her mind with an unerring accuracy. Success had always been determined by the ability to disappear inside of herself. She went in search of that place where she and her purpose were locked together; inseparable until the moment of realization.

The boulder was massive, easily over five hundred pounds, while the woman who knelt before it weighed no more than a hundred and ten. She drifted through the alleyways of her conscious being, at last coming to the chamber of isolation. Here, she would come into touch with herself and the ' _other_ '. The ' _other_ ' was the elusive evil one; her reviled and sworn enemy. The very thought of the ' _other_ ' made the woman's body tremble with revulsion and abhorrence. Her full breasts quivered, causing a droplet of sweat to fall from her nipple and land on her silky thigh. The large boulder trembled ever so slightly.

That was good...not nearly good enough, but a start. The thought of the other had always managed to evoke a bust of frenetic energy. She set about refining the mental image of the boulder, refining it until all of its flaws and faults were clearly exposed. It was roughly spherical in shape and it had taken seven men, all straining like horses, to roll it into this room. She had no doubt that she could make it spin in midair as if it were a child's top. She had never been able to ' _move_ ' anything so large before, but her strength had grown immeasurably of late. Every day she could feel that mysterious force building within her, spurred possibly by her immutable lust for retribution.

As the image of the boulder grew more refined, the woman could feel its dead weight settle onto her psyche. She was assailed by an uncharacteristic doubt. ' _Can I really move this? Ah, but Atlas had held the world upon his shoulders. Of course you can move it, you silly bitch_ ,' she chastised herself. She had never been particularly forgiving of weakness, especially her own. She strained...implored...exhorted. The stone refused to be moved, as if it was not an inanimate object, but something with a defiant will of its own.

Her mind screamed a strident protest as it buckled from the strain of attempting to move the enormous piece of stone. She ignored the cry. She would allow herself no quarter because she knowing full well that she would find none when she at last came face to face with her sworn adversary.

"She took her tongue," a tiny voice whispered, red hot hatred boiling at the thought. "Never forget that."

"And the children, she took them and nailed them to poles. Left them to rot in the sun," the voice informed her with a malefic glee. There was trembling now. Her body had begun to quiver like a super heated atom.

"She took her tongue. Opened her mouth and ripped it out as if she were nothing more than a farm animal." She inclined her head back, exposing an elegant, lovely throat. It was tight and bulging with fury. The walls of the room suddenly shook as if something huge had sprung to life within their confines. Something that was extremely anxious to get out.

"She walked into the fire with a contemptuous smile upon her face, and SHE TOOK HER FUCKING TONGUE!" It burst from her in an explosion fraught with a long harbored hatred and indignation. Awesome and powerful, it rocketed through the darkened interior of the room, causing the air to shiver and hiss. At once the massive boulder leapt into the air and began to spin madly, its blurred movement indeed resembling a giant's top. She opened her eyes, oblivious to the rivers of stinging sweat that poured into them.

The spinning chunk of rock was a tremendous triumph, but it gave the woman no pleasure. For her, the rock had disappeared. Floating in its place was a stone version of the ' _other_ '. There was a distinct snap and an explosion of plaster as the far wall split open like an eggshell.

The boulder began to vibrate madly, a network of cracks spreading like spider webs over its surface. Then, with a rancor that had spurred innumerable acts of vengeance since time out of mind, she bellowed the reviled name of her enemy. There was a deafening roar as the rock exploded, reduced in the blink of an eye to a fine black powder.

The woman remained in a kneeling position, breathing heavily. Despite the cataclysmic destruction of the boulder, she remained unscathed, shielded by the same force that had generated the blast. When she had come back to herself, a savage smile spread across her face like thick oil on water. The smile was primitive and predatory. She whispered the name of the ' _other_.'

That name was Cynara.

4

As they strolled along a casual observer may have thought they were old friends, passing the time by strolling through the wooded lane. The sun shone down with a delightful radiance, suspended in the sky like a golden ball of fire. Cynara and Elizabeth drifted slowly through the woods, simply basking in the glory of the day.

Cynara was clad in her customary black. Now, more than any time since they had been together, the color struck Elizabeth as one most fitting for the enigmatic demon. The Dark Lady had undergone a drastic transition since the night that Elizabeth had held her, trembling, in the study. Immediately after her failure in El Zaltaro, Cynara had grown withdrawn and morose, but that period of depression had been brief. In its wake came the emergence of the predator, the insatiable huntress. Cynara had relieved her frustrations and anxieties by preying on her fellow Romanians with an almost reckless abandon as though this was the country of her youth, were the Saravic authority went virtually unchallenged.

Along with the predatory hunger, the woman had undergone distinct physical changes as well. She was still a glorious beauty, though now she appeared leaner and harder, eschewing the soft feminine form for a more efficient, muscular body. She wore a perpetual tight expression as if she were a coiled spring set to explode with lethal force. Her cheekbones seemed as majestic and carved as the Carpathians themselves.

Beneath this new exterior of deadly proficiency, Elizabeth suspected there lurked a thread of disquieting uncertainty. Cynara resembled a woman who was preparing for the ultimate confrontation; a fight to the death. She seemed scarcely able to contain her aggression, which had spilled over into every aspect of her life. Their lovemaking had become a savage affair, leaving both women bruised and battered. Where once Cynara's romantic overtures had been soft and tender, now they were frenzied and brutal.

Cynara had always treated Elizabeth as an equal, but lately she had become imperious and aloof. More disturbing still, Elizabeth now found it increasingly difficult to penetrate her sponsor's veil and discover the bent of her thoughts. What immediately concerned Elizabeth were Cynara's violent excesses, which threatened to bring unwanted attention upon the both of them. Though she had no intention of provoking Cynara, she had to dissuade her from further attacks upon the locals. "Did you hunt last night, Cynara?"

"Yes. I took a peasant boy. He was lost in the woods," Cynara replied evenly and then, with a wicked grin, added, "He is one waif who will never be found."

"You've hunted quite frequently of late," Elizabeth ventured cautiously. Cynara came to an abrupt stop and scrutinized Elizabeth closely. Elizabeth met those burning embers with her own cool gaze of amethyst. "Do you have a specific point, Elizabeth?"

' _This woman had become most dangerous indeed_ ,' Elizabeth thought. Even to me. Elizabeth tried to defuse Cynara's mounting agitation by moving over to her and taking her hands. "I'll be candid, Cynara. I'm afraid that you preying on the locals will bring us problems. This is not the 1800's. If the killings continue, the local authorities are bound to launch an aggressive investigation."

"To hell with the authorities," Cynara retorted contemptuously. "Do you honestly think that I care what a bunch of petty bureaucrats do or think? I am beyond their reach, beyond their feeble comprehension. I could easily crush them all like the nattering bugs they are. Surely you don't expect me to allow them to dictate my actions?"

"Cynara, I'm only suggesting that a little restraint might be prudent. We do, after all, have to live in their world," Elizabeth pointed out mildly. Cynara brusquely pulled her hand away from Elizabeth's. "Don't deign to lecture me, Elizabeth. When you were a hollow headed child in an adult's body, I was already one of the greatest of my kind. Don't ever forget that it was I who made you what you are. It was I who saved you from a life of stifling mediocrity, not to mention, mortality."

"If I was so hollow headed, then why were you so attracted to me?" Elizabeth retorted growing angry despite her realization that anger would only aggravate the situation. Cynara seemed about to respond, but then the lines of her face softened. Elizabeth was allowed a brief glimpse of the war raging behind the Dark Lady's lovely eyes. "I'm sorry Elizabeth. I didn't mean to be curt or condescending."

Elizabeth's own anger evaporated before a wave of outright shock. That stiff, formal apology was the first that had ever passed Cynara's lips in the decade they had been together. At moments such as this, Elizabeth could almost believe that her sponsor had once been human. Cynara punctuated this thought by placing her hand upon Elizabeth's shoulder and tenderly kissing her cheek. Cynara lingered over the kiss. Elizabeth could feel her lover's fingers tighten upon her blue angora sweater. The Dark Lady pulled away and took the blonde's face in her hands. "You are the culmination and the pride of my work, Elizabeth. I treasure you as I have treasured nothing else. I spent long decades searching for someone precisely like you, watching the world evolve out of the darkness and into the light. When I found you, I was elated to discover that I had happened upon a beautiful diamond. You were breathtaking and captivating and though it was I who set out to seduce you, both of us fell under the same spell of seduction. I could never bear to lose you. Please forgive me."

"Of course, Cynara. I'm only concerned that the authorities may launch an investigation that would interfere with your carefully constructed plans."

Cynara moved away from Elizabeth, stepping off of the crushed stone and into the trees. Liz followed her movements curiously. She watched as Cynara squatted down and drove her right hand deep into the wet soil. Then she stood and faced Elizabeth, bright red mud oozing between her long, elegant fingers. "This is an ancient land, Elizabeth. Yet despite its rich and vibrant history, it is still an untamed, primitive place. The spirit of this country is infused in its very soil. These preening, posturing morons who pretend to rule this land know nothing of its true nature. They know nothing of the spirit that has forged this country. They pretend to advocate the laughable notion that there is no class and that we are all equal. This soil is a raw denial of such ludicrous bullshit."

She brushed the mud from her hands. With a pronounced note of nostalgia, she added, "My sister Alasha once said that the spirits of everyone, great and noble or infamous and evil, are captured in this dirt. There, they have reached a shaky, brooding accord. I was young then and still human, so I didn't understand what she meant. Now I've come to understand it perhaps better than she ever did."

She closed her eyes and raised her face into the warm sunshine. ' _How regal, how absolutely lovely her profile is_ ,' Elizabeth marveled. There had been a hint of wistful melancholy at the mention of her sister's name. That Cynara was capable of such an emotion was rather startling to Elizabeth, who possessed no desire to consider the past at all. Still, this seemed to hold a profound insight into Cynara's character and the changes that she had undergone. Elizabeth decided to pursue the matter. "Cynara, you very seldom speak of your family."

"They were all a collection of liberal minded fools. They failed to grasp that there are two types of people in this world; the predators and the prey. Each must understand its role if there is to be true harmony in the world. My family could not comprehend that concept, but I demonstrated it to them in the end. My brother was an insufferable humanitarian. He dared to cross me and lost his life for his audacity. My father was a vacillating weakling, who lacked the courage to face the harsh realities of life. I relieved him of that burden. Alasha was the most formidable of them all. I took her head."

"You loved her," Elizabeth murmured, more as a statement of fact than a question.

"I despised her!" Cynara rasped vehemently, but then she dropped her eyes and added, "And I loved her. She was so beautiful, not only physically, but spiritually. In a great many ways, she reminded me of you. On the night before she was executed I went to her. She had been jailed in one of the cellars of the manor. I dismissed the guard and stepped into the cell. It was cold and damp, and Alasha had been imprisoned in only a flimsy cotton garment. Even in my heavy velvet I could feel the penetrating kiss of the damp air. She had been there all day and half of the previous night. She glanced up as I came through the cell door. Her eyes held no reproach, only an unnerving serenity. She knew that she was going to die and she did not seem even slightly afraid. I didn't want to take her life, Elizabeth. If she would have begged for mercy, I would have spared her. If only she would have asked. I wanted her as a lover, a companion. I wanted to teach her of the true balances of the world." Cynara paused, lost in thoughts of a world more than a century gone.

"But she didn't ask for mercy," Elizabeth prompted gently.

"No, damn her to hell, she didn't. She looked at me and said, without a trace of malice ' _I know what you have done and I hope that someday you may be forgiven_.' The next day I took her head. She had left me no choice." Cynara looked directly at Elizabeth, her eyes glistening red with tears. "Other than you, she is the only person I have ever held in high regard."

Cynara averted her eyes, turning her face towards the western horizon. Elizabeth found herself profoundly shaken by the witch's tears and the realization that even a creature as insidious as Cynara was not exempt from the sting of pain and regret. On the heels of that came an even more astounding revelation; Cynara's recent furious rampage had been entirely contrived. Her sudden impulsive to kill...to destroy had been manufactured, as if she were reaching back to recapture something of what she had once been. The implications of this discovery both staggered and frightened Elizabeth.

Cynara seemed to discern Elizabeth's unease, for she turned to the blond and studied her silently. ' _How beguilingly gorgeous she is_ ,' Cynara thought. Framed by the sunlight, Elizabeth's hair appeared to be a flaming golden corona. It occurred to Cynara that this woman had been the catalyst for much of the change that she had undergone. "I've told you about Gregory, the man who turned me. He once suggested something that I immediately dismissed as romantic dribble. He said that it was impossible to remain spiritually pure unless you isolate yourself from of the world. The soul has a tendency to absorb both good and evil through a kind of osmosis. The two sport an infinite number of guises, an innumerable variety of looks. Some are so sly and subtle that they become virtually impossible to detect. You have surrendered to them before you even know what they truly are. I once believed that there was no real reason to become complacent other than sloth. I was dreadfully wrong about that, as well as many other things. Such concessions are not easy for me."

Elizabeth smiled, understanding that she had been the thing that had brought Cynara to that moment of insight. Cynara smiled as well. It was a rather fey and fatalistic smile. "I've come to learn that once you have obtained the thing you wanted most, it becomes very difficult to remain hungry. For over a century, my need to hunt was akin to an addiction, but now I must push myself. The kill has somehow lost its primitive luster. These last ten years, spent here with you, have humanized me, I'm afraid. That's why I've hunted so frequently of late. I have to prepare myself, to sharpen my talons as it were. I give you a solemn pledge, my love; when I have destroyed these three, we will go out and see the world and the worlds beyond this one. There is so much that I still wish to show you Elizabeth, if only you will stand with me this one last time."

Elizabeth experienced a momentary twinge of pity for her sponsor. She either failed to see or refused to see that she would never be able to burn her bridges to the past. They had been built upon the flesh and the blood of her victims; monuments to death and calls for retribution. Cynara would never be free of that tide of avengers. "I'll stand with you."

Cynara's face brightened perceptibly. She grasped Elizabeth's hand and remarked "Tomorrow we go to Bucharest. We have an appointment with the Chief of Police."

Chapter Fourteen

1

Romania is a land of dark splendor and majesty, with a rich and varied heritage. The land itself is rugged and primitive, dominated by the three ranges of the Carpathian Mountains. The three ranges form a triangle which has served to split the country into three distinct regions, both politically and geographically.

The southern region of the country is known as Walachia and is bordered to the north by the Transylvanian Alps and to the east by the Black Sea. For the longest time, Romania consisted of the feudal states of Moldavia and Walachia. These two states did not gain independence until they were united under the Hohenzollern Monarchy in 1878. Due to its location, Romania provided an ideal pathway for many of the marauding armies that swept through Europe over the centuries. As a consequence, the Romanian culture has been strongly influenced by the Hungarians, the Turks, the Romans and the Saxons.

Cynara Saravic's origins were rooted in the Transylvanian plateau. At the time of her turning, Transylvania was a Hungarian province and only became a part of Romania after the First World War. Romania threw her allegiance behind the allies in 1916 and this proved to be a most fortuitous choice for when the war ended, Romania was allowed to annex the large Hungarian province. Cynara's aristocratic and violent character may have come from the Magyars, who were a savage and war loving line.

The Transylvanian Plateau is a rugged, heavily forested land, cut in all directions by fast flowing mountain rivers. Though there existed a relatively well developed network of roads, it would be rather easy to believe that time and the march of progress had neglected this isolated region.

Agriculture had long been the primary source of employment and for many; the lifestyles of the 21st century do not differ significantly from the lifestyles of the 18th century. The rugged natives of the interior did not allow technology to sever their bonds with their ancestral heritage. The current spirit and attitude differs little from those of their ancestors. The superstitions and myths had been lovingly preserved and handed down from generation to generation like verbal heirlooms. The legacy of butchery and violence had unfortunately also been sustained and well remembered by the people. The name Cynara Saravic had a prominent place in that legacy.

The Saravic grant was located in what has since become the province of Bistrita Nasaud, just north of the Somesul Mare River. The province itself is located at the apex of the Carpathian triangle, and is sparsely populated, with only a handful of settlements. More than any other, this area has grimly resisted the tide of progress and so it is not surprising that Cynara had chosen to return here. As she had so astutely observed, the soil was alive with the spirit of the land. The spirit held the memory of the Saxons and the Magyars and the Teutonic Knights. That spirit was restless and brooding and drenched in blood; a fitting home for a demon.

2

Monday morning dawned overcast and dull. Slate gray clouds rolled over the city of Bucharest, heading east towards the Black Sea. Yuro Petru stood on the front porch as if he expected the clouds to part at any second and reveal the visage of the mighty Lenin. If there was indeed a God, he must surely be cast in the image of a Lenin. ' _Too bad that he had to be born Russian_ ,' Petru thought ruefully.

Mila came towards the door. She handed him his case and kissed his cheek. "Looks like rain, Yuro. Would you like me to bring you your umbrella?"

Petru grunted absently and waved her off. Without saying goodbye, he walked to his gray Mercedes. The entire world seems gray today, he observed sourly as he climbed into his government sedan. He waved to his wife, who returned his wave and then disappeared into their two-storey, brick home. He backed the Mercedes into the street and began the forty minute drive to his office in Bucharest.

He maneuvered through the herds of Skodas, Fiats and the Romanian built Voras which were commonplace on the highways. Petru smiled to himself, relishing the looks of admiration which his sedan garnered from the other drivers. It symbolized his importance, as did his new brick home in the Bucharest suburbs. The actual possessions meant very little to Yuro Petru. He had been born into penury and had become accustomed to doing without (if anyone can ever become truly accustomed to such a thing). Petru was more impressed by the status the trappings of his position conferred upon him; the respect. At the tender age of forty nine, Petru was the Director of Intelligence for the Southern Sector. As such, he was one of the most feared and respected men in the country.

He had come so far, so fast, that it had been difficult to keep his meteoric rise in the proper perspective. He could barely remember the penury and the squalor of his early years in Moldavia. His mother had died when he was only six years old. He couldn't recall her face, even if he had been under the threat of death. He had lived with his father, who was a farmer, until he was seventeen years old.

Life with his father had been less than kind. The old man was a far more accomplished drinker than he was a farmer and was prone to violent rages when in his cups. He had frequently vented these rages upon young Yuro, whenever he felt that the boy's attitude needed an overhaul. The beatings and the miserable existence had lasted for over eleven years.

It was a hot July afternoon, when Yuro finally surpassed his abuse tolerance and decided that he had endured enough. He and the old man had been relining an old well near the back of the dirt patch that passed for the family farm. In the insufferable humidity the boy lost his grip on the hammer and it had slipped from his hand and tumbling end over end into the well. Disgusted by the boy's clumsiness, the old man promptly clubbed him across the face.

Yuro fell to the grass, blood flowing freely from his aching nose. The old man glowered at the boy and then went back to the well. The cumulative anger of years of beatings rose up in Yuro like a swarm of angry wasps. He sprang to his feet, picked up a spade and swung it savagely at the old man's head. It bounced off of his skull with a resounding thunk. The old man managed a weak bleat and tumbled down the well, falling twenty feet into the water. Yuro stood, breathing heavily, startled by his own temerity as fear and joy surged through his trembling body in equal measure.

After a while, the excitement subsided and a glacial calm descended upon the boy. In those few moments, Yuro Petru made the transition from boy to the man he would become. Displaying glimpses of the calculating thinker that he would grow to be, Yuro methodically set about the job of concealing his crime. He laid planks across the opening and covered it with two feet of dirt. He had returned to the house and three days later, had reported his father to be missing, correctly surmising that the local authorities would expend little energy to find him.

Three months later, Yuro had joined the army and left the farm behind forever. For the next three years he lived with the daily fear that the old man's body would be accidentally discovered. As the years passed, that fear abated, though never entirely vanished.

Seeing little point in returning to civilian life, which held few prospects for the young Petru, Yuro re enlisted and at the age of twenty eight transferred to army intelligence. Intelligence had proven to be a real eye opener for Yuro. It had taught him three significant things: it had demonstrated just how woefully ignorant he was of the world around him; it had imbued in him a love for his country and it had shown him just how many enemies his country had.

Romania was surrounded, he now understood, by countries that would dearly love to usurp its sovereignty. When Stalin's armies had liberated the country from the Monarchy in 1945, a new era had dawned for Romania. Communism had rid the country of the impotent, posturing aristocracy. Though she had come a long way, the country did not gain true autonomy until 1993, when Gorbachev's policy of reform had freed most of the Balkan states from their Soviet master. Yuro, along with the rest of the country, rejoiced that year, but in the following years a subtle, more insidious scourge began to rear its ugly head...Capitalism.

Petru detested American capitalism. He viewed it as a road back to the old days of the aristocracy. Incredibly enough, there had already been talk of resurrecting a token Monarchy. Fortunately, a group of strong willed, dedicated patriots, such as himself, were working arduously to arrest the spread of such cancerous notions. Petru also despised the hordes of intellectuals and liberals who were striving to undo the country's years of work. He had devoted himself to the task of uncovering their tawdry conspiracies and his efforts had been met with stunning success. That success had not gone unrewarded by the party rulers. It had been President Simonescu, himself, who had appointed Yuro to his present position. In private conversation, the President had intimated that Petru's opportunities for advancement were nearly limitless.

Petru had redoubled his assault to root out every agitator and detractor. Now he could proudly declare that he had eradicated almost all opposition in his sector; vociferous or otherwise. ' _Almost all, but not quite_ ,' he thought with no small amount of consternation. One small group remained a constant thorn in his side. He had been unable to determine who these militants were and they were quickly becoming a source of some embarrassment. They had been dubbed the Romanian Democratic Liberation Front or the RDLF. To Petru this was a ridiculous misnomer, but one accepted readily by his superiors. He suspected that they were based in another sector and were conducting hit and run forays into his region.

It would not have been his problem, had it not been for the frequent bombings and weapon heists which were taking place all over Walachia. There had also been three assassinations of Intelligence Officers that had also been attributed to that group of subversive bastards. He knew that the onus to stop them would fall squarely upon his shoulders. His efficiency in dispatching the group, or the lack thereof, would serve as a yardstick to gauge his potential for advancement. Yuro Petru thoroughly intended to score perfect marks. This very morning he was scheduled for an appointment with the Minister of National Security. He would request that the Minister charge him with the task of eradicating the RDLF. Such a commission would remove all jurisdictional restrictions thus allowing him to go into the Transylvanian interior and hunt down the treasonous slime if need be.

Preoccupied by thoughts of national security and personal glory, Yuro Petru pulled his Mercedes into the parking lot of the National Intelligence Building.

3

As Petru stepped off of the elevator and onto the twenty-seventh floor, he could feel all eyes furtively secretly settle upon him. Despite his stature of only five feet, eight inches, he was a physically imposing man; his thick and broad frame resembled a walking slab of granite. His head was block like, with flat, broad features atop which he wore his hair in a short brush cut that added to his forbidding demeanor. This combined with his consequential position, made Petru a most formidable man. He nodded to his secretary and entered his personal suite of offices.

The main door was sealed and could only be opened by a coded computer imprint, a hand print and a key. The building was heavily guarded and thus the elaborate security measures were extravagant and unnecessary, but Petru had them installed because they served as an affirmation of the importance of his position. The act of entering his office had become a ritualistic tribute to his ego.

The first things that alerted him to the fact that something was amiss were the subtle fragrances of Jasmine and Sandalwood. They drifted to his nostrils on a carpet of climatically controlled air. He was about to switch on the lights when he became aware of these pleasing, yet alien scents.

Someone had infiltrated his office! And on the heels of that thought came the disconcerting realization that the intruder(s) might still be here.

It occurred to him that the room was abnormally dark. A thin gray light should have filtered through the heavy drapes. He listened for a moment, but could discern nothing other than the faint hum of the heating system. Still someone had been in here. He could divine their presence in the pit of his guts. He decided to go back out and alert the security officers. When he turned the handle to open the door, he was dismayed to discover that it would not turn. He tugged vigorously, but even then it refused to budge. Mechanical defect, he thought, but the icy fingers caressing the base of his spine cheerfully contradicted such benign conclusions.

Out of the darkness, a voice called to him from somewhere in the darkened depths of his office. "It will not open, Yuro, so there is little point in wasting the effort. Come here."

Damn it, he thought, there is someone in here. The voice had possessed a decidedly feminine quality. More amazing still, it had been fraught with arrogance and contempt without the slightest hint of trepidation. She had ordered him to come to her as if he were a common serving boy. Bit by bit, anger supplanted fear. Incensed, he strode into the inner office and threw the door open with a bang, switching the light on as he entered.

He found his office to be occupied by two women, both of whom were stunningly beautiful. A tall blond leaned casually against a bank of filing cabinets. Her eyes were a cool and assessing amethyst in a shade that Petru had never before seen. Yuro was reminded of a Nordic Goddess. Something about her icy demeanor sent chills of disquiet rippling up and down his spine. The other woman was seated behind his desk, in his leather chair, with her feet crossed atop the glass blotter. Like the other, she too was a scintillating beauty, though in a more intense way than the blond. Yuro's attention was drawn to a thin white scar, which ran from the corner of her mouth to the base of one high cheekbone. Petru found the scar, when contrasted against the woman's flawless features, incredibly erotic. She wore a black, slit skirt, the folds of which had parted invitingly to reveal a long stretch of exquisite thigh. Yuro felt the allure of that thigh tantalizing his manhood.

The woman regarded him with a smug, condescending smile that grated on Petru's nerves. No woman had ever looked at him in such a manner and this one would not either, no matter how beautiful she might be. The prospect of imparting a lesson in respect and humiliation to one so beautiful excited Petru.

He moved around the desk, past the blond, meaning to yank the arrogant bitch right out of his seat by the hair of her head. He was about to reach for her, but stopped as a low growl issued from behind him. He shook his head, certain that his ears were playing tricks upon him. Then the sound came again; a throaty, threatening growl, much like that of a wolf's. He pivoted quickly, but saw nothing other than the angelic blond. She had not moved, nor had she changed her expression. Behind him, the Dark Lady spoke, "I would caution you against such rash actions, Petru. Now sit down."

"Who the hell do you think you are talking to? Just who the fuck do you think you are?" Petru demanded, unable to believe that this woman could be so insolent, so vapid.

"I know precisely who I am Yuro, but I think that you may be in need of a little enlightenment," Cynara replied calmly.

"How did you get in here?" Petru rasped, trying to assert his authority and allay the strange sensation of doubt that was gnawing at the meat of his stomach.

"Enough questions!" Cynara flared, making him flinch involuntarily. "Now sit down and shut up."

Petru recoiled as if he had been slapped. He couldn't recall the last time that anyone had spoken to him in such a tone. Cynara glanced briefly to Elizabeth and at once Petru found himself being propelled roughly through the air. He landed heavily in his guest chair, but his own momentum carried him over, spilling both himself and the chair to the floor. The natural fighter in him bounced Yuro back to his feet like a rubber ball. Amazingly, it had been the blond who had thrown him down. Without stopping to consider how she could have achieved this or considering the consequences, Petru advanced upon Elizabeth.

She held up her right hand, only it no longer resembled a normal human hand. The fingers had elongated into long talons, capped by razor sharp nails. She held the hand out, silently inviting him to come forward.

Petru's face contorted in a horrified mask. His heart began to thud like a bass drum. "What are you?"

"Sit down Yuro. We have much to discuss," Cynara instructed quietly, seeing that all of the defiance had drained out of him. Petru complied, never taking his eyes off of the blond beauty or that poised claw. Her eyes were distant and mirthless. Yuro knew that she would rip his throat out with as little as a wave of the other woman's hand. He sat obediently. Yuro Petru knew fear then. He saw its grinning face. He was accustomed to inspiring fear, but he had never tasted its vile, coppery taste in his own mouth as keenly as he did at this precise moment.

"What do you want of me?" he asked, though his voice was that of a stranger...a weak and severely frightened stranger.

"I want you to perform a service for me, Petru," Cynara replied, coming around the desk to sit in front of him. For some reason, Petru was reminded of a teacher who is about to lecture an errant child. "Before I tell you what I require of you, it is imperative that we reach an understanding."

"What understanding?" Yuro interrupted anxiously. Cynara frowned and he immediately saw that he had made a mistake.

"You have a most annoying habit of speaking out of turn. If the two of us are to establish a good rapport, you must understand that I hate being interrupted, contradicted or otherwise perturbed." With the speed of a striking cobra, she placed her fingers on his throat and applied a gentle pressure. Her hand was pleasantly warm and dry. After a second she withdrew her hand. Yuro blinked, not understanding what she had done. He almost smiled, but in the next instant, his throat constricted in an explosion of heat and pain. Uttering a strangled cry, he clutched his throat, which seemed to have swollen to twice its normal size. His skin felt as though it were on fire.

"Do you promise never to speak unless I specifically grant you permission?" Cynara inquired in a playful voice, clearly enjoy Petru's torment. Yuro nodded, desperate for the pain to stop. He was convinced that another second of this, and his body would vanish in a fiery explosion. She leaned forward and again applied a gentle pressure to his throat. The pain and heat vanished as if they had been only figments of his imagination.

"I know you, Yuro. I know your kind. You are a trained dog. Oh, you undoubtedly have your own little ambition, but you are a trained dog nonetheless. Your masters have filled you with a lot of rhetoric, wound you up and pointed you in the general direction of the enemy de jour. You do their bidding, just as a good dog should. That is fine, but from this day forth you are to be my trained dog," Then his tormentor turned and walked to the large windows behind his desk. She flicked a switch on the wall and the curtains parted on their electronically controlled runners. The sky, beyond the window, was still a monochrome dull gray. Yuro would have given anything to be out in the open air and away from this sadistic witch. She began to speak again, casually strolling about the office as she did. "You may ask yourself why you should serve me, Yuro. Other than the obvious fact that I could crush you like an annoying insect, there are several other reasons. I wonder how your masters would react if they were to learn that you maintained a detailed record of their many excesses? That is not a very fitting thing for an obsequious dog to do."

Yuro gawked at her in open alarm and shock. How could she possibly know about his files? He had created them, encrypted them and kept them well hidden. If they were to be found, before he was given the chance to use them, he would be crucified. His bladder felt heavy and a sudden ache had developed in his testicles. He desperately wanted to ask the questions, but feared her reprisals. Seeing this, Cynara smiled, "I'm glad to see that you're a quick learner."

She moved back over to him. "I can be a kind master and if circumstances necessitate it, a cruel one. I brook no failures and tolerate no insubordination."

She raised an index finger and Yuro flinched. He prayed that his bladder would not let go and he wouldn't piss himself in front of this monster. She touched the back of his left hand and the pain returned, though with much more intensity than the first time. He screamed and looked down to see a black dot, the size of a quarter, had appeared on the spot where she had touched him.

Slowly the dot began to expand. Yuro began to shriek until it seemed that his throat would explode. "Stop it. Please make it stop!"

He stood up on shaky legs, holding his hand before him like a lantern. Then he collapsed to the carpeted floor before the Dark Lady. Yuro rolled about, writhing in agony as the black dot expanded like a rampant cancer.

"Does he not look like a trained dog?" Cynara inquired of Elizabeth with a light chuckle. Petru turned onto his knees and crawled towards Cynara. He touched her leg very much in the way that a dog will sheepishly touch its master when it has done something wrong. In a pain choked voice, he implored, "Make it stop."

Cynara drew back her foot and kicked him in the ribs. The terror-stricken man grunted and fell on his face. Patiently, as if to an idiot, she said, "Never touch me, Yuro."

To his escalating horror, his entire hand had turned black and the line of fire was rapidly marching up his arm. "Do you want it to stop, Yuro?"

"Yes! Oh fuck, please YES!" he screamed madly, now hysterical with fear and agony.

"Will you do exactly as I ask?"

"Anything, but for mercy's sake, please make it stop," he whimpered. He shivered and his bladder betrayed him. He could feel the warm liquid streaming over his leg, soaking through his pants and into the carpet. Cynara gracefully bent down and removed her left shoe. Extending her foot before Yuro's pain clenched face, she demanded, "Kiss my foot peasant. Prostrate yourself before your master."

Her voice came to his ears as razor blades and ground glass. He glanced at the elegant foot, with its delicate toes, and understood that he would do anything if she would only relieve this raging pain. He began to kiss her foot, slowly at first and then with increasing fervor.

"That's it, my trained dog," Cynara purred. "Lick it. Snake your tongue between the toes."

Petru complied with her whim, zealously passing his tongue over and between her toes as if they were pearls. Cynara allowed him to continue for a long time, enjoying the spectacle of his total abject submission. It delighted her further to note that he had developed a raging erection as he attended to her. "Relish the taste Yuro. It is the taste of heaven come to earth."

At last, she pulled her foot away and he fell onto his face with a thud. She casually slipped her foot back into the black and white Italian leather shoe, first wiping the saliva on his uniform. Almost reluctantly, she stooped down and touched his damaged hand. The touch induced a current of ice water along the length of the arm, or so it seemed to the beleaguered Petru. In mere seconds the pain was gone. Petru began to sob then. So violently in fact, that his entire body shivered as if in the throes of a convulsion.

Gripping him by the epaulets of the uniform, Cynara hauled the man to his feet. "The next time that you torture a fellow countryman, remember what you have felt here. There is a service that I will have you perform. You will find it meticulously outlined in the folder on your desk. You will follow my instructions to the letter. Mark your pain well, Petru, and do not fail. In a well in Moldavia there is a restless spirit in search of an eternal companion."

Her evocation of that horrible memory was more than his shattered mind could bear. To preserve his reason, it pushed him over the edge and into merciful oblivion of unconsciousness.

4

When he resurfaced from the darkness, Petru had no concept of how much time had elapsed since he had fainted. The whole episode began to take on the sepia, misty quality of a dream. No, not a dream, but a horribly lucid nightmare. He took a deep breath and then stood, unable to recall having lain down upon his office sofa. Reality tore his comforting delusion apart when he felt the unpleasant dampness of his soiled trousers as they clung to his skin. He let out a low, disheartened groan. Glancing down at his hand, that groan evolved into a full blown shriek. A black dot, roughly the size of a quarter, was the most convincing souvenir of the witch's visit.

Petru hung his head in disgrace. Another no less distressing notion presented itself. Perhaps he was losing his mind and these things, the soiled trousers and the black mark, were some kind of stigmata of that mental illness. Supernatural Amazons simply did not exist.

Anything but the truth Yuro, a voice whispered in his mind. Even madness would be preferable to the truth. He sagged into his chair. He had arrived here this morning, contemplating his future in the power hierarchy and now, in less than a half of an hour, he had been completely unmanned by a woman, though that was not completely correct either. Those two things had not been women; at least, not in the standard sense of the word. Petru had long considered himself too pragmatic to subscribe to any esoteric beliefs. For a true pragmatist, it would be impossible to ignore or rationalize away the things that he had just experienced. They were frighteningly, terribly real. Though he did not understand its source, he bore the scars to prove that this woman's power was both awesome and incontrovertibly deadly.

He became aware of the simple brown folder for the first time. It sat benignly in the center of his glass blotter. He placed the flat of his hand upon it, wondering about the nature of the deal by which he would forfeit his soul. Petru did not even bother to entertain the concept of extracting his revenge on the bitch. Such an idea would be a hollow, self deception.

No. Yuro Petru did indeed concede that he now had a new master; one who would tolerate no failure. He had never encountered anyone with such a well developed propensity for sadism and torture. Feeling like a man who had just relinquished all control of his life, Petru switched on his tensor lamp, opened the folder and began to read.

Chapter Fifteen

1

The United Airlines Oceancab super jet executed a long, slow turn and began its final descent into Bucharest International Airport. There was nothing extraordinary about the appearance of the two Americans; nothing caused them to stand out from the other six hundred and forty eight passengers. While the distinctions were not visible, these two men were unique. While the others had come for the purposes of pleasure or business, they had come to wage the final battle in what had proven to be a twenty year holy war. Jimmy, dressed in a brown leather jacket, blue jeans and hiking boots, stared absently out of the starboard window. Jimmy hoped that the slate gray clouds were not auspices of what awaited them here.

' _You're going to die_ ,' his mind flashed in apocalyptic neon. He grimaced, but then smiled a fey smile. He didn't doubt it. In the old medieval romantic adventures, the hero went into the lair of the dragon and always emerged victorious, albeit battle scarred. In the real world, however, the intrepid adventurer usually provided the dragon with a tasty snack.

This time, they would not be squaring off against some wind up toy...an unwilling minion. They were about to go to war with the beast herself, in all of her malefic splendor. To Jimmy, Cynara seemed virtually invincible. Though it had been twenty years since he had last seen the man named Neghev, Jimmy had never forgotten the look in the man's ice blue eyes. In those eyes, he had glimpsed a man who would do whatever he needed to and would do it with a brutally efficient competence. If such a man could fail, what chance did ordinary men like he and Nath stand when confronting the same deadly adversary. A depressingly slim one, he supposed.

The Oceancab floated to the runway with a grace that was somehow grotesque and repulsive in something so huge. The jet lumbered down the tarmac and then taxied into its designated discharge area. One by one, the passengers rose and made their way to the hatches. Nath gave Jimmy a neutral glance and then stood, stretching the accumulated stiffness from his muscles. Not looking at Jimmy, he remarked distantly, "This is it, the end of the line. If we leave here, our lives will be our own again and if we don't, then I guess it won't matter."

They disembarked and made their way to the customs processing line. They both held their passports in hand, waiting absently to be processed. Jimmy stared out of the terminal windows, fascinated by the variety of jets to be found in the company servicing areas. Here was an obsolete 747 and there, like a Dodo bird amongst eagles, was a DC 9. The line was being processed quickly and efficiently, so neither man could have anticipated what was about to befall them. Nath was the first to reach the customs desk. He laid his passport on the desk and smiled amiably at the customs agent, expecting to be rubber-stamped without delay. The agent took the passport and then cross referenced his name to a sheet affixed to a metal clipboard. The man's eyes scanned the print and then stopped, widened for a moment and then became flinty. He frowned and in that frown, Nath had his first inkling that they had wandered into a hornet's nest.

"Is there a problem?" he inquired, trying to conceal his unease.

The agent did not respond. Ignoring Nathaniel, he turned to the waiting security guards, who had appeared as if out of thin air, and gestured them over. Making no attempt to be discreet, they stopped a pace behind Nathaniel, hovering there like uniformed jackals. A low murmur went through the other passengers and Jimmy distinctly heard someone offer "Drugs...must be drugs."

"Stand to the side please," the agent instructed curtly. Nath, grasping the situation and seeing little to be gained by causing a commotion, did as he had been instructed. The agent cast a withering eye upon Jimmy. He was the hawkish stereotype of an eastern bloc customs agent. "Is your name Jimmy Simms?"

"Guilty as charged," Jimmy quipped sardonically.

The agent glowered, not at all amused by the American's impertinence. "You will accompany these two officers to the terminal security office."

The agent handed their passports to one of the officers and then dismissed them from his mind. Jimmy and Nathaniel were led away as if they were common criminals.

2

An hour later, they were still seated in a room with no furniture other than three straight back chairs, waiting to be processed. The cold gaze of the two monitor cameras fell upon them like the eyes of a mute sentinel. Appearing oddly serene and collected, Nath stared down at his Reebok joggers. Jimmy marveled at his composure. Since his ordeal by fire, Nath had become almost maddeningly serene and unflappable. Jimmy was feeling as antsy as a turkey near Thanksgiving. "Why do you think they've got us here?"

Nath cleared his throat and pawed at his eyes. Much to Jimmy's amazed and consternation, the other man had been on the verge of falling asleep. "Either they've made some type of identification error or the witch has arranged a reception committee. I'd be inclined to accept the latter."

Jimmy mulled this over and then nodded his head. Just then the door opened and a lone man entered. He crossed over to where they sat, pulled up the other chair and sat regarding them silently. His eyes shifted slowly, but continuously from Nath to Jimmy and then back again. He was a short, fireplug of a man, whose age was almost impossible to estimate with any accuracy. His deportment suggested a man who was accustomed to possessing and wielding a great deal of power. In all, he was not a man to be trifled with. This was Nath's first impression of Yuro Petru.

Jimmy had an entirely different, though no less disturbing impression of the man seated across from him. His aura was red and black, tinted with an odd shade of purple. Coincidentally, he reminded Jimmy of a dog that had been continuously whipped by his master and was eager to earn his way back into his keeper's good graces. Such dogs were dangerously unpredictable, Jimmy reasoned. He had no doubt that this man was another of Cynara's deadly wind up toys, though perhaps substantially more formidable than the others. Something about the glint in his flat, hard eyes told Jimmy that this man was destined to play a major role in things to come. It unsettled him to realize that they had been here for less than an hour and they were already at the disadvantage.

For his part, Petru was baffled by the two Americans. He was not quite sure what he had expected, but it had not been these two ordinary, unimpressive looking little men. They were so plain, so wholly unworthy of this creature's lethal attention. Looks could be deceiving, Petru knew. They could possibly be creatures of her ilk. That thought caused Petru to falter, if only for a second. Whoever they were, he was genuinely grateful that he was not in their position.

"Your names are Jimmy Simms and Nathaniel Simpson, correct?"

The two Americans nodded.

"My name is Yuro Petru. I am the Director of Security for Walachia. There are a few questions that require answers before you will be permitted to leave the airport. It would benefit you greatly if you were to cooperate."

Jimmy looked to Nath and feigning amazement, said, "We must be stepping up in the world. I mean getting such an important figure for a reception committee." Turning back to Petru, he asked, "Tell me, is it very often that you drag two tourists out of a customs line without probable cause and subject them to this kind of shit?"

"If you insist on being uncooperative, you'll only be making your position that much more unpleasant," Petru snapped irritably.

"What exactly is our position, Mr. Petru?" Nath inquired with a perfectly reasoned formality. Petru continued to glare at Simms for a long moment and then turned his smoldering eyes upon the smaller man, who appeared as frail and pallid as autumn grass. Despite his apparent infirmity, there was something about this little man that struck a disquieting note in Petru's heart. He seemed more substantial than his bigger, more arrogant companion. "Your position is whatever I decide it will be. If you require an official reason for your detention, I can readily produce a dozen, but I've brought you here because I'm curious. I'm curious as to why two Americans, with no ancestral ties to this country, would take the time to visit this country."

"Is there any reason why we wouldn't or shouldn't?" Nath countered. "Since when has it been a National Security matter for two tourists to visit a new country?"

"Why here? Why Romania?" Petru persisted doggedly.

Jimmy answered this time. "Nath and I share the same interest in Romanian culture. You know...things like Gypsies and werewolves. It would really be something if we were to run across a vampire while we're here. You couldn't give as an idea where to start, could you?"

Jimmy grinned a broad, sardonic grin and Nath groaned inside. Petru reddened visibly. "I won't tolerate your impertinence. You'll tell me exactly what I want to know."

Jimmy's eyes narrowed and the grin faded from his face. ' _He's nothing but a gelding_ ,' he realized, looking at the bureaucrat. ' _All of his bluster is just so much wind. He's afraid. Something has scared him shitless. No, not something'_ , he amended. ' _Someone. That someone had to be Cynara_ '.

Fuming, Petru rose and stalked about the room, desperately trying to keep his composure. He had to control himself, had to do exactly as she instructed.

He addressed Nath, deliberately choosing to ignore the more exasperating Simms. "Why would two Americans, with no fixed home and no source of income, come halfway across the world, to a country where they have no reason to be?"

"We're tourists, nothing more," Nath insisted stubbornly. "Lore lovers and your country is rich with lore."

"Just as you were tourists in Mexico no doubt?" Petru retorted, deciding to drop the pretence of this being a random interrogation.

"Yes, just like we were tourists in Mexico," Nath responded without missing a beat, though inside, he was shaken by the extent of the other man's knowledge. If there had been any doubt that this man was Cynara's pawn, it had been dispelled. Proceeding cautiously, Simpson continued, "We've only come here to see this country. Neither of us is married and we both like to travel. This is just one of several stops that we'd like to make in Europe. I must say that I'm not overly impressed with this country's hospitality so far."

Petru overrode Nath's criticism with a derisive grumble. "You American's have never been able to understand the fact that the rest of the world is not here for your benefit or amusement. Be advised that your presence here has been noted. Your every move is going to be made under a magnifying glass. The slightest of infractions will give you a look at Romania from a perspective, which I can assure you, you will not enjoy. Keep in mind that this is not the uncivilized wastes of Mexico. You are guests in this country and if your behavior is not exemplary, we will be seeing each other again."

Without allowing them a chance to respond, the Romanian stood and strode to the door, where he paused before exiting. "You will remain here until your passports have been returned to you. Then you may go."

He fixed them with a disdainful smile. It was an ugly, demented expression, very much like the metallic grin of a switchblade. "You two carry the stink of trouble with you like dog excrement. It's my duty to keep this country free of excrement. It is a duty I take very seriously."

Jimmy started, by Nath placed a restraining hand upon his forearm. Matching Petru's grin with a glacial one of his own, Nath intoned, "If you should happen to come upon Cynara, tell her that we'll be expecting the pleasure of her company soon."

Petru's smile faltered ever so slightly, but the two men glimpsed the momentary puzzlement that passed across his face like a cloud across the sun. The smile surfaced again, snapping over his features like a vice, but it was still too late. Cynara! The gooseflesh forming rapidly upon his neck and shoulders told him that his tormentor had been given a name. He seemed about to say more, but then stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Jimmy and Nath exchanged knowing glances. Nath's ruse had achieved the desired effect. The battle lines had been drawn.

3

It was another hour before a guard came and escorted them back to the central terminal. He handed each their passport, nodded brusquely and then walked away. The two men hailed a cab and rode in silence to their hotel, wondering uneasily what other traps had been laid for them.

Chapter Sixteen

1

Three days had passed since their unpleasant encounter with Petru at the airport. In that time, Nath and Jimmy had grown not only increasingly frustrated, but increasingly paranoid. As promised, they were being followed. They had discovered that the first full day of their stay in Bucharest. Since then, they had identified at least four separate tails, certain that several more had gone undetected. Even more disquieting had been Jimmy's uncovering of a tiny listening device in their hotel room. They had scoured the room for hours but had been unable to locate further bugs. Still, they had no doubts that there were more, somewhere. That sensation of scrutiny weighed upon them like a malign shadow.

Not only did the invasion of their privacy infuriate the two men, but it made it impossible to go about the business of trying to pick up the witch's trail. Without the facility of free movement, they had been reduced to sitting around and waiting for something to happen.

Nath had actually managed to find a surprisingly decent Chinese restaurant during their three days of milling about. At 1:20 of the third day, it was fairly empty, the lunch crowd having already returned to their jobs. Jimmy and Nath sat together in a back booth, quietly awaiting their meals. On the surface, they appeared to be two American tourists, casually frittering away the afternoon. A closer perusal might well have revealed two men who were showing signs of mounting stress and impatience. Nath's physical condition made his anxiety all the more apparent. There were dark smudges under his eyes and his doughy pallor was particularly pronounced. Jimmy's reaction to the ordeal had manifested itself in a different but no less disturbing way. While he had been shaving that morning, Simms noticed a generous smattering of white mixed with the brown in his beard.

The waitress brought their lunches and two steins of cold German beer and then left them to their meals. Without looking up from his plate Jimmy declared, "There are at least two this time. How much longer are they going to keep this up?"

Nath spared the nearest tail a quick, almost disinterested glance. The woman, who was middle aged and nondescript, quickly averted her eyes to her newspaper. "As long as we're here, they'll be watching us. If Cynara has Petru under her thumb, then he'll do what she told him to do until she personally tells him otherwise."

Looking at the smaller man, Jimmy winced. Nath appeared truly weary and almost resigned, as if he could no longer muster the resources to continue. "You look tired Nath. No, I take that back, you look dead on your feet."

Nath drew a deep breath and nodded. "Not only am I tired, I'm thoroughly discouraged. This constant surveillance is actually demoralizing. We never seriously considered what it would be like if we managed to make it this far."

"Hey Nath, there is no way we could have known we'd have this problem with Petru." Jimmy protested.

Nath shook his head vehemently. "Sure we should have, but there is little point in dwelling on it now. Petru doesn't have a thing to do with what's bothering me. Even if we'd waltzed into the country like a couple of cat burglars into a jewelry shop, we'd still be no further ahead."

"I'm not sure that I know what you're trying to get at," Jimmy muttered, clearly perplexed, by Nath's sudden attack of uncharacteristic pessimism.

"Where do we go? What do we do? I don't know," Nath grumbled, throwing up his hands in exasperation. "We're here, great, but we don't have a fucking clue where to go or what to do next. All that we can do is wait like fish in a barrel, while Petru and his fucking goon squad harass us. I'm fed up with being a sitting duck."

Jimmy was nonplussed by the resounding note of misery and raw anguish in Nathaniel's voice. During the first chapter of this nightmare, it had always been Nathaniel who had been the resolute one, the dogged one. Clearly he was now approaching the end of his rope. Jimmy could feel his own spirits sag in response.

"There's got to be something we can do to take the initiative. The angel told us that Cynara's home was here in Romania. He also told us that we would come across two other people who would influence the outcome of this nightmare. The thing that he neglected to tell us is whether we would find them or they would find us. I don't really understand the exact role that Petru plays in all of this, but I'm positive that Cynara wants us to find her. Petru is only an obstacle, placed in our path to slow us down and maybe demoralize us a bit."

"What makes you so certain that she wants us to find her?"

"Because she wants to kill us. She wants to look deep into our eyes and see our deaths reflected there. I would bet that she's prolonging the chase for the simple amusement of seeing us grow more uncertain, more frustrated."

Nath reflected upon this and nodded his concurrence, glancing out of a side window and into the sunlit streets. His eyes glistened with melancholy. "I guess I owe you total honesty. Jimmy, I always wanted you to think that I was doing this out of some sense of moral obligation or higher purpose. To some extent, I am. The world shouldn't suffer the existence of a monster like Cynara. And there's the scar of course. It's like a kind of psychic magnet. Still, all of that is secondary. More than all of those reasons, I hoped that I would find my mother here."

Jimmy's jaw dropped and he gaped in open shock. "Jesus Nath."

Nath met his surprise with a sad, wistful smile. It was a grim smile, where desperate hope warred with grim reality. "I know how foolish and pathetic it must sound, but I came here praying that I would find her; gain a sense of her presence." His shoulders sagged and he added glumly, "But I haven't and I'm surprised to find how painfully disillusioning this is turning out to be."

Jimmy could find no appropriate words of consolation for Nath. He had seen pictures of his mother. Nath had them all heat sealed in plastic jackets. He had dozens of them. To Jimmy she looked beautiful beyond words; almost too ethereal to be real, as if she were an angel. Jimmy had lost both of his parents to the witch, but somehow his loss was not comparable to Nath's. He had known his parents, but had never been close to them. Had they lived, Jimmy suspected that he never would have grown closer to them anyway. Nath, on the other hand, had lost a world of limitless possibilities. Elizabeth looked like the kind of woman who could love and be loved with all of the passion in one's heart. Jimmy lacked the imagination necessary to grasp such a staggering loss. Cautiously, quietly, he offered, "I'm sorry, Nath. I had no idea how you felt."

"None of this seems to matter anymore. It's like I woke up to find that my motivation for doing everything that I've ever done has just vanished. I don't know what to do next."

Jimmy averted his eyes from the dismal expression on Nath's face. "I just might. The last few days I've been toying with an idea that's been rattling around in my head."

The lines near the corners of Nath's eyes softened ever so slightly. "So tell me."

"The angel said that this was Cynara's home. Her ancestral home, right?"

"Yes," Nath replied, beginning to warm to the subject.

"All right. I was thinking that we might be able to find out exactly where she lived. I'm talking about doing a little sleuthing."

"How?" Nath pushed, now not only intrigued, but perhaps mildly hopeful.

"Cynara impresses me as a soul deep barbarian. Chances are that she has always been just that, wouldn't you agree?"

"I suppose," Nath remarked noncommittally, still not seeing where this was leading.

"Cynara didn't just develop an appetite for blood when she came to Semelar. If she lived here, doesn't it follow that at some point in time, she may have terrorized some of the natives here too?" Jimmy had grown increasingly animated, a rarity for the normally reticent Simms.

"It's entirely possible," Nath replied, a glimmer of comprehension blooming in his blue eye.

"Taking that as a given, then it is entirely possible that there may be a record of that terror somewhere. I'm not saying that we'll find a book entitled: Cynara Saravic; The Child Slayer. But, we may come across something that details a series of unexplained disappearances or murders or something of the sort." Jimmy stopped, eagerly awaiting Nath's reaction.

"Where would we find that kind of information?" Nath said, almost to himself. There was a definite enthusiasm to his voice now.

"There must be a National Historical Archive here," Jimmy declared quickly. "I know that our chances of finding anything are remote, but at least we won't be idly sitting around and waiting for something to happen."

"So how do you want to go about this thing?" Nath asked, glad to finally be active. "We have an escort."

"Doesn't matter. At least not for now it doesn't, but sooner or later we'll have to do a little evasive action. Anyway, we'll worry about that later. For now, let's see what we can find here."

They paid the check and left. Petru's dogs followed, making no real effort to be discreet. The two Americans hailed a cab and headed towards the National Library of History. Neither had great expectations, but both were grateful for the opportunity to actually do something.

2

Neither expected to discover much, but they did. What did they find? Morgan's collection of nightmares of course and with the book was included a color portrait of the Saravic family. Beneath the plate, there was a description of each of the family members. There, they read the name and inscription: Cynara Saravic 1826 1870 (?).

With the help of a librarian, who would soon come to regret her services, Nath and Jimmy discovered that the Saravic Family had lived in Transylvania in the mid nineteenth century, in what was now the province of Bistrita Nasaud. Why, they had asked, was there a question mark beside Cynara's name? The librarian had explained that Cynara's exact date of death could never be established or confirmed. Somehow this seemed to galvanize what they already knew. As each looked at the small picture, which had been painted more than a century before, both half expected Cynara's regal, aristocratic expression to change, to become a wicked grin and a lecherous wink, before curdling into a mask of malevolent hatred.

3

Jimmy and Nath were not the only ones to discover something of their tormentor's origins. Yuro Petru came to share their knowledge less than two hours after they had stumbled across it.

The librarian's name was Emila Vorca. The moment that the two Americans had left the library, two of Petru's agents had taken her into custody for a thorough debriefing. A thorough debriefing was department jargon for what was an intense and often painful interrogation.

Petru had conducted the interrogation himself and alone, not wanting his staff to know why a man of his lofty position was so interested in the comings and goings of two American tourists. Even the operatives assigned to cover the pair, had no idea why the surveillance had been ordered. When he allowed himself to consider it, Petru realized that he had no idea why either. Ultimately, it really didn't matter; they had their orders, just as he had his.

The librarian had been brought to the colors room and made to wait there for a long time...alone and afraid. Her anxiety would grow to monstrous proportions while Petru prepared for the interrogation. The colors room was an integral part of Petru's normal interrogation strategy. The room had been designed and wired to reflect primary colors with a blinding intensity, augmenting the subject's terror and disorientation. The floor, ceiling and walls could be made to reflect a blinding red or submerge the room in a numbing blackness. When combined with an array of drugs, the room could induce the deepest terror imaginable.

Petru had mastered the use of psychological terror, but part of him, the dark part, still preferred the old time tested methods of violence and physical intimidation. The two witches had introduced Petru to the effectiveness of this tactic from the perspective of the victim. He absently rubbed at the scar on the back of his hand, as he recalled the humiliating horror of his own urine trailing warmly along his thigh. He entered the colors room, which he had preset for blackness, save for a single shaft of bright white light that he had set to shine directly into Emila's eyes. He closed the door and crossed over to where she sat on a narrow stool. Though she could not see him, her eyes darted towards the motion. They were huge, brown moons of terror. She trembled visibly and her hands shook upon her lap like impaled spiders. He stared at her, saying nothing. She squirmed and faltered under the unseen presence. Seeing her naked fear, he could almost forget his own shame. Almost, but not quite.

"Your name is Emila Vorca?" he demanded in a cold, merciless voice.

"Yyyess, comrade," she replied meekly.

"You are a librarian at The National Library of History?"

"Yes, Comrade. I have been a librarian there for the past nine years."

"And in that time have you often given willing assistance to American espionage agents?" he snapped, knowing that his claim was ridiculous, but knowing that it would produce the desired effect all the same.

"No Comrade, I never...I don't...I..." she exclaimed, her horror growing by leaps and bounds with each stumbling protestation of her innocence.

"I wonder. I'm speaking of complicity with people who have come here to do our beloved motherland harm," Petru mused slyly, bringing his two index fingers to his lips, as if he were seriously considering the possibility that this spinster librarian would conspire with American intelligence. He now found it difficult to perpetrate such an absurd lie, a lie which, up until the encounter with the witch, had come so easily. Emila began to whimper and plead, tears running freely down her face.

In the past, Petru would have taken delight in this woman's surrender, but now he found the entire ugly spectacle distasteful and contemptible. He, himself, felt both pathetic and despicable. Through Emila's tears, Yuro gained a new understanding of both himself and the true nature of his job. In the deepest recesses of his soul, the fires of his black heart were being doused by the cold echoes of the witch's final words. "The next time that you torture a fellow countryman, remember the degradation you have felt here."

He would always remember. Those agonizing sensations and images had been scribed deep into his memory. There was no dignity to be gained by terrorizing the weak and the helpless all in the name of some overblown cause or some misguided ideological belief. His idea that he had been serving the movement had been the most facile kind of bullshit. He had risen quickly because he had displayed a great affinity for this dirty work. He was pragmatic enough to realize that, though it was by no means honorable, his profession was necessary. In the reflection of this frightened woman's tears, Petru came to see the man beneath the jaded mantle of authority. "If I am to believe you, Emila, then you must tell me everything that the two Americans wanted and precisely how you were of assistance to them."

Emila nodded vigorously, willing to comply. She told him everything, even the most trivial details. He made her repeat her story, trying to detect the slightest inconsistency. He could find none. Rather baffled by the whole episode, he had dismissed Emila with a stern admonition not to reveal the purpose of her summons to anyone.

He had been left alone to ponder the salient question; why had the Americans been interested in these obscure aristocrats. He was unfamiliar with the Saravics.

Puzzling, he thought to himself. His inability to unravel the mystery of the Americans' interest left him feeling oddly vulnerable

He had dispatched one of his agents to retrieve the book that had captured the attention of the two. Now sitting beneath the subdued, civilized glow of his office lights, with the book open to the improbable family portrait, Petru found the puzzle had taken a turn to the macabre. For a man who lived by visible and often brutal realities, the portrait of Cynara Saravic was a mind scrambling denial of every truth to which he had ever subscribed. Slowly, he raised his fist and brought it crashing down on the cover of the book.

Yet, he now knew the full name of his tormentor. He whispered it into the darkness, with fear and awe as though he were naming some ancient, evil deity, "Cynara Saravic."

It came out sounding papery and dry, like dead leaves being blown over concrete by a November wind. There was a certain comfort in being able to put a name to that face. This Saravic had been a tyrant. Her tyranny had paled that of Petru and his security agency, made it seem like the work of depraved children. Still, Petru knew that a little knowledge could be an invaluable thing. He would have to be patient and determine how he could best use that knowledge to gain some leverage over the monster. For the first time since that black morning of pain and shame, Yuro's face broke into a genuine smile which felt amazingly good.

There was much work to do. He reached for the phone and set about moving the game along.

Chapter Seventeen

1

The next morning, Jimmy and Nath set out upon their next leg in the quest for retribution. A brisk wind kicked up dust and sent it whirling into the air like a gray dervish, throwing up bits of debris as it went. Low, fat clouds lumbered through the sky, their procession obscuring the sun and plunging the world into dull shadows. A pervasive November chill had descended upon Bucharest and it nipped at the two Americans as they hurried to their rented Volvo sedan.

They placed their meager collection of belongings into the trunk. Their whole material world had been reduced to the contents of three small cases. Neither stopped to consider how this represented the transient nature of their lives or where they might be had the darkness not engulfed them. Each had progressed beyond such pointless speculation, to a place where the future could be counted in days or even hours and the past was an open wound in need of binding.

"Looks like we're going to have our usual escort," Nath observed, pointing directly at a Black Mercedes sedan parked on the opposite side of the street. Jimmy raised his hand and waved at the driver, who pretended not to notice.

The two men then settled into their rental. Jimmy drove and Nath rode shotgun. A rather quizzical grin had spread over Jimmy's face as he began to pull out. "I don't know about you, but I feel relieved. This is how a man who has spent months wandering through a dark maze must feel when he finally sees the first tiny dot of light somewhere up ahead."

Nath nodded his concurrence, glancing back at the tail car. The Mercedes had pulled away from the curb and was shadowing them at a distance of about thirty yards. Again Jimmy waved, though this time his fist was closed and his middle finger jutted upwards in a less than amiable gesture.

"We're going to have to devise a way of losing our second skins before we reach Cynara," Nath remarked.

Jimmy's attention was focused on his rear-view mirror, his eyes smoldering with both defiance and anger. Neither man had noticed the battered gray Lada that had pulled out in pursuit of the two cars. "Don't worry Nath, we'll lose the bastards."

"You seem awfully certain. Can I take it that you've come up with a way of handling that little problem?"

"Actually, I haven't given it a thought," Jimmy replied distantly. He returned his gaze to the road, looking straight ahead and apparently forgetting about the surveillance vehicle.

"I don't understand?" Nath frowned, perplexed by both the reply and the cryptic expression that had come onto Jimmy's face.

"What's going to happen is what's going to happen. We'll find our way to Cynara and lose those goons in the process. Remember how you compared this to a well scripted play. More and more I see how accurate that analogy truly was. Only, this is more like a soap opera because even the stars have no notion where all of the twists and turns are going to lead. Do you see what I'm getting at?"

Nath did see what Jimmy was trying to say. For his part, Nath had always held to the notion that this misadventure was more akin to being caste adrift on a river with no way of knowing where that river might lead of what they might expect to find when it finally ran its course.

As he drove, Jimmy continued to philosophize, which surprised Nath as Simms was usually stoic and never expansive. "More and more, I'm thinking that maybe Cynara isn't the one who is orchestrating this. Perhaps she controls things to a degree, but I'm sure she had no part in our meeting the angel. If she's not in total control of the situation, then it isn't inconceivable that she could eventually lose the initiative entirely."

As if in contradiction to this one spark of optimism, the scar on Nathaniel's chest issued a painful twinge. Still there was an irrefutable logic to the other man's assertion.

In a moment of perfect clarity, Nath felt that Jimmy was only a medium for someone who was trying to speak directly to him, trying to convey some salient bit of information. As unlikely as this seemed, Nath accepted it without question. The cold wind of conviction howled through his mind and blew away all of the usual objections to such mysticism. Someone was speaking to him and using Jimmy as a transmitter.

"You are the hinge upon which the door of fate will turn," that alien voice informed him. He shook his head and that sudden wind of clarity was gone like a ghostly echo.

Nath stole a furtive glance at Simms as he drove, but the other man appeared lost in his own private world of contemplations. The concept that some unseen hand was guiding them towards some inevitable and inescapable climax unnerved him, making him feel infinitesimally small.

2

How appropriate was Cynara's choice of settings for their final showdown. There was a certain wildness, a distinctly primitive and indomitable spirit ingrained into the soul of the land. As Cynara had suggested to her lover, it was a spirit that resisted all attempts to remold or harness its primal energy.

Near Ploesti, the two men saw fields of oil derricks standing to the November sky; decaying relics of another age...an age when oil had flowed as freely and as vigorously as blood. Indeed, oil had been Romania's lifeblood for over five decades. Now, the mechanical hearts, that had pumped that blood, stood decaying and all but forgotten by the people who had thrived off of their labors. Those derricks were moldering skeletons, victims of the inexorable march of technology. Soon the government would have them pulled down and only the land would remain, unchanged as always....drier perhaps, but unchanged otherwise.

They crossed the base of the Carpathian triangle, heading into the Transylvanian Plateau. The majesty of the mountains stood proudly from horizon to horizon. They towered to the heavens, indifferent to the toils of the puny mortals below. They cared nothing for the tides of war and the letting of blood, the living and the dying. These brazen mountains thrust themselves towards the heavens; the ultimate wanton, mother earth. They defied the sky to best them, which, in the long march of years, it would.

The house broken Rockies paled by comparison, for, though they were younger, they had been domesticated by the endless fussing and fawning of those who saw them as something to be controlled and regulated. The Carpathians were raw. They oozed with a wildness that bordered on savagery. The crispness of the air and the thickness of the clouds promised snow, which would enshroud the mountains in a mantle of virginal white.

Nath rolled down the car window and let the brisk wind blow the hair away from his brow. In the wind he could almost hear the subliminal voices whisper of past times, of past quests and confrontations between good and evil. He fancied that he could almost ride the crest of those thoughts. This notion pleased him and he smiled absently.

As he gazed out over the vast expanses of treed slopes, he thought to himself, ' _We may die here, but before we do we shall see such wonders_.'

In that respect, he was not to be disappointed.

Chapter Eighteen

1

That burgeoning sense of anticipation grew ever stronger as they crossed the miles between dying Ploesti and the vibrant city of Brasov, which was the capital of the province of the same name. Both Nath and Jimmy were gripped by an intuition that something profound was about to happen.

Nath felt her proximity in his very flesh, a feeling that grew more pronounced by the mile. The scar on his chest began to thrum in a rhythmic pulsation of electric energy. The pulsing grew more insistent as they made their way through the Carpathians. Nath had the impression that the scar was serving as some eerie type of homing device, pulling him towards Cynara with an inexorable force that he was utterly powerless to resist.

Jimmy seemed not to notice Nath's distracted state. He was preoccupied by the Mercedes that had shadowed them since their departure from Bucharest. "We're going to have to lose our escort soon, Nath," Jimmy muttered, perhaps sensing an impending juncture in this saga. "We'll stop in Brasov, see the sights and do the obligatory tourist bit. When we leave Brasov tomorrow, I want to leave the baggage behind us."

Nath nodded, sparing the tail a quick backward glance before turning back to the magnificent vista before him.

They passed through a series of small mountain towns with alien names like Sinola, Azuga and Predea, approaching Brasov from the southeast.

The feeling that things were about to come to a head became so intense that Nath could barely contain the urge to squirm and rock in his seat. They breasted a long, winding slope and there, sprawled before them on a plateau, was the city of Brasov. Nath sat bolt upright in his seat, emitting a strangled squeak. The thrum in his chest had escalated to a trip hammer pounding that was agonizing in its intensity. In an abstruse association, his mind constructed a mental image of some dreamscape world. At first he failed to see the point of the image, the reference dancing mockingly in the shadows of memory.

Then it came to him, though why that specific memory would come to him now was even more baffling still. He recalled sprinting in the last stages of exhaustion, down a dirty, rubble strewn street, while shambling monstrosities converged upon him from the derelict buildings on either side of the crumbling roadway. He had been trying to reach one particular building at the far end of the block, but he could no longer remember why, only that it had seemed critically important. It had been this dream that had set them on the trail of the witch.

' _Why now_?' he agonized, frustrated and a little frightened by his inability to interpret this vague augury.

His confusion over the association between his barren, horror populated death world and the thriving, vital city of Brasov was understandable. Brasov stood as an immaculate testimony to the ingenuity and vision of the Romanian Communist Party. Whereas Bucharest had been preserved to reflect a sense of tradition and history, Brasov had been designed to dazzle and delight.

Towering structures of steel and tinted glass could be seen everywhere, rising to the heavens, challenging the ancient and venerable mountains that rimmed the horizon. Neon signs beamed an endless torrent of unfathomable messages and images, constantly warring for the Americans' attention.

"Jesus, it must be a Capital offence to litter here," Jimmy remarked, comparing the spotless streets to those of his home, which were litter strewn and neglected.

All of the office buildings were svelte, and constructed in odd geometric shapes as if the architects were mortally afraid of being accused of blandness or lack of imagination. ' _I wonder if they realize how western this is_?' Nath mused.

Brasov had grown from two hundred thousand in the year of 1975, to more than twice that amount by the dawn of the new millennium. Its rise had hinged upon its strategic location as a shipping center for goods going through the Carpathian base.

Today, however, it was to serve as a proving ground for Nathaniel Simpson's purity of spirit and soul...a test designed to fracture his belief that he was somehow worthy of redemption.

2

He came awake sometime in the deep darkness of the November night. He did not snap awake, but rather drifted gradually upwards through the various layers of sleep into a bleary state of wakefulness.

Nath sat up and gazed blinkingly about his hotel room, trying to locate the source of the sibilant hissing that had beckoned him to the light like a siren's song. He did not feel sluggish or sleep dulled, but alert and cognizant of every sound around him.

He could dimly discern Jimmy's outline as he slept in the room's other bed. ' _He's sleeping like the dead_ ,' Nath thought, grimacing at his own simile. There came a sharp metallic clanging, followed by a steam induced hiss. The ancient radiator chugged into life, causing Nath to gasp. He absently wiped at the cold sweat that had sprung to his brow. He was afraid, inexplicably yet undeniably afraid.

Had that been the hissing sound that had ushered him out of his dreamless sleep? They had reached the Plaza Square by midday, to be greeted by a throng of shoppers and the first falling blast of winter snow. They cruised back and forth through the adjacent streets, until they came upon a hotel within walking distance of the Plaza.

Though neither could say why, there seemed to be an exigent need to be close to the city center. This lack of comprehension did not particularly disturb them. They had grown accustomed to following presentiments and intuitions as if these mystic signs were as tangible as the directions on a roadmap.

Yet the day passed and nothing extraordinary occurred. The two men returned to the hotel feeling weary and chilled to the bone. Jimmy was seething with impatience, but Nath had chosen to deliberately ignore his aggravation. He was absorbed in a world where the incessant thrum of electrical pulses meshed together to form a blaring screech of sensations that repeated the same message over and over again.

She is close now. Very close.

The radiator hissed once again, prompting Nath to climb out of bed and pad across the floor to the window. Outside, large flakes of snow drifted slowly down towards the silent and empty streets. Behind him, Jimmy stirred, but then settled back into his heavy slumber. Somewhere in the distance, Nath could hear the faint drone of laboring snow removal equipment. The street immediately beyond his window was deserted. He scanned the snow covered sidewalks, but could detect no sign of life.

He glanced from the window to the digital clock on the night table. In a red luminescent glow, he was informed that it was now 2:15 a.m.

"Nathaniel," The hiss came again but this time with definite form. He blinked and jerked back to the window. Something had called his name from beyond the frosted glass. There, spotlighted by the mute yellow glow of the streetlight, stood two figures, whose features were obscured by distance and shadow.

One was tall and clad in an ankle length fur coat. The other was a child or so Nath presumed from the figure's height. Another soft whisper of his name reached his ears then. The voice was vaguely familiar, though he could not place it to a specific face.

The taller figure looked up and perhaps this was just his imagination, Nath thought that he could see a glint of light in the figure's eyes. It came to him in tiny golden shafts.

"Cynara," he murmured.

He was about to rouse Jimmy, when the faint whisper came again, accompanied by the realization that this nocturnal summons was intended only for him. He also became aware of the fact that he was not hearing the voice with his ears but in the confines of his head.

"Time has passed, hasn't it Nathaniel? You feel me. I course through your veins like blood. I pulse in your chest as a second heart. We are bonded, you and I. Come down and let us become reacquainted. Let us hold council. There are choices to be made. Come down now and let us be family," The last thought was punctuated by a mocking laugh which grated on his nerves like jagged glass running over slate. Still, the voice was irresistible. He found himself moving without even consciously wanting to.

Again, he considered rousing Jimmy, but decided that this would somehow be wrong. He dressed quickly, fingers moving deftly in the darkness. He dressed in leather aviator boots, jeans and a black leather bomber jacket with a sheepskin collar. Pulling on a pair of gloves, he left the safety of his room to face his deadly adversary.

The halls were deserted as was the lobby, with the exception of one bleary eyed attendant, who regarded Nath suspiciously as he passed through the glass double doors.

He crossed the empty street quickly, leaving boot tracks in the three inches of virgin snow. When he reached the lamp opposite his window, he came upon nothing. The snow there was fresh and still not despoiled by the passage of human feet. Looking about, he could see no sign of the two figures.

"Am I having a dream?" he wondered aloud. He scanned the streets and again there was no sign of habitation. The city appeared dead and empty. Perplexed, he was about to go back to the hotel, when something caught his eye near the edge of the circle of light. He blinked, absolutely positive that there had been nothing there only seconds before.

He stooped down to retrieve the object. It was a pendant on a delicate gold chain. He brushed away the snow to reveal a teardrop shaped piece of laminated jade.

For a brief instant, the piece of jade held no significance and then his mind pushed forth the association. He fell under the spell of an old, bitter sweet fragment of memory.

The room is colored in a soft blue and tranquility. He is a child of no more than two and he lives in a world of light and an inexhaustible supply of love. The darkness, which will plunge his life into a living hell, is still years distant. As he lays in his contentment, a figure stands beside his crib and looks down upon him. His mother, Elizabeth, bends down and smiles at him. Her eyes are the deepest blue of midsummer skies. Her hair of gold tumbles into his face, tickling his skin.

Something brushes gently against his cheek and he gropes for it with one tiny hand. It is light green and shiny and to his child's eye, very pretty.

He does not tug at it as a child is apt to do. He clasps it in his tiny fist, enjoying the smooth feel of its laminated surface. It has always fascinated the boy and he loves it, just as he loves the woman who wears it.

"Good morning, little man," she whispers in a voice like velvet.

As Nath remembered, his body was wracked by a series of convulsive shudders. He staggered in the direction of the light standard and sagged heavily against it. He found himself beleaguered by a complex mixture of emotions, but above all the rest, felt a plummeting sensation of despair as if he were plunging into a bottomless chasm of loss. A strangled, inarticulate moan of grief escaped his lips, becoming lost in the sigh of the winds. He put his hand over his face. Maybe it was an imitation, his mind offered hopefully. He dismissed this out of hand. Surely, even Cynara couldn't divine such deeply buried memories. Except in the deepest recess of his subconscious, he had forgotten about the pendant and what it had once signified as small child.

Here, in his own hand, lay the physical proof that Cynara had abducted his mother. He whispered her name to the night wind. It caught it and elongated the syllables. "Eliiizaabeeth."

Then it tore the word apart and flung it to the heavens.

"Come boy. Time is short and there is much to discuss."

Nathaniel pulled his gloved hand away from his face with a jerk. Standing at the far end of the block, beneath another sodium street lamp, stood the two figures that he had seen from his window. The taller of the two gestured him forward. Then, without waiting to see if he would respond to the summons, the two disappeared around the corner.

Nath sprinted along the street, clutching the jade pendant in his right fist. He reached the corner just in time to see the two round another corner further ahead. ` Let the chase begin,' he thought crazily, skidding in the fresh snow.

The snow beneath the lamp was unbroken save for his own prints. ' _This is a dream_ ', his mind proposed, this time more forcefully. If it was, then it was the most lucid dream that he had ever experienced. He could feel the cold flakes as they melted against his hot skin. He shoved the pendant into the right pocket of his bomber jacket and hurried after the specters.

He reached the corner to discover that the two had turned into an alley that must serve as a loading zone for the bordering buildings. Small bulbs cast an ineffective, yellow glow over sets of double doors along the length of the alley. The shadows seemed to caper like black demons. There was no sign of Cynara. He was certain that the tall figure had been Cynara. The notion of who the smaller figure might be filled him with a faceless dread. He looked back along the street but it was totally deserted.

"I'm waiting boy," a voice rasped, smacking of impatience. He also caught the echo of a veiled threat. Then it came to him, like pus erupting from a festering boil. He came to understand the purpose of Cynara's companion and the implicit threat. Without hesitation, he plunged into the dark alley.

Dead end, he thought, as he came to the loading bay at the opposite end of the alley. He smacked the flat of his palm against the wall and hissed in frustration. Turning away from the wall, he gazed along the length of the lane through which he had just come. Nothing, except softly falling snow and a shroud of taunting silence.

The silence was shattered by a low rumble grew into a sharp, escalating whine. Twenty feet from where he stood, a manhole cover was shot into the air, flipping end over end like a giant coin. It landed with a metallic clang about five feet from where he stood.

He could do nothing other than gape at the still rolling cover. A voice issued from the coverless hole, and Nath could almost believe that it was a toothless maw, readying to swallow him whole. "I'm not usually given to such vulgar displays of power, but time is short. It's a time of passage boy. That gate remains open for only so long. The passage from childhood to manhood begins here."

The words echoed out of the manhole, resonant and loud in the stone throat. Heat rose from the steaming excrement; billowing clouds clashing with the cold night air. He moved cautiously to the edge and peered down into the darkness. The darkness was impenetrable and forbidding.

' _You aren't really thinking of going down there_?' his mind inquired nervously.

Of course not, he assured himself, all the while dipping a foot experimentally into the darkness. Finding the first rung, he wiped the sweat from his brow and began to descend.

Nath had climbed down seven rungs before his boots hit the concrete with a clatter. He inclined his head towards the manhole entrance and the night sky beyond. He wondered absently if he would ever see that world again. He suspected that he would, but possibly through different eyes.

The most pervasive thing about the tunnel was the fetid, malodorous stench that hung in the damp air. It caused his throat to constrict and his stomach to roll queasily. When he managed to contain his roiling guts the second most noticeable thing found his ears. The roar of rushing water was virtually deafening. This particular manhole provided access to one of the city's main trunk lines, which slurried sewage through the huge, vaulted chambers beneath city streets.

Nath put his hand against a brick wall, but drew it away in a quick motion of revulsion. The walls of the chamber were coated with a thick green slime that stank like the very breath of hell. From somewhere down the length of one of the tunnels came a muffled metallic clanging. Not knowing what else to do, he began to move off in its direction. About one hundred feet ahead of him, he saw the first of the blue crystals. The crystals radiated a blue luminous light that cast its glow in all directions, creating a circle of soft light.

Further up the tunnel, he could discern that other crystals had been placed at regular intervals. ' _She's left me a trail to follow_ ,' Nath mused. When he had reached the first, Nath stooped down to pick it up. It was the approximate size of a hen's egg and was indeed some type of incandescent crystal. Repelled by its greasy texture, he threw it into the water and continued on his way.

The path led on and on, sloping ever downwards. With every step that he took, his mind cringed and tensed and his scar beat out a frantic cry of admonition. He came upon the last crystal and found himself in another chamber, similar to the one that he had first entered.

There, a crystal the size of a cantaloupe had been placed at the entrance to the chamber. Its effulgence was nearly blinding compared to the dim glow of its smaller mates.

Cynara stood on the opposite side of the chamber. She was separated from Nathaniel by an eight foot cement channel that carried refuse to the river beyond. The chamber was a collection spot for several secondary discharge channels. The smell was intolerable to the point where Nath's eyes actually burned from the swirl of irritating gases.

3

"It's been some time, hasn't it boy?" Cynara observed with a hint of melancholy in her voice. She presented the picture of feminine perfection in her black sable coat and her matching fur hat. Melting snow glistened in the fur like winking diamonds on a bed of crushed velvet. Nath was forced to concede that she was truly spectacular in her loveliness. She seemed not to notice the cloying stench that filled the chamber.

She walked across the concrete floor, her tipped heels ringing as she did. It was stifling hot in the confines of the small chamber. Nath could feel his denim shirt sticking to the flesh of his lower back. Somewhere in the distance, he could still hear the metallic clanging droning on incessantly, ringing out its cryptic message.

Cynara stepped off of the concrete and walked across the water as though it were just as solid as the slime coated brick. Nath's eyes widened in disbelief, which prompted a satisfied smile from the Dark Lady. She came to a halt less than two feet in front of him. Cynara was a full three inches taller than Nath and regarded him along the line of her jaw. Her eyes shone with unconcealed disdain. "You're such a small man really."

She withdrew her hand from her coat and stroked his cheek with long, elegant fingers. "How pretty you are. Your eyes are lovely. So blue, just like your mother's. It's unfortunate that we are enemies, but like this channel, lines can be crossed."

In a voice fraught with fury, Nath spoke for the first time, "What did you do to my mother?"

Cynara chose not to answer, instead smiling a hooded smile. Nath's long repressed anger and grief exploded, prompting him to lash out at Cynara with a wild volley of punches. She deflected his blows with a casual wave of her hand, bringing her knee up into his sternum as she did. The wind burst from his lungs like air from a punctured balloon. Nath went down in a heap, gagging as he fell.

"That is not your game, boy," she lectured, casually adjusting the sleeves of her coat. Dragging him by the hair, she moved Nath to the edge of the channel and submerged his head in the polluted water. Nath struggled frantically, but could not extricate himself from her grasp. After an eternity, she pulled his head from the water and rolled him onto his back. He coughed and then vomited. Cynara knelt beside him, waiting for the spasms to pass. She withdrew a handkerchief from her pocket and mopped his face with an almost maternal tenderness. "There will be time enough for that, but first you must come to know yourself."

"You must understand, Nathaniel, that you are special. Not in the sense that Jimmy is special. He has a talent, but he has not made peace with it. It grates upon him and he struggles to deny it. He is a man at war with his own reality. There is no sorrier species in all of creation." She gazed at Nath with eyes as cold and unyielding as grave stones. He could glimpse the black core beneath her beauty. "He will die."

Then the hardness evaporated and the puzzling speculative expression came back onto her face. Nath came to realize that Cynara viewed him with a certain degree of fascination, though he could not attribute this to any one specific thing about himself. Slowly, teasingly, she undid the zipper of his bomber jacket and then the buttons of his denim shirt, exposing the scar. It pulsed rhythmically, like a malefic heart. Cynara bent forward and kissed the beating flesh. The mere touch of her lips induced an explosion of erotic stimuli. His penis stiffened in his jeans, turning to stone despite the hatred he harbored for this vile creature. Her fingers found it, exploring and manipulating with an expertise that was intoxicating.

He sighed deep in his chest. Her eyes shone in anticipation of his imminent surrender. Still grasping him, Cynara unfastened both her coat and her blouse to reveal a tantalizingly perfect breast. The large nipples stood erect like proud soldiers before a reviewing stand.

"Come pretty one, taste my essence," she invited regally. Placing her hands about Nath's neck, she drew his face to the taut nipple. The smell of rotting excrement was supplanted by the heady fragrance of jasmine. She held him firmly against her, all the while continuing to work his penis. He struggled mightily to remove himself from her attention, but the cumulative effect of her hand and the velvety firmness of her breast were rapidly eroding his resistance, banishing natural thought.

"Give yourself to me, Nathaniel," Cynara crooned, applying pressure in perfect measure, sensing his coming explosion. The impending moment of triumph aroused her and her own growing need declared itself with a fluttering sigh. Nath's mouth opened and he groaned as his lips encircled the rigid nipple. Cynara shivered and cried out.

' _What is it about these Simpsons that touches me so deeply_?' she asked herself as her breathing became jagged. If he gave her his seed then the final confrontation could be avoided. Then perhaps she could form a glorious triumvirate with the son and mother.

Nath somehow intuited that his impending explosion would mean eternal damnation...total capitulation to Cynara's dark temptation from which there could be no deliverance. He frantically groped for a way to pre-empt the surrender. The gravity of his predicament impressed itself upon him like a hot brand being pressed into his heart. He could feel the first tear fall. How could any man prevail in the face of such temptation, such erotic sorcery?

' _It's all superficial, Nath. All a facade to hide the real being. Penetrate that facade and you will come face to face with the true countenance of the monster_ ,' an inner voice assured him. He recognized it as the voice that had sustained him during his moment of hell in El Zaltaro. He closed his senses and focused upon Cynara's soul.

The beauty dissipated like a thick fog. Beneath, he saw corruption, excrement and rotting flesh laced with fat, ravenous maggots. He smelled the gaseous reek of decomposing meat; high, eldritch and putrid. He felt it all closing in upon him, burying him below a mountain of stinking decay.

To Cynara's amazement, Nath became flaccid in her hand. His face pulled back from the warmth of her breast and he bellowed an uncompromising imperative. "No!"

Then, with a burst of strength, he shoved Cynara off of him like a sack of grain. She reeled backwards, but did not fall. In a voice that was not his own, he cried, "Leave me be demon. From this day forth, you have no claim upon my soul."

Cynara stood riveted, startled by his rejection. No one, neither male nor female, had ever been able to resist such a direct seduction. This one is indeed unique, she cautioned herself. Now, more than ever, it was imperative that she plant the seeds of doubt in his mind. Regaining her composure, she shrugged and casually buttoned her blouse and coat. Trying to conceal the extent of her dismay, she affected a humorous, almost congratulatory tone. "You've done well boy, though our business is not yet concluded. Still, I impart to you a solemn promise that the day will come that you shall beg to be a slave to my desires."

He offered her a derisive grin. The scar on his chest twitched almost apologetically and then stopped. Nathaniel rose to his feet and replied by adamantly shaking his head in negation. Cynara strode to a side tunnel and beckoned him to follow with a wave of her aristocratic hand. "Your spirit is formidable, but the road to spiritual purity is fraught with daunting obstacles and difficult and often painful choices."

She set off down the tunnel with one last thought trailing behind her. "If you don't understand, don't fret. I'm about to provide you with an excruciatingly clear example of a painful choice."

Derisive laughter drifted back to Nath, who remained motionless for a few seconds. After considering his options, he began to follow.

4

The oval shaped tunnel was no more than five feet high, forcing Nath to stoop as he went. He noticed that they were moving along a secondary pipe that drained back to the main sewage channel. The smaller confines served to augment the noxious odor and Nath feared that he would collapse into the fetid water if they did not soon reach the end of this pipe.

Just as it appeared that this was exactly what was going to happen, the pipe opened onto another main collector chamber. Nath staggered into it, taking great gulps of air. The air here was still pretty vile, but it was at least breathable. Cynara tittered, amused by his discomfort. "What's wrong boy? Can't stand the smell of a little shit?"

"Why have you brought me here, Cynara?" Nath gasped, fighting grimly to bring his tortured stomach to heel. The metallic clattering was much louder here. It seemed to be coming from a partially filled oval pipe that opened onto the collection chamber from the opposite wall. Nath suspected that the sound was being made by some type of sludge pump.

Cynara watched him, her face betraying nothing of her purpose. Her beautiful eyes were inscrutable. Nath could feel the flesh at the base of his neck begin to crawl. A current of electric tension had threaded its way into the air. She began with a question. "Have you ever wondered why I spared your life and chose to mark you on that night, over twenty years ago?"

Nath nodded. The question had confounded him through many a long and sleepless night.

"Even as I held you then, I sensed that you were somehow extraordinary. You are the second of a line, your mother being the first. Both she and you are possessed of a spiritual purity that is extremely rare in mortals. Your companion could tell you as much, should you allow him to read your aura. Your soul is the inverted image of mine; pure black reflected on pure white and vice versa. Opposites attract and you quite frankly fascinate me. That is the reason that I spared your life and why I enticed you to this place," Cynara smiled grandly and tipped Nath a conspirator's wink.

"Rather fitting, wouldn't you agree?" she added sardonically.

"Yes, it suits you quite well," Nath retorted, turning her own barb against her. Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. "You are glib, but sarcasm will avail you nothing against me, boy."

"Why don't you just dispense with the theatrics and get to the point of why I'm here," Nath demanded impatiently, suddenly frustrated with her hollow rhetoric.

"You have pursued me across half of the world with the intention of destroying me. Your friend is driven by a lust for vengeance. His heart and his motives are not pure and thus he is destined to fail. You have come for entirely different reasons. You are compelled by an outdated belief in right and wrong as well as some misguided sense of moral obligation. Unlike Simms, you have no special powers. You have come to do battle armed only with spiritual integrity. Still, I suspect that there may be another reason why you have worked so hard to find me."

Nath felt uneasy and unconsciously clutched at the jade pendant as if it were a magical talisman. Cynara had taken to strolling about the concrete chamber as she spoke. "It's a simple matter to remain spiritually pure when the world is divided into such clearly black and white elements. I have always contended that a person's true character is defined more in the way that they perceive and deal with the gray areas...by the way they make the difficult choices. Can you always see through the smiling face to the tiger beneath or know if the extended hand is really a fist posing as an offer of help? Worthiness is defined by the way that a man decides between the lesser of two evils. In that spirit, I have devised a test that will gauge your worthiness, your spiritual purity."

Nath frowned, unable to make any sense out of her riddle. There was a definite pattern to her words and though obscure, he found all of this talk of good and evil and choices to be very unsettling.

"I caution you to choose well, Nathaniel. There will be no turning away from whatever path you should select," Cynara intoned gravely.

Turning her back to Simpson, Cynara walked into one of the side tunnels. When she again emerged from the darkness, Nath saw that she was dragging a small child after her. Gripping the girl by the wrist, the demon hoisted her aloft. Nath winced as the girl writhed in obvious discomfort. The chamber was cold and damp and the girl was completely naked. Even in the gloom, Nath noticed that her skin had gone a bloodless white. She trembled violently out of both fear and a reaction to the numbing cold. Her eyes locked upon Nath's. They were large, brown, beseeching and terrified.

Nath's throat had constricted to the bore of a pin and his words were a mere whisper when he finally managed to speak. "What is this about, Cynara? There is no need for this. If it is me that you want, then I am standing here defenseless. The child has no part in this."

"Ah, how noble. How chivalrous. You would sacrifice your life so that this bit of offal could live," The witch shook the child vigorously. "A most commendable gesture." Cynara glanced to the child, a ripple of distaste momentarily twisting her features. "I see that the irony of this is lost upon you. When you were of a like age, I held you in exactly this way, while others pleaded for your life in exchange for themselves. It was the night that I marked you. I allowed you to live because I wanted to see you grow to manhood."

She again looked to the swaying girl and said. "This, however, has no special value. It is just another bit of peasant scum."

Nath blanched at Cynara's metaphor. "You are a reprehensible bitch," he raged. "There aren't words to sufficiently express just how vile you are. It's me that you want, so leave the girl alone."

Cynara uttered a rich, throaty laugh. "Why Nath, that would be too mundane...too clichéd. After all, I have a reputation for insidious evil to consider."

Carrying the girl to the edge of the channel, the witch submerged her entire body in the foul waters. Nath started forward, but Cynara growled, "One step further and I will let her fall."

The threat caused Nath to stop dead, knowing that the current would sweep the girl away in a matter of seconds. He sagged beneath the weigh of his impotence. Cynara yanked the girl from the water and shook her roughly. The girl sputtered and choked. As she spat water from her mouth and lungs, her eyes found Nath's. Now they were oddly lifeless as they stared into his. The suggestion of something significant touched upon him briefly and then was gone.

Stepping back, the witch dropped the girl to the cold cement. The girl landed awkwardly and began to wail and thrash about wildly. Cynara restrained her by clamping a boot down upon her neck. Nath grimaced as the girl squirmed on the slime encrusted concrete. Cynara clapped her hands in the imperious manner of one summoning a servant. The incessant metallic clatter that had been Nath's constant companion on this trek through the underworld grew louder. The clatter escalated in both pitch and volume, giving Simpson the impression that it was rapidly approaching the chamber. There was a vague, yet dreadful quality to the rhythmic pounding, like the pulse of some gigantic infernal engine. Nath's mind conjured up the image of a huge metallic heart beating in the darkness; a beacon for all things wicked and foul.

He turned an inquiring eye to the Dark Lady, who smiled secretly and said, "Patience boy. All will make itself clear soon enough. I pity you in a very small way. How confining it must be to exist within the stringent limits of meaningless morals and proprieties. Do you ever fell suffocated by such ludicrous concepts as remorse and compassion? How bleak life must seem beneath the onerous weigh of hollow idealism."

"Look at me Nathaniel. To gaze into the depths of my eyes is to peer into the very heart of unconstrained freedom. I am a creature unencumbered by anything other than an obligation to myself and whatever whims may move me." Suddenly, Cynara stopped her monologue and in an exaggerated stage gesture, cupped her hand to her ear and leaned towards the small tunnel that seemed to be the source of the maddening clanging.

A ripple emanated from out of the feeder pipe as something passed into the main channel. Nath squinted into the brown swirl, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever had entered, but the dirty brown was too thick to penetrate. Then a stream of bubbles burst to the surface, followed by an eruption of filthy brown water.

The spray washed over Nath in a fetid wave and he clawed frantically at the foul smelling slime on his face. His first impression of the thing in the water battered at the concrete limits of his reason. He dimly heard his own exclamation of shock and horror as he tottered on the edge of that dark abyss. It capered before him, all ropy, iron fibred muscles and scaly, plated yellowish red skin. Cynara chuckled at Nath's revulsion. In a voice that conveyed her amusement, she inquired, "What's the matter Nath? You look as though you've never seen a snake before."

The witch's mirth spilled out in peels of laughter. Nath could scarcely hear her as his eyes remained riveted upon the undulating abomination before him. The creature did indeed resemble a snake, at least in part. It capered a full eight feet above the water. Nath could only guess at its full length.

As it broke the surface of the water, the snake was at least two feet in diameter. Nath's original impression of its color had been incorrect. He now saw that it had no discernible color and in the dull blue glow of the feeder channel, it seemed able to shift colors at will; now gray, not brown, now a sickly red and finally a strange, reflective chromium silver.

It was not the body that captivated Nath's attention and held it on the verge of screaming madness. The body was that of a giant and repulsive snake but the head was decidedly female in form. Its eyes were yellow cat's eyes, cut by jagged vertical slashes. The thing had high cheek bones and a flat snout with small flaring nostrils.

The mouth was a gaping, yawning maw, dripping with venom and metallic incisors that held a promise of a quick and savage death. Each time the thing closed its mouth, the chamber reverberated with sharp sound of metal grating on metal. It was the sound that had echoed through the chamber since Nath had first climbed down the manhole. The thing regarded Nath with a gaze so alien and menacing that his skin felt as though it might erupt beneath its invisible touch.

Cynara giggled again like a school girl. "Do you find Kiesha disturbing? Nathaniel, she is a truly unique creature, but a comparatively tame one. There are creatures that reside beneath the cover of earth and darkness that would drive you mortals into the bosom of madness at just a glance. They lurk just beyond the range of sight, beyond the limits of your world of light and concrete. They have always been there but your kind has long lacked the courage to acknowledge them. Man's self imposed ignorance has made him even easier quarry for the night beast. Calm yourself Nath, she will not harm you. She can sense my mark. She has been summoned for another purpose." Cynara glared hard at Nathaniel and then added, "The pleasure of disposing of you shall be mine and mine alone."

Cynara suddenly jerked the girl from the ground and held her aloft, about six feet from the undulating horror. The child saw the snake and let out a wretched cry of horror that cut straight into Nath's heart. He wrung his hands in frustration, knowing that he was impotent to prevent whatever was to come.

At the sight of the girl being offered, the serpent's movements became more frenetic in anticipation of an imminent feeding. Cynara lowered the girl towards the snake, but then snapped her away as the monstrosity attempted to seize her in its massive jaws. The jaws snapped shut with a sound reminiscent of a bear trap.

"Damn it Cynara, what the hell do you want?" Nath screeched miserably, torn by the girl's whimpering and his own inability to intervene.

"I wish to test your rectitude. I want to see if you were cut from the same cloth that your mother was. I am going to present you with a choice; the girl or me," Cynara concluded with great gravity.

Nath made no immediate reply, at last comprehending the artful genius of Cynara's proposition. Cynara interpreted his silence to be confusion and smiled playfully. "If you renege and return home, the girl will live. You have my solemn assurance that she shall be returned to her family. The mark on your chest will disappear and you shall be free of me forever."

She allowed him a moment to absorb this. As he watched her, Nath's eyes narrowed in suspicion. He found it unthinkable that he might actually consider striking a bargain with this monster. This was just another of her endless misdirection and deception. Still, to be free! To put this life long nightmare behind him.

"I see that you are sorely tempted," Cynara observed, satisfied that her estimation of his character had been so accurate. "There are two sides to every coin boy. Should you choose to abnegate, I can assure you that you and that dolt will never find me again. Whatever acts of brutality that I commit will be as much yours as they are mine. You will have spared the girl, but who is to say how many others will die as of a consequence of your decision. Perhaps I will choose not to kill again. Yet you have some understanding of my appetite. There are times when it is beyond my control." Cynara beamed a dark, feral grin. The grin conveyed in full the implications of her offer.

He looked from Cynara to the child to the undulating serpent. The immensity of the moment weighed upon him like of a mountain. He caught an intimation of what it must be like to play God.

Cynara could sense the scope of his emotional conflict and decided to bring her concealed ace into play. "It is best that you also consider this; should you renege, you not only forfeit your pursuit of revenge, you cast aside the promise of the pendant that is sitting in your pocket."

The mention of the pendant gave Nath a nasty start. Though she was being deliberately coy, the significance of the pendant was abundantly clear to Nathaniel. It endowed him with of a sense of hope that both excited and sickened him at the same time.

"What do you mean, Cynara?" he demanded, temporarily forgetting about the child and the hungry serpent.

The witch flashed another cryptic smile and intoned gravely, "Your mother's body was never found, was it Nathaniel?"

Cynara watched as the light flickered and burst into flames deep in the man's eyes. He had taken the bait, in spite of all of his moral pretensions. Shaking the child vigorously, she challenged, "So, which will it be; the girl's life and freedom or the path to me and whatever it might hold?"

In his head, Nath could feel a huge and crushing pressure imploring him to decide. Miserably, he gazed from the girl to the witch. The child was small and helpless, her face stained by grime and tears. He wondered if she understood any of what was happening. He suspected that she did not. Somehow he found her ignorance made everything that much more difficult.

The serpent hissed and clicked its horrid fangs impatiently. Cynara barked, "Decide boy. Will you renege or will you seek me out?"

Nath's fingers found the jade pendant. Wrapping his fist about the polished surface, he was electrified by the implicit promise.

"I'll continue," he spat like of a man puking up something unutterably vile.

Cynara smiled and released her grip on the child.

The chamber reverberated with of a horrifying wail of terror as the girl tumbled towards the water. The sound tore at Nath's frayed nerves like rusty lengths of barb wire. He staggered beneath a wave of guilt and self loathing. He turned his back on the nightmare and attempted to block his ears. Even the clamp of his hands could not dampen the immutable sound of slashing teeth and shattering bone.

The sting of acidic tears filled his eyes and then he was being spun around by powerful hands. Cynara caught hold of the hair at his neck and turned him to face the horror.

There is no turning your back on the sorry spectacle of betrayal boy," Cynara thundered in of a voice that rang with private delight.

The serpent had caught the girl in its powerful jaws, crushing her spine and tearing open her abdominal cavity. Dimly aware of Cynara's fingernails as they dug into the flesh at the base of his neck, Nath watched as the water churned, first muddy brown and then, flat deathly red.

The thing that Cynara had referred to as Kiesha, held the girl in its jaws and flailed her against the cement walls of the channel. Nath's throat constricted with each dull, wet thud and a low, sickened moan issued from somewhere deep inside of him. He could feel the swell and fall of Cynara's breasts against his back as she virtually shook with excitement.

As the thing frantically pounded the girl against the unyielding cement, blood spread lazily over the surface of the water. Holding the girl firmly between its jaws, the snake reared into the air and then fell back into the water, mercifully disappearing from sight. There was a soft rippling of water as the thing carried the remains of the girl out of the chamber.

Cynara released her grip upon Nathaniel and strode to the edge of the channel, where she stood inspecting the aftermath of the monster's work. She peered into the dirty water for a long time, panting like an animal. Nath reeled to the nearest wall and then sagged to the floor. He covered his face with his hands and began to cry, making no effort to hide his grief from his tormentor. The sound of Nath's grief brought Cynara out of her reverie. She turned and regarded him quizzically. She found herself oddly disturbed by his open display of grief. The tears were beyond her sensibilities. She couldn't imagine ever being so profoundly affected by the death of such of a meaningless waif. Something warned her that this small man posed an immense danger to her.

' _Should I kill him now_?' she wondered, profoundly troubled by his ability to arouse powerful emotions in her otherwise dispassionate soul.

Nath's sobs had subsided to of a low moan. Cynara crossed over to him and knelt. "You've made your choice, Nathaniel. From this day forth, your destiny shall be cast in granite. That girl's death will be a mark on your soul and it will be just as indelible as the scar on your chest."

Nath looked into her eyes. His blue eyes were rimmed with a bloody red that was accentuated by the gleam of tears. Shaking with impotent rage, he whispered, "I hate you. God how I hate you."

Cynara rolled back her head and let out of howl of scornful laughter. Then she playfully pounded him upon the arm. "That's the spirit boy. Now you're getting the right idea."

Cynara then pressed something into Nath's hand and forced his fingers to close around it. Leaning forward, she tenderly brushed her lips across his cheek. Gracefully, she rose and moved to the tunnel at the opposite end of the chamber. Nath opened his fist to find of a small locket that had been fashioned with inexpensive gold. His fingers almost of their own accord sprung the clasp and the face of the locket swung open to reveal a small portrait of the girl and people who Nath presumed to be her parents. The two adults smiled shyly at the camera. Between them stood a small girl wearing a smile that was so unlike the stark expression of terror that he had last seen. He could feel a shameful ache rising hot and bilious in his chest. He feared that should he start to cry again he would be unable to stop. They would find him here, a crying lunatic sitting alone in a sewer.

"Your tears are pathetic and what's more, they do not impress me in the least. You have selected your path. The locket symbolizes the shunned road of your moral pretensions and the pendant represents the hope of the future. You have made the choice and the girl, being the sacrificial pawn, has paid the price. For my part, I have sworn to provide you with a way to me and so you shall have it." With this, Cynara withdrew one of the mysterious blue crystals from her pocket. She then cast the glowing stone into the fetid blue water. There arose a sharp hiss as the water churned and roiled in response to the power of the stone. A fine mist spread over the surface of the water, resolving itself into of a definable form. Nath watched the mist swirl to form the unintelligible word, CHEVRU.

"As you come for me, boy," she continued, "question your motivation in allowing the girl to die. Was her death the cost of a moral and noble principle or was it the more selfish wage of a desire to recapture that which you have lost." At of a beckoning wave of her right hand the eerie blue mist billowed up from the water and surrounded the Dark Lady. As it did, Cynara began to lose her substantiality. After of a brief moment she had completely disappeared. Numbly, Nath sat alone in the darkness of the feeder chamber.

He remained that way for a long time, clutching the pendant in his right hand and the locket in his left. After of a time, the glow radiating from Cynara's crystal began to wane. Seeing this, Nath pushed himself wearily to his feet and began to trudge back through the tunnel towards the manhole and the world above. He went in trepidation of how that world might appear through his new eyes.

Chapter Nineteen

1

At about the same time that Nathaniel Simpson was enduring his moment of personal hell, Yuro Petru sat alone in the dark of his office. He struggled desperately to concoct a way of extricating himself from the trap which he had stumbled into. His initial jubilation at having discovered his tormentor's identity had vanished as he came to understand the nature of the beast which held him in its thrall.

As if his personal dilemma was not enough to plague his every waking hour, the R.D.L.F. had unleashed a bombing campaign that had claimed the lives of three high ranking government officials. Petru realized that it would not be long before he was called to account for these terrorist attacks. Where only a week ago he felt like a man aspiring to certain measure of greatness, Petru now felt as if he were being prodded ever closer to the brink of irretrievable ruin. More frustrating still, he knew who was responsible and understood that he was powerless to retaliate against his tormentor.

In the intervening days between his first encounter with this Saravic and this dark and brooding night, Petru had undergone a most profound and startling transformation. His shoulders, which had once been broad and square, had become sagged and rounded. Even Petru's perpetual challenging glare had given way to a tentative glance.

Bewildered, Petru allowed his head to drop to the desk. The glass blotter felt cool against his forehead, which seemed perpetually fevered of late. He had only begun to drift into a light doze, when a sharp click stirred him back to awareness. Petru's head swiveled around and his eyes bulged fearfully as the window lock sprung itself and the Plexiglas, bullet proof window swung open. Against his own better judgment, Petru rose and crept towards the window. Peering out into the stormy night, he could see nothing other than the swirling sheets of snow.

He backed away from the chill and was about to close the window, when a form rocketed past him, only scant inches from his face. Petru cried out and attempted to pull away, but his feet got tangled together and he toppled to the carpet.

"Jesus, please no more!" he screeched in a high, childish voice. Perched on his desk, talons clattering on the polished wood, sat a huge eagle. Its golden eyes fixed him with a baleful glare. They gleamed with a sinister intelligence and Petru knew at once that this was no ordinary bird. "What do you want from me?" Petru pleaded of the watchful bird.

The eagle gave no response. It spread its wings majestically and rose slowly into the air. A frantic beat of powerful wings heralded the beginning of an extraordinary metamorphosis. The eagle shifted, elongated, becoming larger and more substantial with every second. Face contorted by both fascination and terror, Petru watched as the eagle's feathers ran together, melting like dark plastic until they had formed long, elegant human limbs.

When the transformation was complete, she stood gazing down upon him through eyes of amethyst ice fire. The glacial expanses of those eyes overwhelmed Petru. Though he suspected that Cynara was the deadlier of the two, the cold, mechanical nature of this blonde touched a raw nerve in the police chief. Struggling to subdue the trembling in his voice, Yuro whispered, "What do you want of me now? I am doing everything she asked."

"There is an additional service that Cynara requires of you. She wishes to have the man, Simms, removed. You are to arrange it."

"What?" Petru stammered in amazement, dreading any further escalation of this madness.

"I believe that I have made myself perfectly clear," Elizabeth repeated tightly. Petru sensed impatience lurking below the surface of her detached calm...an impatience based on loathing.

"You have to understand that killing Simms will not be that simple. First of all, he is an American. If an American tourist were to suddenly disappear it would not go unnoticed. Furthermore, now that they have moved into Transylvania, they are out of my jurisdiction. I have no authority to operate there."

"Your problems do not concern me. You will do as you have been told or you will suffer the consequences."

Petru's face and heart sank in unison. The adamant ring of her tone suggested that there would be no reasoning with this witch. The scope of his predicament crashed down upon him like an avalanche.

Elizabeth watched him squirm, taking private pleasure from his discomfort. After a moment she continued, "Yuro, do you not think that Cynara rewards her bondsmen?"

She snapped her fingers and a manila folder materialized in her hand. She took a quick step forward and let the folder fall onto the dumbfounded Petru's lap. Petru hesitantly grasped the folder in trembling fingers and then glanced up to the creature before him.

"Read it Yuro. I'm sure that it will come as a most pleasant surprise," Elizabeth observed with just a hint of a smile. It occurred to Petru that the smile never really touched her eyes. Quivering, Yuro flipped open the cover and began to read. As he did, a broad smile spread across his face like oil over water. He gazed up at Elizabeth in naked awe. "How in God's name did you gather this information?"

Elizabeth smiled cryptically, but deliberately chose not to answer, instead inquiring, "I assume this will be attended to at once?"

"Oh yes, you may tell your master that it will be done at once," he crooned jubilantly.

In his excitement, Petru failed to see the frown that roiled Elizabeth's face at his use of the word master.

"Very good. Then our business is completed. I can tell Cynara that Simms is as good as dead." In a sudden fluid motion, Elizabeth knelt next to Petru and placed a lacquered nail next to the corner of his right eye. "Take good care. Should any harm come to the other man, Nathaniel Simpson, you will have to answer to me." The nail twisted slightly and the vision in Yuro's right eye was extinguished. Petru screamed and clutched at his eye.

"The blindness will pass shortly," Elizabeth offered casually. "Remember what I have promised." With a liquid flexing of her lovely legs, the night creature stood and stepped through the window, vanishing into the stormy night sky.

2

Eventually, as Elizabeth had assured him, Petru's blindness passed. He first noticed the folder lying, forgotten, upon the desk. Above the pain came the recollection of what information it contained. Was it possible that this Cynara was a serviceable villain? He had to cling to that faint hope. Picking up the telephone, Petru set about making the necessary arrangements for Jimmy Simms' death.

3

Jimmy Simms came awake with a damp, sour smell hanging in his nostrils. He threw back the covers, feeling both heavy headed and dull as if he had just awoken from a drug induced sleep. That sluggishness disappeared the very instant that he saw Nathaniel.

That can't be Nath, was his first thought as he looked to the haggard man who hunched in the chair next to the window. Nath's clothes were dirt stained and foul smelling. In either hand, he clutched unseen objects which dangled from delicate gold chains.

However, it was not the soiled clothes or the two chains that so distressed Jimmy. The thing that cut into Simms' heart was the expression of bleak and utter dejection that seemed to have stamped itself onto Nath's features.

"What's happened Nath?" Jimmy ventured cautiously.

No response. Nath could only sit silently his gaze shifting between the two objects in his hands. Jimmy rose quickly and came around the bed to the chair. Feeling the first cold shivers of panic now, he seized the smaller man by the shoulders and began to shake him vigorously. With a languid slowness, Nath finally turned his eyes upon his stepbrother. The inestimable scope of pain and despair in those eyes staggered Simms. ' _My God, what has he seen_?' he wondered, for once wishing that he could read his inscrutable half-brother as he could most everyone else.

"Nath, for God's sake, what has happened to you?" Jimmy repeated. He attempted to reach for one of the chains, but Nath snatched it away and hugged it protectively to his chest. Jimmy was not sure that Nath even recognized him.

"I'm not going to take them from you Nath. I just want to see them... please." To show that he was sincere, Jimmy took a few small steps away from the chair and dropped his hands to his sides. Nath's eyes narrowed in suspicion and now Simms wondered if this was really Nath at all. Eventually some of the tension seemed to ease out of the smaller man's posture and he extended the jade pendant towards Simms. Jimmy examined the pendant and then frowned, further perplexed by its significance. "I don't understand Nath. What is this? Where did you get it?"

In a distant, melancholy voice, Nath spoke for the first time. "It was hers, you know."

"Whose?" Jimmy asked, growing increasingly more confused and worried.

"My mother's. I remember it. She would come to tuck me in at nights and I would always reach for it. I use to love the smooth, cool feel of the jade. I thought that it was beautiful I guess." His voice was flat and lifeless, but Jimmy could sense the depth of the pain lurking just beneath the surface of that apparent calm.

Jimmy glanced at the winking bit of stone and sensed a loss beyond his comprehension. Surely it couldn't be his mother's. Elizabeth Simpson was dead. He knew just as certainly as he knew his own parents were dead. But the pendant, how did he come by the pendant? There could only be one answer for that...Cynara.

"Where did you go last night? You've seen the witch, haven't you?" Jimmy pressed. Nath flinched visibly at the mention of the Dark Lady. Then his eyes glazed over as he retreated back behind whatever barriers he had erected against the horrific memory of the previous night.

"Dammit Nath, you can't shut me out," Simms urged, but Simpson seemed to have slipped away from him again.

Almost without realizing what he was doing, Simms laid a palm on either side of the other man's head and applied a gentle pressure. Closing his eyes, he began to probe Nath's mind, seeking to extract the details of the previous night's events. Under the insistent probing, Nath's eyes widened and his face contorted. Grasping Simms' wrists, he worked to pry the hands from his head, but Jimmy was simply too strong.

At first Nath resisted Jimmy's probing, but without warning the barriers collapsed and for the first and final time, Jimmy Simms gained access into the interiors of Nath's mind. In a torrent, his own mind was bludgeoned by a deluge of images so intense that he was literally thrown across the room by their force. He hit the floor with a grunt and lay there breathing heavily.

His frazzled mind had been assaulted by a collage of pictures, some of which had been splendid and others that had been terrifying. Three stood out above all of the others. In the first, a figure rolled and shrieked in agony as something unspeakably evil shook it like a rag doll. Through Nath's eyes, Jimmy watched as the water billowed scarlet. Jimmy was assailed by a strong sensation of guilt for which he could not account.

The second image depicted a man climbing laboriously along the face of a sheer bluff. At times it seemed as though there would be no hand holds, but the man always managed to pull himself higher. At the crest of this cliff stood an ethereal blond woman dressed in a regal white garb. Jimmy recognized this woman to be Nath's mother, Elizabeth. Eventually, this image dissolved into the third and perhaps the most terrifying scene. Here, Cynara played the puppet master, laughing uproariously as she jerked the strings of her two marionettes. The two puppets were stylized representations of both himself and Nathaniel. Cynara danced the two towards a marble slab, which stood like a sentinel. Carved into the slab was a single word - Chevru. Jimmy had no idea what the word meant, but gathered that it was somehow crucial to their search.

Simms shook his head and glanced up. Nath was standing over him. He gazed down upon Jimmy without expression, but Simms thought that he had discerned a small spark of loathing in the other man's benign gaze. Evenly, Nath said, "So now you know. It's time to go."

4

Over the next three hours, Jimmy was able to induce Nath to give up snatches of his previous night's traumatic encounter. The account of his confrontation with Cynara was rather sketchy and perplexing. Nath groped and struggled as he recounted the details of how the girl had lost her life. His own culpability weighed upon him like a heavy loathsome stone that Nath refused to cast aside. He bore its weight willingly, with a self-contempt that was almost gleeful.

"I killed her, Jimmy," Nath blurted, spitting the words out emphatically as if to revel in his own agony. "Cynara gave me a choice and I let the girl die a horrible, gruesome death. It's not possible to understand what that's done to me."

Seeing the haunted, tortured light in Nath's eyes, Jimmy thought that perhaps he could empathize with the other man's torment. He, himself, had turned a machine gun on the unarmed population of El Zaltaro. Yet there had been an essential difference between that slaughter and this seeming betrayal of the innocent and therein lay the explanation for Nath's grief.

"Nath, Cynara never would have allowed the girl to live. We both know about her appetite for death," Jimmy offered in the hopes of muting that unbearable expression of pain upon his companion's face.

Nath shot Jimmy a fey, tired glance as if the other man were missing a rather rudimentary truth. "Jimmy, she would have let the girl live. She would have been bound by the conventions of temptation...that there was an actual choice being offered. This was meant to be some kind of test."

Nath paused and drew a breath to steel himself for the utterance of his self proclaimed verdict. "I'm not sure, but I believe I've failed miserably. Chevru will tell me, one way or the other."

5

It was just past mid afternoon, when the two men left the hotel, bound for the town of Chevru in the northern province of Bistrita Nasaud. As they pulled away from the curb, both noticed that their omnipresent tail moved to join them, discarding any attempt to be discreet. Neither the pursued nor the pursuer noticed the Gray Lada which had entered traffic at a distance of about thirty yards behind the tail car.

Even as they passed out of the northern suburbs of the city, Nath kept a constant hand upon the two pendants as if they anchored him in his private world of despair. He remained silent for a long time and Jimmy had begun to fear that he had slipped back into his catatonic daze. For the first time since El Zaltaro, horrible isolation chipped at Simms' courage. He doubted if he could face the coming ordeal alone. He was startled when Nath suddenly spoke in a low, scratchy voice. "I'll carry this guilt until I can hang these lockets around Cynara's lifeless neck."

Jimmy glanced quickly from the icy road. Nath appeared pallid and drained, but his face was clenched into a mask of pure, apocalyptic hatred. Simms derived a measure of reassurance from that expression of antipathy knowing that hatred was the only effective means to fuel their engine of vengeance.

They passed through the next province without exchanging a word. Nath had again lapsed into stoicism, staring fixedly out of the passenger window. The previous night's storm had slicked the road with a thin layer of black ice that demanded all of Jimmy's attention. Occasionally, Simms would glance in the rear-view mirror, monitoring the progress of the trailing Mercedes. The blatant pursuit filled him with an inchoate dread. Something warned him that their intentions were no longer as benign as simple observation.

Petru's death squad struck some fifteen miles north of the city of Stintu. Jimmy had just maneuvered the car up a long, winding grade and was in the process of gearing down to descend a four mile down slope that ran between two towering mountains, when he caught his first glimpse of the lorry. It was parked sideways on the roadway, less than one hundred meters ahead, blocking his lane of the highway.

"Holy shit. Hang on, Nath!" he bellowed as their rental hurtled towards the truck. At that precise moment, the trailing Mercedes accelerated and ploughed into the rear of their car. The unsuspecting Simpson was pitched violently forward, hitting his head on the padded dash with a muffled crack. He slumped bonelessly back into his seat with blood running freely down his face.

"Son of a bitch," Jimmy spat frantically, grasping the full extent of their peril. They had blundered unwittingly into a trap. As he fought to bring it under control, the car fishtailed wildly on the icy road surface. Like a pinball, it crashed into one rock wall and then crossed the highway and careened off of the other. All the while, the vehicle flew down the hill like an avalanche, the lorry looming ahead of it like a steel gray wall.

The lorry loomed ever closer and just when it appeared that a collision was a virtual certainty, Jimmy swung the wheel hard to the left. It reacted violently, skirting the lorry, but catching its rear end on the heavy steel bumper of the larger truck. The car skidded across the opposite lane and crashed into the unyielding granite wall. It then went sliding backwards down the road, coming to a stop about fifty yards from the lorry.

The driver side door ripped open and Simms tumbled out onto the icy pavement. As he lay staring up into the roiling gray heavens, he tried to assess the extent of the injuries he had sustained. There was a sharp pain in his right side which informed Jimmy that at least one of his ribs was broken. He raised his head from the cold ground. Through blurry eyes, he saw Nath slumped lifelessly across the driver's seat. His rag doll posture hinted at the worst.

Glancing to his right, Jimmy saw four men hurrying towards the battered car. Each of the four held a pistol and the twisted, expectant expressions upon their faces suggested that they had every intention of using them. Once again Jimmy turned his head skyward, trying to produce some magical solution to their dilemma. The trailing Mercedes came to a skidding halt about thirty feet from where Jimmy lay. He attempted to move, but the resulting explosion of pain in his side drove him to the brink of vomiting.

The doors to the Mercedes were thrown open and three more men climbed out. The seven men closed upon the two Americans, confident that the pair was helpless, each moved with a casual deliberation as if they were relishing the prospect of killing both. A tall, thickly built man barked an order. Two of the others came forward and hauled Jimmy roughly to his feet, throwing him into the side of his car. He cried out in agony as he bounced off the crumpled metal. One of the seven brayed a satisfied laughter at the sound of his pain. Some of the others dragged Nathaniel from the car. As he was pushed next to Simms, Jimmy was alarmed to see that his face was obscured by a mask of blood that glistened sickeningly in the dull afternoon light.

For some unfathomable reason, Nath's battered condition appeared to agitate the apparent leader of the seven. He stepped forward and raised Nath's head. He barked another terse order and one of the seven gently laid Nath along the front seat of the car.

Then the leader turned his attention to Jimmy. His eyes were dispassionate and remorseless and Jimmy immediately deduced that he was to be executed.

Almost as if in confirmation of that dismal sentiment, the leader withdrew a Lugar Mark II pistol from his shoulder holster and pointed it directly at Jimmy's head, a broad smile adorning his crude face. If he had expected Jimmy to flinch or grovel he was sadly disappointed. Simms had been subjected to too much strife and torment to view death with anything other than marked indifference. Frowning, the man released the pistol's safety. Jimmy inhaled and braced himself for the moment of final impact.

There was a sharp report and Simms' face was drenched in a spray of repulsive, warm crimson. The man dropped the Lugar and fell sideways onto the pavement. As the air came alive with the chaotic sound of gunfire and the screams and curses of the dying, a hail of bullets engulfed the group. In a span of seconds all seven lay dead or dying upon the cold pavement, leaving the bewildered Simms staring incredulously at the carnage about him.

Shocked, Jimmy looked up to identify the source of his miraculous deliverance. A group of four men were sprinting down the grade, while another followed in a battered gray Lada. Three of the four examined the fallen men, relieving them of their weapons and casually putting a bullet into each of their skulls.

Simms blanched at the display of dispassionate savagery. Feeling dazed by all that had happened, he wondered just who the fuck all of these people were.

A man came across the bloody pavement and asked in heavily accented English "Are you well?"

"My ribs are broken, I think," Jimmy stammered. Even speaking was a demanding task. "My friend needs help. He's bleeding quite badly...a concussion maybe."

The man gestured to two of his comrades, who bent into the rental and gently lifted Nathaniel from the vehicle. Nath's neck hung limply on its stalk. Jimmy was reminded of a sack of ball bearings and shivered. The Romanian gripped Jimmy's wrist and spoke in a low, urgent voice, "You will come with us please. We must hurry."

Irritably, Simms jerked his hand free of the other's grip. "I'm not going anywhere until I know just who the hell you are."

A certain amount of desperation found its way into the other man's voice. "We are the people who saved your lives and we must leave this place at once."

Jimmy suddenly grabbed the Romanian and pulled him close, probing the other man's eyes. A yellow light tinted with hints of red glowed about the man like a corona. The man indeed meant him no immediate harm. Surveying the carnage about him, Jimmy saw little to lose in going with these strangers. The pretence of being tourists had died along with the first of the assailants. He and Nath were fugitives now and they were not in a position to refuse any help that was offered.

To the slightly confused Romanian he said, "Alright, we'll go with you."

"Very good. Come please, we must make haste." The Romanian was anxious to move away from this stranger. He tried to hide just how badly the odd sensation of contact had shaken him, but his head buzzed and tingled. Frowning, he led Jimmy back to the rusted Lada and ushered him into the back seat. Then, turning to the others he issued a series of terse orders. The others reacted quickly, going about their tasks with the efficiency of those who were used to such intrigue. Soon the obvious signs of battle had been effaced. One man entered the Mercedes and drove north, while the others loaded the bodies of the dead men into the lorry. One of the men then climbed into the cab of the lorry and set out after the Mercedes.

"They will dispose of the bodies and strip the vehicles," the Romanian explained in a matter of fact voice, as if such occurrences were every day happenings. As events would unfold, this was not far from the truth.

Jimmy leaned over the front seat and extended his hand to the man. "Seeing that you just saved my life, the least you could do is tell me your name so that I might thank you properly."

The man turned to Simms and smiled. The smile was affable and warm, transforming the man's face into something that was difficult to reconcile with his actions. He took Jimmy's hand and shook it firmly. "My name is Ivan Prowzi."

"Ivan, my friend and I are in your debt. My name is Jimmy Simms and he is Nathaniel Simpson."

"It's good to meet you, but I think that the circumstances of our meeting could have been more pleasant." With this, Ivan turned and threw the car into gear, speeding off into the gray afternoon. Inside, he breathed a sigh of relief. Against his better judgment, he had decided to rescue the two Americans from Petru's trap. The operation had proceeded perfectly and they were away, leaving the blood as the only sign of the battle. Soon the falling snow would cover even that.

Neither Ivan nor the other two had noticed the white wolf that had watched the entire drama from one hundred yards up the slope of the mountain. When Prowzi had disappeared from view, the wolf began to run along the ridge of the mountain. It passed into a copse of pine trees and then seemed to vanish. Mere seconds later, a large eagle soared out of the pines. It wheeled about the heavens and then headed south, like a courier on the winds.

Chapter Twenty

1

The two Americans and their saviors headed north, staying on the mountain highway. Eventually they turned east, towards the small city of Corund, deep in the province of Harghita's interior. Twenty miles east of the city, the group turned off of the main highway onto a two lane secondary road. This gave way to a dirt road that was nearly overgrown. The road was plunged into shadows by the stands of thick timber that delineated its length. When Simms looked upward, he saw the tall trees reaching across the road to embrace each other, creating a natural canopy. From the air the dirt track would not have been visible. It was obvious that these people had taken great pains to avoid detection. Again he wondered who they really were.

Jimmy wanted to question Ivan, but the ruts in the road were playing havoc with his injured ribs. Each bump produced a white flash of agony that caused him to wince and grit his teeth against the pain. He took small consolation that Nath had emerged from his unconsciousness and was slowly regaining his senses. One of the other men had handed Jimmy a towel with which he wiped away the blood, only to discover that the cut was not as severe as it had first appeared.

The dirt track led down into a narrow ravine. Simms could see a small fire burning at the heart of the clearing. Several men stood at their approach and trained their weapons on the Lada. A quick count tallied seven in all, each armed with a Russian AKA 76 assault rifle. Simms had once read about the rifle and knew that it was a rapid fire weapon armed with explosive tipped shells. ' _Jesus, what have we gotten ourselves into_?' he groaned to himself. They were lost in the heart of the Romanian interior, in the company of men who had demonstrated no compunction about killing. If these people proved to be anything less than friendly he and Nath were as good as dead even now.

The car came to a halt next to a large tree and Ivan quickly got out to exuberant greetings from his comrades. Emile also got out and opened the door for Simms. The two men assisted the still groggy Simpson to his feet. Simms grimaced as his ribs issued a vehement protest at all of the abuse.

As they stood near the car, all eyes turned upon the two Americans and in those stares Jimmy could sense a long-cultivated suspicion of strangers. Ivan was besieged by a barrage of questions. He raised his powerful hands and gestured for silence. The men granted it grudgingly and he began to speak. The two Americans knew they were the topic of discussion by the way that all eyes constantly shifted to them and then slid back to Prowzi.

What happened next took only a fraction of a second, but it touched Jimmy as he had only been touched once before. The other time had been that day, more than twenty years before, when he had opened the hospital door and stepped into the pit of darkness that had been Cynara Saravic. Ivan turned to one of the other men and issued an order in his native tongue. Though spoken in Romanian, the words came to Jimmy in perfectly understandable English. "Pierca, go and bring Contayza."

The mere pronunciation of the word Contayza evoked a frenetic burst of colors and images in Simms' mind. They were so powerful and so vivid that they blotted out the world around him. Every muscle in his body tensed as the furious kaleidoscope played itself out. Above all of the turbulence, the name echoed like a mystical incantation; Contayza.

2

Ivan ushered the two Americans and the others over to the fire. Jimmy was amazed to discover there were at least a dozen trailers set into the trees on either side of the dirt track. Neither the Romanians nor the usually perceptive Nath had noticed Jimmy's violent reaction. Simms was glad of this. He prickled with a vague apprehension and another, more complex emotion that could not be easily defined. He experienced a measure of fear, but also a certain amount of anticipation, an eagerness that he could not credit. They had reached a crucial, yet obscure bridge on their road to the Dark Lady.

The gray clouds continued to boil above them, threatening another storm hard on the heels of the last. Nath had slowly found his way back from the void. He had only a sketchy, disjointed recollection of what had transpired since the collision on the road. About who these men were he had no idea at all. Despite this, he perceived no immediate threat from them. The air had taken on an electric charge of expectancy.

The Romanians formed a rough semicircle, all facing one particular trailer on the north side of the dirt track. After several minutes the door swung open and Pierca descended the three wooden steps. Seconds later, another figure emerged from the trailer and slowly descended the steps. She paused at the bottom and her gaze swept over the collection of men awaiting her, coming to rest squarely upon the two Americans. Each could feel the palpable weight of her penetrating gaze upon them.

Both Simms and Simpson were struck by her flawless beauty and correctly concluded that this woman was capable of wielding her beauty like a sledgehammer. Contayza Prowzi was diminutive, perhaps no taller than five feet, two inches, but something about her bearing suggested the presence of a tremendous, contained power. She began to walk towards the group, again reminding Nath of a queen reviewing troops. Her hair was a captivating mass of black curls that spilled over her shoulders to a point at the center of her back. The sides were swept from her face to reveal high, almost cruel cheekbones. Most compelling of all were her eyes, which had been colored in a marvelous compromise between brown and honey; amber jewels lit by their own inner sun. Both Americans were at once reminded of another such beauty; Cynara.

Her movements were deliberate and languid, very much like those of a predatory cat. The exquisite lines of her body were not lost beneath the heavy brown tunic and trousers that she wore. Nath saw her as dark, primitive and wildly exciting. He drew a breath and held it at her approach. The amber jewels came to rest upon him and he felt an unseen force press down upon him. Contayza's eyes narrowed in speculation and then danced to Simms.

The larger man wore an almost comical expression of shock and awe. While Nath saw an erotic beauty, Simms beheld something much more elemental, more compelling and powerful. His mind's eye fell upon an almost boundless field of telekinetic energy. Never taking her eyes from him, she moved directly to him, coming to a halt a mere two feet from where he stood. Though he was ten inches taller and seventy pounds heavier, her proximity led him to tremble. He could sense the irresistible force of her energy brush over him, breaking his defenses like match sticks. She scrutinized him, gauging the extent of his own power. She smiled at him, though the expression did not touch her eyes. She then turned and spoke to Ivan, leaving Jimmy feeling drained and oddly violated.

Though neither could speak a word of Romanian, Ivan's deferential tone made it obvious that Contayza held the power in this band of strangers. She listened to his explanation of why these two men were here and then raised her hands for silence. Again addressing Jimmy, she spoke to him in precise, yet slightly accented English, "My brother tells me that he rescued you from a rather difficult situation. How did you happen to come by such troubles?"

Her eyes regarded him like blazing coals and her colors burned with more intensity than any human being he had ever known. Her was an immense and frightening puissance made all the more so by her obviously tempestuous nature. Mesmerized by the diminutive beauty, he stammered, "I, I don't know. I'm not even sure who those other men were...or who you are for that matter. Nath and I only came here as tourists and we've been constantly harassed ever since we set foot in your country."

Contayza frowned and her lovely eyes flashed dangerously. The blink of an eye later, Simms felt something penetrate his mind like a needle. He cried out and Ivan called Contayza's name. She scowled at him and he took a step backwards, clearly bemused by his sister.

"Don't lie to me and don't be coy with me. I have neither the time nor the patience to tolerate impertinence. What's more, there is really no point in lying to me. I think that you know that."

Simms remained silent, but knew that she was aware of his comprehension of her abilities, just as she was aware of his. Finally, he replied softly, "No, I guess there isn't."

Her sensuous lips twisted into an almost feral grin. "Then suppose that you tell me why those men wanted to kill you or why you are of such interest to Yuro Petru?"

Jimmy and Nath were both unable to conceal their surprise. Cautiously, Simms offered, "I honestly don't know why Petru is interested in us. We came here looking for someone and his men detained us at the airport, almost as if he was expecting us."

"Who have you come in search of?" Contayza inquired sharply. Her tenacious questioning irritated Simms. He tried to repress his anger, but could sense his own ire boiling close to the surface. Something cautioned him to control his anger because this woman was volatile and potentially dangerous.

Nath could also sense Jimmy's mounting anger. He decided that it would be prudent to deflect Contayza's interrogation onto himself. In calm, even voice, he replied, "We've come to find an acquaintance of ours, someone that we knew back in America. Maybe you could tell us about Yuro Petru? Better yet, perhaps you could have the courtesy to tell us just who all of you are."

Switching her gaze from Jimmy to Nathaniel, she blushed, clearly affronted by his suggestion that she was being discourteous. Her eyes blazed like tiny suns. All fire and intensity, they locked upon his mild and impenetrable blue eyes. She opened her mind, but was astounded to find nothing. She was shaken by a sharp spasm of shock and uncertainty at her inability to penetrate his facade. Attempting to disguise her disquiet, she answered his question. "Yuro Petru is well known to most decent Romanians. Officially he is the Director of Intelligence for Southern Romania. What he is, in reality, is a torture crazy, butchering bastard. My brother, and the others that you met, were in Bucharest to assassinate Petru. Your sudden appearance caused Ivan to abort the attempt."

She glanced ruefully at Ivan, showing her disapproval of his decision. "Who are we you have asked. Let it suffice to say that we are freedom fighters."

"Freedom fighters?" Nath murmured, rather baffled by the notion of political assassinations and raving rebels. "Really?"

"This country is a nation of slaves. We are a part of a small group that is dedicated to freeing the people from those bonds. Look about you. Do you not know who we are? We are gypsies and we have suffered persecution for centuries. We have seen all manner of dictatorial dogs. Some dogs may appear friendly, but in the end all dogs have teeth and an instinctive need to use them." Contayza's diatribe was an impassioned one. Her breasts rose and fell with the strength of her conviction. She stopped abruptly, trying to gather herself, as though her rhetoric had exhausted her. In a strangely subdued voice, she demanded, "What is your name?"

"My name is Nathaniel Simpson and that is Jimmy Simms. Look, we're grateful that your brother saved us. We would most likely be dead if he hadn't, but please, we just want to go and do what we came here to do. Let us go, please."

Contayza could sense no fear in the other man's voice. He was small and apparently mild, but beneath that thin veneer she suspected there existed a formidable heart and soul, though not necessarily those of a warrior.

"Who are you and why are you here?" she reiterated. Her voice was flinty and low, causing Nath to grimace inside. This woman possessed a dogged single mindedness that could prove to be a more formidable obstacle than Petru's henchmen.

"We're just two American tourists looking for an old acquaintance," Nath replied, his tone matching hers. His implacable nature grated upon her impetuousness and before she was even aware of what she intended, Contayza strode forward and slapped his face.

What happened next came as a complete shock to everyone, including Nath. Simpson felt the sting of her palm against his cheek and heard the flat whap of the blow. Then there was an electrical crackle followed by a blinding flash of blue light and the smell of burning ozone. Contayza stiffened and then sagged bonelessly to the ground, her eyelids fluttering as she fell.

There were shouts and startled exclamations of panic from the Romanians. As one they brought their guns to aim on the puzzled Simpson. They may well have opened fire had not Contayza called for them to stop in a shaky voice. Slowly the tension drained out of the Romanians and they lowered their weapons, if only a little.

Contayza climbed to her feet on unsteady legs, brushing snow from the seat of her trousers in short, and sharp movements. She said nothing in fear that to speak would betray the storm of emotions raging within her. ' _My God, what just happened_?' she marveled to herself, at once astounded and apprehensive. When she had struck this Simpson, she had been assaulted by a flood of horrible, black images and an immeasurable underlying force that had hurled her to the ground. Beneath those images she detected the presence of something malevolent and unspeakably evil. Her mind whispered the name of the hated one; Cynara, the witch. Cynara, the name glowed darkly like the pinnacle of some Hellish mountain glimpsed from a great distance.

' _He knows about Cynara_!' she realized with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that induced her to shake perceptibly. The others watched her with expressions that ranged from wonder to superstitious dread. She approached Simpson and gently laid the flat of her palm on his still stinging cheek. Nath watched her through wary eyes as she slowly moved her hand over his cheek and onto his shoulder.

All movement had ceased and the sound of Nath's bomber jacket zipper sliding down inch by inch rang unnaturally loud in the charged stillness of the clearing. Simpson wore a denim shirt with snap buttons. Contayza took a lapel in each hand and like a lover gone wild with passion, ripped the shirt open.

The white scar stood out in sharp contrast to the chilled flesh around it. Slowly, almost tentatively, Tayza extended her fingers. She paused about an inch from the damaged flesh, as if she dreaded the consequences of touching it. Then, drawing a deep breath, she placed her hand upon the witch's brand.

3

A late November freeze had sunk its icy talons into the Capital City of Bucharest. As people hurried through the snow covered streets, tiny white plumes rose into the arctic air. The temperature had plunged to below zero in a matter of hours as the country prepared itself for the long siege of winter.

A solitary figure stood on the balcony of the penthouse suite of the Imperial Garden's Hotel. The hotel was exclusive, geared to the decadent western tourists and Romanian V.I.P.s. Cynara leaned against the stone rail and scanned the night sky, anxiously awaiting Elizabeth's return. Clad only in a full length, forest green satin robe, the witch was oblivious to the bite of the cold.

An eagle sailed across the face of the moon and whirled down towards Cynara, who smiled and raised a hand in greeting. She had been separated from her lover for the better part of a week and was surprised and distressed to discover how badly she missed her. She had grown dependent on Elizabeth, not only for the services that she performed, but for her proximity and companionship. Cynara understood that this need was well near addictive. Oh, but what a sweet addiction it was.

As the Dark Lady watched, the eagle converged upon her at bullet speed. To Cynara's alarm, it began to change in mid air, gaining size and substance as it approached the balcony; now a bird, now a shapeless mass and finally, the exquisite shape of her lover. Elizabeth hovered in the air like a humming bird, twenty feet above the rail. Then, as the dazzled Cynara looked on breathlessly, Elizabeth settled upon the stone parapet, floating down as lightly as a feather.

The two women stood regarding each other in silence, and then Cynara murmured, "That was truly amazing. I had no idea that you were capable of such a thing."

"Until that moment, neither did I," Elizabeth replied candidly, a ghost of a smile flirting across her lovely face. She stepped off of the rail and brushed her lips across her astounded lover's cheek, privately amused by Cynara's bafflement and her inability to divine the full scope of Elizabeth's power.

Cynara ushered Elizabeth into the suite and drew the door shut. She could feel the now familiar rush of her pulse that the presence of the blonde beauty inspired and knew that it wouldn't be long before she would have to relent to its lustful demand. Yet there was something that she had to know and so she asked, "Is Simms dead?"

Elizabeth's brow furrowed and her expression became guarded. "No, Petru's men were about to dispatch Simms, when they were killed by four Romanians. The four disposed of the bodies and spirited the two away."

Cynara's face flushed in frustrated anger. Wheeling about, she kicked an end table. It shattered as if it were made of paper-Mache. "That imbecile. He's failed me, but be assured...he will suffer the consequences."

"There's more," Elizabeth interrupted.

"What?" Cynara snapped, as always, petulant in failure.

"Nathaniel appeared to have sustained a serious injury. When he was carried away, he was bleeding copiously and seemed unconscious." As she spoke, Elizabeth became aware of an alien presence pressing out from within her. She fought to subjugate it, knowing that she must keep that presence secret from her sponsor.

"The men who took them, who were they?"

"I suspect that they were kindred to the human witch."

Cynara stiffened under the impact of her predestination. Despite her best efforts to forestall them, events moved towards some apocalyptic climax. She could destroy them, of that she was certain. Still, the inexorable tide of events alarmed her. It seemed inevitable that she would have to face them in one final, unimaginable battle. She had tried to penetrate the veil of destiny, but the outcome of the impending confrontation obstinately refused to reveal itself under her gaze.

She glanced to Elizabeth, who stood watching her closely. The presence of the other woman reassured Cynara. ' _As long as she stands by me, I'm invincible_ ,' she thought. But will she, came a whisper from her traitorous subconscious. Cynara turned her thoughts away from such villainous whispers. They were too troubling even to consider. In a muted, distant voice, she declared, "It's time to flex some muscle, to seize the initiative in a fashion that will demonstrate my invincibility in painfully clear terms."

Elizabeth smiled and there was a genuine warmth therein that caused all of Cynara's misgivings to dissipate. Cynara smiled in response, but her smile evaporated as her face constricted into a rictus of agony. Her back arched like a fully drawn bow seconds before she collapsed to the carpet.

"Cynara?" Elizabeth cried, startled and as near to losing her composure as she had ever been. The black haired beauty writhed in the grip of a consuming agony. Cynara's head rolled back, exposing her delicate throat. Elizabeth knelt beside her sponsor, trying to avoid the flailing arms and feet. Taking a firm grip upon Cynara's shoulders, Elizabeth straddled the other woman's torso. Cynara's entire body felt as though it were at war with itself. No, that was not quite accurate, Elizabeth amended. Not at war with itself, but with something within itself. Feeling an icy calm descending upon her, she placed her palm upon Cynara's sweat soaked forehead and closed her eyes.

4

Contayza was being drawn through the portal, through a hellish blackness where she sped across space and time in a lightless blur. The darkness gave way to a milky light. She saw a young girl, petulant and vain and wondered if that girl was herself. She saw other things, all sickening and terrible, but through it all she saw the girl evolve into a beautiful woman.

As Contayza approached the woman, she could see her begin to change in the abstract context of whatever delusion in which she now found herself. That's Cynara, Contayza gleaned excitedly. In the flash of a smile, the thing that had been Cynara was transformed into a grotesque black spider. Its large, bulbous body was divided into articulated segments which allowed the creature to rear up on its two sets of rear legs. Its mandibles clicked wickedly as Contayza approached.

Contayza glanced along the length of a gigantic satiny web which spread from horizon to horizon, fading off into the blackness. All through the length of the web, hopelessly trapped victims struggled to extricate themselves from the sticky strands. Interspersed amongst the still living prisoners were the half consumed remains of Cynara's past victims. Contayza's heart tightened at the sight of the tortured faces while her ears rang with the heart-wrenching screams of agony and despair.

The thing addressed her, its arachnid voice high and insectile, "Come little girl. I've reserved a special place for you. You shall be the center piece of my collection."

"Never!" Contayza spat venomously as she steeled herself for the approaching collision. The spider braced itself. Contayza slammed into and then through it. Utter blackness closed about her...a darkness that she knew to be more than just the simple absence of light. This was thick and suffocating. Instinctively, Contayza understood that she had smashed her way into the heart of the Dark Lady's soul. The stench of corruption was palpable and assailed her senses. Desperate to be free, she began to flail and hammer at the restraining fabric of Cynara's mind. Muffled wails of pain filtered to her ears.

"I'm hurting her. I'm hurting the bitch!" Contayza exclaimed with a maniacal glee. Somehow the mark on this Simpson's chest, the mark of the demon, had provided her with a conduit to her reviled enemy. Still more astounding was the realization that she had caught the Dark Lady with her defenses down. Now she could hurt her, possibly even kill her.

The notion inspired her to channel all of her telekinetic powers and release them in one frenetic burst. Cynara's body quaked in a paroxysm of agony. Her back arched until only her feet and her head touched the floor. The violence of her reaction pitched Elizabeth to the carpet. The blonde regained her feet and stood watching Cynara's moment of torment with a dispassionate fascination. She had never imagined that the demon could be so vulnerable to an attack of this kind.

The exertion of the last assault had nearly depleted Contayza's reserve of energy, but she had not been able to crack the witch's vice. With a thread of panic she saw that if Cynara were to recover now, she would be caught in a totally indefensible position. Somewhere in the deepest recesses of her mind, she became aware of a low moan as blood began to run freely from Nathaniel Simpson's nose.

The conflict with Cynara was extracting a heavy toll upon its host. Some instinct for preservation warned Contayza that she would be trapped in Cynara's pit of darkness should the American die. Still, she was so close to achieving what she had lived for over the past eight years. She had shaken Cynara to the black roots of her very being. Perhaps there would never be another such opportunity and so Contayza decided to risk another furious assault. Closing her eyes, she began the focusing process which would channel her power the way a lens might focus the sun's rays.

Cynara rolled wildly about the carpet, writhing in torment. She had never tasted such hellish agony, not in all the years of her existence. It was huge, blocking all of her faculties for thought or reaction. She managed a high, keening shriek which shattered a crystal vase on a nearby table. Something had gotten inside of her and was systematically tearing her apart.

"Should I intervene or let it end by allowing her to die?" Elizabeth considered aloud. No, Cynara was not likely to die by the human witch's hand. Only the sacred dagger of her turning would empower a human to take her life. Vulnerable as she was now, Elizabeth could easily destroy her sponsor. She grimaced at the notion, knowing that the prisoner was the source of such traitorous thoughts. Watching the Dark Lady thrash spasmodically about, the blond was forced to assess her personal feelings for Cynara. What she felt was a comfortable indifference toward the older demon, who could be incomprehensibly savage or exceedingly tender.

There could be little doubt that Cynara believed that she loved Elizabeth or felt something that was her equivalent of that sacred emotion. Deciding that she was indebted to the Dark Lady for that much, Elizabeth crossed back to her sponsor, knelt before her and placed the flat of her hand along the hollows of Cynara's sweaty temples.

5

Jimmy and Ivan stood riveted to the ground, unable to fathom what was happening. Among the men present there was a general impression that some colossal force was vibrating through the gypsy queen and the American. Rigid, she stood with her chin upon her chest as her body shook as if from some tremendous exertion. Nath resembled a piece of tormented statuary. His eyes were turned towards the heavens and blood coursed freely down his face.

The extremity of Nath's peril finally broke Jimmy's trance. He wheeled upon Ivan and barked, "She's killing him, goddamn it. We've got to do something."

Ivan shrugged his shoulders helplessly, paralyzed by indecision and a superstitious dread. He had grown accustomed to the reality of Contayza's telekinetic power, but he had never been exposed to anything like this. Simms cursed and began to move towards the pair, but Ivan prevented him from reaching the two. "No, don't touch them. It...it could be dangerous."

Jimmy impatiently shook Prowzi off but, before he could reach the pair, the episode came to an abrupt and dramatic conclusion.

6

When Contayza had attained her state of readiness, she unleashed another bolt of psychic lightening. She waited for the Dark Lady's cataclysmic reaction, but none came. Incredibly, something had absorbed the force of her blow. As she gazed about in amazement, Tayza realized that the astral battlefield had changed. She stood before the web, but the spider was now gone. Cynara hung limply at the web's silken center. Occasionally her body would twitch as another painful contraction rocked her. ' _She's dying_!' Contayza concluded gleefully.

"No, not dying but certainly suffering miserably," issued a lovely, melodic voice from somewhere behind her. Startled, she wheeled about to confront an angelic woman, who hovered in the air above her. The woman was possessed of an ethereal quality which stunned the gypsy into silence. Her eyes were a most spectacular and unlikely shade of violet. She regarded Contayza with an unearthly detachment which lent her an air of holiness.

"You will not destroy Cynara this way. You will succeed only in killing your host, Nathaniel and in so doing, will kill yourself. You may inflict a great deal of pain upon Cynara but you will not kill her."

"Who are you?" Contayza stammered, disconcerted by the mysterious woman and her unexpected appearance.

"In time you will come to know. For now, all that really matters is that your host grows weaker with every passing second. Be patient girl, your road to Cynara is forged in the steel of predestination. Content yourself with what you've done and go while you still can."

Contayza glanced indecisively from the cryptic blonde to the sprawled form of her sworn enemy. Though she had no reason to, Contayza discerned the truth in the woman's reasoned declaration. These three would come together again in some unknowable final battle. Still, Contayza being Contayza could not leave without some final parting shot. Floating weightlessly over to where Cynara lay, she grabbed a handful of the witch's hair and jerked her head forward. "Remember how I've hurt you today," she spat menacingly. "When next we meet, I'll take your whore's heart."

Cynara's eyes rolled sightlessly in their sockets. Contayza gathered her saliva and spat into the Dark Lady's face. Then she slapped her face forehand and backhand. Rising, she turned and strode past Elizabeth. She paused and extended a hand of salutation towards the blond. "Thank you. I hope that we'll meet again."

"I'm certain that we will," the arcane stranger replied in a voice fraught with hidden implication. Contayza frowned and attempted to read the blond but found her mind to be a stone wall. With the slightest hint of impatience, the angel commanded, "Go girl! Your doorway is closing."

Without further hesitation, Contayza commenced the immeasurable journey back through the doorway and into her own mind.

7

When all of the players had left the stage, the body of Nathaniel Simpson collapsed weakly to the snow covered ground. There he jerked convulsively for a moment and lay still. Contayza projected back into herself and rejoined her physical body with a visceral shudder. She staggered slightly, tottered but did not fall. Her thoughts raged like a wild cat fire, trying to pull her in a thousand different directions at once. The buzz in her head was nearly maddening and beneath it she was cognizant of the rapid approach of total exhaustion. Weariness wormed its way into every muscle, every fiber of her body. She had never before expended so much energy. Despite her trembling weariness there came a certain exhilaration over what she had accomplished. She had shaken the witch to her very foundations. In her mind, Cynara was no longer a nightmare legend. Now Contayza knew that she had form and substance and more significantly, knew that she could be hurt.

An anguished moan brought Contayza out of her reverie. The one called Simms knelt over the sprawled form of Simpson. He glanced up at Contayza, his eyes full of outrage and accusation. "Look what you've done to him. You have no right to treat us like this."

Nath groaned again. The sound was tremulous and reedy. In that single articulation of pain Contayza could hear just how close she had come to destroying not only him but herself as well. She was struck by a momentary twinge of guilt, but quickly cut it off, for she was a woman given to a ruthless pursuit of her dreams and goals. Pity was a misspent emotion that weakened both the giver and the receiver. Had that not been what her grandfather told her? Had it not been one of the many maxims by which had she directed her life? ' _In this situation sympathy could prove to be a dangerous commodity_ ,' she cautioned herself. These two were definitely connected to the Dark Lady, but as friends or allies? She could not say, but was determined to find out by whatever means necessary.

"Your friend will recover in time," she said coldly, her tone matching the chill of the forest air. Simms regarded her sourly but remained silent. "I have questions that you will answer, American. How do you know of Cynara Saravic?"

The question jolted Ivan and the other Romanians, who all took an involuntary step away from Simms. He could see a superstitious dread steal into their expressions at the mention of that wicked name. Neither did he fail to notice how the muzzles of the rifles were suddenly trained upon him again. He had little doubt that these men would kill him should this woman declare it to be necessary. He sighed internally. He was cold, tired and hungry, totally at the mercy of these deadly strangers. There was little to be gained by maintaining the tourist charade. He perceived that this Contayza could rip whatever knowledge she required from his mind like a demented surgeon.

The snow came then, driven into the small clearing on the icy wings of an arctic, biting wind. Not dressed for the cold, Jimmy began to tremble. Large flakes of snow settled on the fallen Simpson. Simms wondered what corner of hell the smaller man had been exiled to this time. "Look, I'll tell you what you want to know, but you've got to help Nath. Get him out of the cold and snow, make him comfortable or I'll seal up like a stubborn clam."

Contayza considered this for a moment and then began issuing terse instructions in her native tongue. Reluctantly, two men came forward and gently carried Nath towards one of the trailers. Contayza watched them go and then returned her attention to Simms. This woman is a hard piece of work, he thought. Like granite and ice. He wondered absently if she realized just how beautiful, how exquisite she was. He shook his head at the impertinence of the thought. You're only human Jimmy. As he watched her, a blushed spread over her lovely face, followed by a forbidding frown. She had read his last thought and been embarrassed by it...if only briefly.

"I've done what you asked. Now you will tell me what I wish to know. Remember that I'm in no mood for games, Mr. Simms," she admonished. Then she brusquely turned away and headed for the trailer. Ivan whispered to Jimmy, "Go with her and please do not provoke or antagonize her."

Then he and Jimmy set out after the Queen of the Gypsies.

Chapter Twenty One

1

Elizabeth stepped smoothly through the gateway that was Nathaniel Simpson. As in most things, she made the transition from the astral to the physical world with the same effortlessness that characterized all of her actions. She blinked to find herself sitting astride her agonized sponsor.

For Cynara, the transition between dimensions had not been nearly as effortless. She returned to her physical body to find it alive with an exquisite, flaming agony. In a spastic firing of neurons, her muscles convulsed, sending Elizabeth tumbling to the carpet.

"It burns!" she exclaimed wretchedly. "Oh Father, it burns."

Elizabeth rolled and came nimbly to her feet in time to see Cynara's tortured body stiffen dramatically, each limb drawn stiff with whip cord tautness. Her bare feet beat a muffled tattoo upon the piled carpet, while her fingernails raked gouges through the thick material. The Dark Lady appeared trapped in the throes of a torturous seizure. The normally unflappable Elizabeth was paralyzed by a momentary indecision.

The Dark Lady's clouded eyes found Elizabeth's. They were terror stricken and aflame with white hot pain. "Elizabeth, help me. Please!"

Despite the pleas, Elizabeth made no move toward Cynara. The witch's eyes widened fractionally and then Cynara was swept away by another tidal wave of suffering. A guttural groan tore from her throat, boiling up from deep in Cynara's gut. It boiled up, reaching deafening levels, before giving way to an explosive fit of vomiting. Steaming green sludge pumped from the Dark Lady's throat as though she were an erupting volcano. It went on for an interminable time, covering her face, her chest and the carpet around her. Elizabeth viewed it all with a clinical detachment which belied her humanity.

Eventually, the spasms abated, leaving Cynara to lie there, panting heavily in a pool of her own discharge. The two remained frozen like statues in some dark impressionist's drama. Perhaps as much as three minutes elapsed before Cynara was able to do more than wheeze helplessly. Then she turned weakly onto her side. As she did, the reeking vomit flowed from her torso in a viscous wave. Her limbs trembled from even the slightest exertion. For the second time, she called out to her companion. "Elizabeth, please help me stand."

Unlike Peter, the demon did not deny her master a second time.

The piteous quaver in Cynara's voice served to break Elizabeth's paralysis. She darted forward and assisted the Cynara to her feet. Encircling the demon's waist, she attempted to lead Cynara to the nearest wingback. As she moved forward, Cynara's feet became entangled in the torn carpet and she tumbled heavily onto an ornamental oak and glass serving table. The solid oak collapsed as the inlaid glass panels shattered, sending shards of glass in every direction. Several of these shards embedded themselves deep into Cynara's flesh. The witch uttered a strangled cry, more out of frustration and humiliation than any pain that the fall might have inflicted.

The extent of Cynara's plight managed to touch Elizabeth. Her helplessness, her vulnerability lent the Dark Lady an air of humanity which moved the usually unfeeling blonde to experience a momentary pity for her demonic sponsor.

"What is happening to me?" Cynara demanded miserably, as she pushed herself to her hands and knees. Elizabeth could endure no more. She bent down and lifted the beleaguered demon into her arms. In that moment the two creatures of darkness came as close to a spiritual harmony as their sensibilities allowed. Cradling Cynara's head against her breast, Elizabeth carried the demon into the master bedroom and tenderly set her down on the brass daybed.

"Elizabeth?" Cynara inquired weakly.

"I'm here Cynara. Lie still while I remove these glass splinters," Elizabeth instructed gently, not wanting to hear the devastated quiver in the other's voice. Cynara obediently lapsed into silence. Elizabeth undid the sash of Cynara's soiled robe and pulled back the ruined material. The flawless skin of Cynara's torso was marred by tiny slivers of glass, though no blood flowed from any of the lacerations. The glass twinkled like diamonds beneath the room's soft yellow light. Working with meticulous precision, Elizabeth slowly withdrew each sliver from Cynara's torso. During the entire forty minutes that this procedure took, Cynara neither spoke nor stirred. She appeared bewildered and uncharacteristically docile.

When the final bit of glass had been removed, Cynara's skin was as flawless as ever. She offered her lover a tender smile of gratitude. In response, Elizabeth leaned forward and kissed Cynara's cheek. "Shower and rest, Cynara. When you've recovered, we'll talk. Decide what to do from here."

Cynara nodded compliantly and stumbled in the direction of the shower. Her face was set in a mask of trepidation. Elizabeth suspected that the obvious pain was more psychic than physical. Cynara entered the shower, closing the door without glancing back.

2

When she was alone, Elizabeth rose and wandered into the main suite, leaving Cynara alone to lick her wounds in solitude. She crossed to the small wet bar, pouring herself a glass of sherry. Surveying the room, she saw that the violence of Cynara's seizure had reduced the furnishing to rubble. Elizabeth shrugged indifferently and carried her small crystal glass over to a plush armchair. Kicking off her shoes, she sat back to ponder the evening's madness.

As she closed her eyes, a flurry of exigent questions demanded her immediate consideration, but as was her nature, she set about trying to address them logically and methodically. Cynara had always seemed invulnerable to attack, yet this young woman had managed to catch the night queen completely off guard. She had come close to destroying Cynara, very well might have succeeded if she had been possessed of more discipline. How? She had gained access to Cynara through Nathaniel Simpson, who in another life had been her son. This girl, this Contayza Prowzi, had stumbled upon Nathaniel's brand. That mark had proven to be an alleyway, a road to another dimension where the soul lay exposed to the possible assault of one's enemies. Contayza had crossed the plain of that world and had discovered that Cynara's soul was exposed and vulnerable. The girl had struck with savage abandon and had not Elizabeth intervened, she might well have permanently damaged the Night Queen. By marking Nathaniel, Cynara had inadvertently provided her enemies with a direct pathway to her very heart.

She sipped her sherry, though the consumption of alcohol had no effect upon her other than a slight warming sensation. She found this typical of the way the sensory world touched her; a mild and abstract association, almost so slight as to be unnoticeable. This isolation struck her as sad. Not terrible or unbearable, only sad.

The first question automatically bred the second; did Cynara have any idea that she was making herself vulnerable by marking Simpson? Elizabeth concluded that she did not. Cynara was arrogant and reveled in the thrill of mortal danger and confrontation, but she was not foolhardy. She never would have left herself open to such peril. If she was not aware of the consequences of marking Simpson, then it followed that she had no real comprehension of the astral dimension or its rules and realities. Only by closing that door would she ensure that there would be no further recurrences of tonight's attack. As Elizabeth pondered this obvious necessity, an upheaval shook her insides. Trembling, the fabric of her mind stretched violently.

"Calm yourself," Elizabeth murmured distantly. She could feel the now familiar protest of the prisoner issuing from somewhere deep inside. Cynara had explained the ritual of the turning to Elizabeth. She had claimed that the ritual had destroyed certain aspects of the personality, while accentuating others. Though she had never voiced her suspicion to Cynara, Elizabeth came to believe that her true personality had never been completely eradicated. In rare cases, and she believed that she was one of these, a person's characteristics were merely suppressed. She likewise believed that if she were to focus deep inside of herself, she would penetrate the walls of the prison and come face to face with the other. Her natural inquisitiveness prompted her to attempt this, but a stronger instinct cautioned against such experimentation. The prisoner was strong and if she were to escape her bonds, the old Elizabeth Simpson might well cast out the interloper.

The prisoner was impassioned, while she was mechanical and bereft of real emotion. Again, her lacking saddened her, but nothing more.

The more that she considered these things, the more that Elizabeth became aware of her sponsor's vulnerability. Cynara had no access to Elizabeth's soul and only a rudimentary understanding of her own nature. She was one of the most feared demons only because of her nearly limitless capacity for brutality.

"Why am I thinking this?" she wondered, puzzled by the atypical bout of self analysis. You're assessing Cynara's strengths and vulnerabilities as though she were your adversary. That was crazy, of course. Had she wished to kill Cynara, she could have easily done so after the Prowzi woman had stunned her. Instead, she had come to Cynara's rescue, preventing the girl from inflicting further damage. Again the alien voice remarked, "Yes, but did you do this to save Cynara or because you feared that another assault would kill Nathaniel?"

The question bemused Elizabeth and in the end, she found herself incapable of providing an honest answer. The implications were staggering, almost too vast to consider. As she stared through the glass doors into the night sky beyond, a fine mist materialized. Slowly, the mist resolved itself into a single word. This solitary word filled Elizabeth with a paralyzing dread: BETRAYAL. At once, the spectral letters turned dark red and began to run like blood along a wall.

The click of the bedroom door caused the harrowing image to dissipate. Elizabeth found herself jolted back to reality with an abrupt start. Her breathing came in short, ragged bursts and her heart palpitated wildly in her heaving chest. She did not turn to face Cynara at once for fear that her face would betray her inner turmoil.

Her mind seized upon another confounding and distressing thought; just whom would she betray? There was a certain ambiguity in the omen. Cynara was her sponsor and at least physically, her lover, yet Nathaniel Simpson was the prisoner's son. For the first time, Elizabeth came to grasp the untenable conflict of her duality. When the final battle lines were drawn, she was destined to be a traitor regardless of which side she took.

"Elizabeth?" Cynara inquired from behind her. She closed her eyes and took another calming sip of sherry. Then she turned to face the Dark Lady. Cynara appeared to have regained something of her composure, though subtle traces of her beating were still evident. Her wet black hair hung limply around her pallid face and dark smudges dulled the glitter of her jewel like eyes. Even they had lost their luster. On unsteady legs, Cynara crossed over to where Elizabeth sat, settling into another of the suite's wingbacks. Gazing at her feet sheepishly, Cynara whispered, "You saved me tonight, Elizabeth. Thank you."

Elizabeth remained silent. Cynara's expressions of gratitude were rare happenings. She glanced up at Elizabeth briefly and then back down to the carpet. "I don't know what happened. How could that bitch have attacked me like that?"

"She used Nathaniel Simpson as a gateway." Elizabeth replied before she was even aware that she had spoken. She cursed herself at once, recognizing the gravity of her error.

Cynara's eyes widened and then narrowed speculatively as comprehension dawned in their golden depths. Her face broke into lines of consternation as though she couldn't believe her own stupidity. "She stumbled upon the fact that Simpson carries my mark, enabling her to gain direct access to my soul."

The expression of amazement upon Cynara's face was quite comical, yet Elizabeth could find no levity in the situation. Something, some outside force, seemed to be compelling her into the arms of that horrible demon; betrayal.

"It must never be allowed to happen again," Cynara growled in a voice inured by the grim need to survive. She scrutinized Elizabeth's face, searching for some hint of ambivalence, but found find only her lover's customary reserve. Interpreting this as agreement, she continued, "The only way to protect myself against this upstart would be to destroy her. Naturally, I have every intention of doing precisely that. She'll pay in spades for the measure of pain that she's inflicted upon me."

Elizabeth discerned the flinty glaze in Cynara's eyes. She could feel the very air thicken, as Cynara's formidable beast of revenge reared its ugly head, all fangs and venom. Cynara's thirst for retribution was a frightening thing to behold, making Elizabeth grateful that she was not the target of the Dark Lady's wrath. At once that flinty gaze was gone, replaced by the sly speculative scrutiny. "Killing that witch, however, will not entirely resolve the matter. As long as Simpson lives, my enemies will have a paved pathway to me. That brand is indelible. Only his death by my hand can erase it. Nathaniel must die. I have no other alternative in the matter."

Elizabeth maintained her neutral expression, though inside the prisoner was bellowing howls of protest. There seemed to be a malicious delight dawning in the dark shadows of Cynara's face; a taunting edge that grated upon Elizabeth's frayed nerves. She could feel a restless fury boiling like lava in the pit of her stomach. She was sorely tempted to slap Cynara's gloating face...to...

Disconcerted, she shook her head and then blinked. Looking back at Cynara, she could detect nothing other than a thirst for revenge. Elizabeth could no longer deny that she was losing control. Slowly, but inexorably, the prisoner was struggling to be free of her cage. ' _I'm losing my identity_ ,' she thought with a rare touch of acrimony. ' _How much longer before I fade from existence completely_.' Possessing no weapon other than the sheer strength of her will to protect her son, the prisoner was gradually regaining control. The notion staggered the demon, causing her to draw a deep breath. Nathaniel Simpson was the foundation upon which the prisoner was reconstructing herself. If he were to die, it could well be that she'd be relegated to her cage forever. Better yet, she might be eradicated altogether. Cynara had hit upon the intrinsic truth of the situation, though she could not see beyond her own selfish need; Nathaniel Simpson must die.

As Elizabeth contemplated this need, Cynara watched her closely. She imagined that she could hear some vast and incredibly complex machinery humming behind those lovely and inscrutable eyes. That nature and purpose of that machinery totally eluded the Dark Lady. Where once Elizabeth's mystery had attracted Cynara, now she found it worrisome and vaguely threatening. Cynara had expected Elizabeth to comply with her demand, but was shocked when the blonde offered, "Cynara, let me dispose of Nathaniel Simpson. For all that you've given me, let me provide you with this one small service as a token of my gratitude...and fealty for all you've done for me."

Cynara made no attempt to disguise her surprise. "Elizabeth, do you fully understand what it is that you're proposing to do? You're taking it upon yourself to kill your own son."

Suddenly livid, Elizabeth cast her glass aside. It shattered against the far wall, spraying shards of glass all over the dining room table. These shards lay upon the table reflecting shafts of light as though they were bits of ice.

"He was her son, not mine!" she rasped vehemently. "I may possess the body of your beloved Elizabeth Simpson, but any similarity between the two of us ends there. She is dead!"

She spat the last words as thought their taste sickened her. Stunned by Elizabeth's outburst, Cynara sat watching the other woman speechlessly. The blonde was so restrained, sometimes to the point of reticence that such animation was totally out of character. Yet, her rancorous declaration was true. The old Elizabeth, the one for whom Cynara had searched for over eighty years, was dead. Though she dearly loved this living statue of ice and mystery, Cynara possessed fond memories of the old Elizabeth, the one of passion and boundless enthusiasm.

When she saw that Cynara would say nothing, Elizabeth remarked, "I will kill Nathaniel Simpson. When this is done, the whole sorry matter of the Simpsons will be laid to rest. When I've extinguished the spark of his life, I will take a new name. Can you guess what that new name will be, Cynara?"

Cynara gaped at the other woman, shaking her head slowly like a woman who is seeing something that her mind cannot digest.

"I think that I will take the name of Alasha Saravic. After all, is this not what you wanted when you first found me, someone who could replace your revered sister? She is the one who you so darkly despised, yet so profoundly loved. In truth, you wished to fuck your sister, so I shall become your sister and you may fulfill your incestuous desire."

Cynara winced at the stinging vulgarity, nonplussed by Elizabeth's hysterical fury.

"Will that please you, Cynara? Shall I style my hair as she did? Shall I dress as she did? Become a preening, posturing, aristocratic clown as she was. As surely all of you were?" Elizabeth demanded angrily. Her cheeks had colored scarlet and her full breasts rose and fell in an impassioned rhythm.

"What's come over you?" Cynara demanded tightly. Her voice was fraught with a weary resignation as she climbed heavily to her feet, not relishing the prospect of disciplining Elizabeth. "How dare you speak to me with such blatant disrespect? Have I not always treated you with courtesy?"

"You've treated me like a concubine...like a pampered whore!" Elizabeth hissed. Her acidic retort ripped the air like a whip.

"Never neglect the fact that your soul is mine to do with as I choose. To destroy if I wish."

Neither woman was aware of the subtle reversal or roles. Now it was Cynara who was calm, while Elizabeth raged beneath the cloud of her emotional frenzy and her unraveling personality.

"Never threaten me, Cynara. I've tolerated enough of your couched threats. It was your stupidity and moronic lust for vengeance that put us in this position. If you had killed them all of those years ago, there would be no need for this morbid drama. Instead, you chose to satiate your malicious lust by playing childish cat and mouse games. As a consequence, your enemies stand together, made all the stronger by that alliance. I have a good mind to leave you alone to deal with this folly. At any rate, my days of being your puppet are over." By the time that she had concluded this diatribe, Elizabeth was actually screaming in Cynara's face, consumed by the geyser of vitriol that spewed forth like hot poison. "I've deferred to you all of these years, let you lead me without question and you've repaid my devotion by embroiling us in a pointless sideshow that could well be the end of us both, but I..."

"Enough!" Cynara roared. "I've heard all of the insolence that I'm going to tolerate."

Before the Dark Lady could utter another word, Elizabeth's hand flashed out like blistering lightening. The blow struck Cynara high on the cheek. The smack of flesh on flesh was as loud as the report of a small pistol. The Dark Lady stumbled backwards as Elizabeth advanced upon her, striking her with three short hammer blows to the face. Even as she toppled to the carpet, Cynara thought, ' _She's gone mad_.' It happened occasionally. Demons could be driven to insanity by their own poison. But Elizabeth? Surely not. She was the most stable creature that Cynara had ever encountered.

As she considered this, the enraged Simpson hoisted her to her feet by the hair of her head. A wave of surrealism washed over Cynara. She was the undisputed Queen of the Night. All of this must be some manner of evil enchantment.

Gripping Cynara roughly by the throat and the sash of her robe, Elizabeth hefted her sponsor above her head and heaved her towards the bedroom door. Cynara smashed into the heavy wood and then through it as if it were made of dried kindling. The Romanian hit the floor with a guttural grunt, rolled to her side and attempted to climb to her feet. Elizabeth glided through the doorway, casually kicking the ruined door from its frame. As she approached Cynara, she brought her left foot up in a savage arc, connecting squarely with her sponsor's chin. The stunned night creature rolled onto her back, gazing dazedly up at Elizabeth. Cynara realized that her lover's eyes had turned from amethyst to blazing orange. ' _She really means to kill me_ ,' Cynara realized, as much in amazement as terror.

As if in affirmation of this, Elizabeth effortlessly lifted an oak dresser and brought it crashing down onto Cynara's torso.

"How does it feel? Is the pain not exquisite?" Elizabeth inquired viciously. Thrusting her foot into Cynara's face, Elizabeth mimicked the Dark Lady. "Kiss my foot. Relish the taste. Is it not heaven come to earth?"

Using her legs, Cynara attempted to propel herself away from her enraged tormentor. To her amazed consternation, she could not bring herself to retaliate. Elizabeth did not strike. She laid back her head and issued a primal howl, a piteous mixture of outrage and grief. Cynara managed to stumble to her feet, but Elizabeth pivoted on her left leg and spun about, driving her right heel directly into Cynara's unprotected jaw. Cynara's reaction was instantaneous. She crumpled to the carpet as though she had been bludgeoned by a celestial lightening bolt. As her pain wracked body twitched spastically, it occurred to her that the beast was her only hope, but the beast refused to surface.

Defenseless, she was reduced to lying at Elizabeth's feet, awaiting the heavy fall of the blow she felt certain must surely follow. Through pain muddled eyes, she glanced up to see a sight that shattered her senses more thoroughly than Elizabeth's savage attack ever could.

Elizabeth stood amidst the ruins of the master bedroom, with her chin resting heavily upon her chest. Tears streamed freely down her angelic face, as she cried unashamedly before her battered sponsor. Cynara attempted to regain her feet, but the combined effect of Prowzi's assault and Elizabeth's brutal beating spilled her onto the bed.

"Cynara?" Elizabeth wailed through her despair and then fell to her knees. Her distraction had driven her mad and compelled her to lash out at the only thing that connected her to reality. Her very soul...as mechanical and cold as it was...was being consumed from the inside out, while she could only stand idly by and watch. In an instant, her towering rage melted like snow to flame, replaced by an immense anguish. The discovery of her true nature tormented her without surcease. She was neither a demon nor a human. She existed in the nether regions, where there could be no true sentiment or emotion; only a bleak and mind warping sameness. Tonight's flight into madness demonstrated just how close to utter dissolution she was.

In abjection, she began to crawl toward the bed. "Please Cynara, this is destroying me. It has to end. They must die." In a strangled voice, she added, "Or I will."

Elizabeth's cowering, submissive posture suggested that she fully expected Cynara to retaliate. The Dark Lady could feel an irresistible urge to do precisely that, but her weakened condition and the fascinating spectacle of Elizabeth's tears forestalled her. As Elizabeth moved closer, Cynara was forced to appraise her for the first time since she had turned her some twenty years before. This was not a legitimate version of the woman that she had killed. Nor was she a true demon. Elizabeth was a creature who resisted categorization. There had never been that requisite black core to her soul and thus she lacked the foundation upon which a true demon was constructed. Even at her worst, there appeared to be an invisible filter that removed her from her deeds, no matter how heinous.

"Cynara, let me end this. I'll never ask anything of you again," Elizabeth pleaded. Crawling on her knees before Cynara, she slowly undid the satin sash at the Dark Lady's waist. As her fingers moved nimbly, the blonde's lower lip trembled and Cynara watched, mesmerized, as tears coursed over the ridges of her exquisite cheekbones. These tears confirmed the rarity of this enigmatic creature. A demon of the Dark Prince could shed no tears. There was a beguiling beauty in the droplets that glistened on Elizabeth's face, even though Cynara had no way of comprehending the wretched grief that lay behind them. The scarlet sash came undone and the flaps of the robe were tenderly pushed aside. Already fading red welts sullied the flawless skin of Cynara's torso. At the sight of the carnage, Elizabeth made a small sound in the back of her throat. "I'm so sorry...so sorry."

The unbridled anguish in her lover's voice affected Cynara in fundamental ways that she had not believed possible. She extended her hand towards Elizabeth's face, catching a falling tear on her finger. It was surprisingly warm and somehow erotic. Slowly, she carried it to her full lips and tasted it with the tip of her tongue. The liquid was sweet and salty, so unlike the bitter anguish that it conveyed. Cynara closed her eyes and peered into her dark heart. There, deep in the black soil, soured by malice and hatred, a single lovely flower bloomed. That flower was forgiveness. In a thick voice she whispered, "Tomorrow, you will leave for the north. I will leave Nathaniel Simpson to you. I will dispose of Simms and the whore.

The other demon's face shone with gratitude. Her eyes, their luster enhanced by the tears, glowed like twin diamonds. "Elizabeth, you are the most precious thing in my life. Now come."

Simpson bent forward and tenderly laid a kiss upon Cynara's flat abdomen, running her warm, wet tongue along Cynara's torso to the under swell of her full breasts. Her tears continued to fall like warm rain on the witch's flesh. The flood of electricity caused Cynara's body to arch and time flowed into itself.

3

The next morning dawned cool and slate gray. The two women stood on the balcony of their suite, gazing at each other with a hint of sadness and a pervasive sense of finality. The moment played itself out and Cynara broke its pall by saying, "Farewell Elizabeth. We'll meet again in Chevru...when all of this is over."

With an oddly appropriate formality, Cynara kissed Elizabeth's cheek and stepped back. Elizabeth offered her the ghost of a smile. Then she extended her arms and began to spin as though she were a dervish. In the next beat of a heart, she had become an eagle, beautiful and deadly. It sat on the stone parapet, regarding Cynara through alien and inscrutable eyes. Then, with a casual flip of its powerful wings, it took to the heavens.

"Goodbye, Elizabeth," Cynara whispered as the eagle ascended into the brooding clouds. She watched as it climbed higher on the frigid winds. When it had passed from sight, she turned and drifted back into the suite, feeling more utterly alone than at any time since the earliest days of her turning. The drama which she had set in motion nearly twenty years before had entered its climactic final act.

Chapter Twenty Two

1

Jimmy was led into a small trailer, which he estimated must be at least thirty years old. The sparse furnishings consisted of a small card table, two chairs and two old and seemingly untrustworthy cots. Nathaniel lay upon one of these, unmoving as the dead in his unconsciousness.

Ivan led Simms through the door just as Contayza lit an ancient kerosene lamp. Its greasy yellow light cast a dim and ineffectual glow over the trailer's interior. Ivan motioned for Simms to sit in one of the two chairs. As Jimmy did, his damaged ribs throbbed in a sickening wave of pain. In the excitement of what had occurred outside, he had managed to forget about them, but exhaustion and cold brought the pain back with renewed vigor. Ivan did not fail to notice the pain flash across the American's face and said to Contayza, "These men need attention and then rest, Tayza. Both were hurt in the confrontation with Petru's henchmen."

Contayza dismissed his protest with an impatient glance. "There'll be time enough for that after they've answered my questions."

She shifted her attention to Simms. She was a beautiful woman, endowed with a riveting intensity that was both hypnotic and unnerving. Again his mind drew an automatic comparison to Cynara. He wondered if the girl's resemblance to Cynara ended with an imposing beauty.

For her part, she found herself attracted to the open frankness with which he gazed at her. There was an honest and direct aspect to the man that she found appealing. Still, she could not be deterred by animal attraction. Her single mindedness allowed her to thrust it aside. "Do you understand what happened tonight?"

"To some extent. I know that you have a special talent. A powerful one, I think," he added softly. The pain in his side and the fire in her spectacular amber eyes made it nearly impossible to think coherently. He shivered as a spear of pain lanced his side. Her stern expression softened slightly. Without turning, she instructed Ivan to bring coffee for the two Americans.

She sat in a chair next to Simms. "Your friend is very ill."

She watched Nathaniel for a moment. Her proximity sparked a heat that was more chemical than real. There was no point in denying that she excited him. It had been a long time since he had felt attracted to anyone or anything. Alternating waves of light and shadow flowed over her profile bestowing upon her a celestial aspect as though she might be angelic.

"You know of Cynara Saravic," The statement was flat and definitive.

"Yes, we know each other intimately," Jimmy responded. It was true; they had shared pain together the way lovers will share the magical moments of tenderness.

"She is your enemy then?" Again the beauty's voice conveyed the impression of foreknowledge.

"Mortal enemies," He paused and then added, "She killed my parents. She killed Nath's mother as well."

There was an intense flicker in Tayza's eyes, but her tone remained guardedly neutral. "I see. Thus, you've come here seeking revenge for the deaths of your parents?"

"It's not as simple as all of that. Our reasons for coming are complex. I doubt that I could put them into words that would make any sense." His tongue became tied. It wasn't easy to formulate a rational explanation of the emotions that had prompted him to give up his life to pursue this Hell spawn half way across the world. Contayza read his thoughts and divined some of his confusion. ' _This man is adrift on waters that he neither understands nor wants to sail on_ ,' she realized.

"Then tell me why you would want to give up whatever life you left behind to pursue a creature as deadly as Cynara?"

Jimmy shrugged evasively. How could he provide her with an answer when he couldn't provide himself with a cogent reason for doing this? He knew only that the reasons lay somewhere between obligation and exigency. "I'm doing it because it's something that I just have to do. I can't put it in any better a way than that. What about you? Why are you so interested in finding Cynara?"

Contayza's expression darkened perceptibly. "I have been bred to it. I have been selected; called by my ancestors' demand for retribution. I will destroy Cynara. It is my destiny."

Her voice was quavering and low, made fierce by conviction; admirable, yet somewhat unnerving in its zealousness. At that moment, Ivan returned carrying two cups of boiling coffee. He sat one on the floor next to Nathaniel and placed the other next to Jimmy. Then he went to stand behind Contayza. His posture indicated that he was accustomed to deferring to the woman.

Simms bent down and retrieved the cup, grateful for its warmth. He was cold and hurting, but something advised him to hide his pain. He decided that it was preferable that Contayza did not perceive him as weak. He closed his eyes as the coffee worked its magic on his insides. Feeling marginally better, he waited silently for Contayza to continue. Inside, he knew that this interrogation was no different from the one that Petru had subjected them to, but he could muster no real outrage at the treatment. He was practical enough to understand that Contayza's beauty had a great deal to do with this.

"All right, so you've come here to find and presumably kill Cynara. I accept that. Still, there are a lot of questions that require answers before I can decide how to deal with you," The thinly disguised threat was not lost upon Simms.

"Tell me about the mark on Nathaniel's chest."

"There is really not much to tell. Cynara branded him when he was four years old. Just before she killed his mother."

"That's all?" Tayza asked with a raise of a thin, tapered eyebrow.

"Basically," he replied evenly. There was a sharp explosion of pain in his injured ribs. He cradled his side, half standing and spilling the scalding contents of his cup onto the floor. He stood there swaying and gasping for breath. Contayza watched him impassively and he realized, ' _Jesus Christ, she's done this to me_.'

Apparently, Ivan realized what had happened as well, for he grabbed Contayza's shoulder and spun her to face him. In Romanian, he growled, "That's enough, girl. I'll tolerate a lot of things, but I will not condone torture. These men did not ask to be here. They are our guests and deserve to be treated with courtesy. I will not permit you to do this. You shame us. You bring shame to our grandfather."

The last seemed to sting Contayza. Her jaw stiffened indignantly and she glared at her brother. Ivan refused to avert his eyes and finally Contayza dropped hers. Softly, she said. "All right, Ivan. As you wish."

She turned to Jimmy and intoned gravely. "Mr. Simms, I apologize. I had no right to do that."

Jimmy said nothing, only nodded stiffly. Tayza pursed her lips at his refusal to accept her proffered apology. "Please tell me how your companion came by the demon's mark. I must know."

There was a beseeching tone in her voice that Jimmy was powerless to resist." It's a long story and there's a part of it that I can only guess at. I'll tell it to you as best I can."

Taking a deep breath, Jimmy began to tell the Romanians the tale of the things that had befallen them since the days of their childhood. He spoke in an even, inflectionless tone as though he were recounting the events of another person's life or perhaps the life of a fantasy character. As Contayza listened she began to develop a grudging respect for the two strangers.

2

When Jimmy had concluded the telling of his tale, a charged hush descended upon the three. Ivan looked to Simms with an expression that alternated between respect and admiration. Contayza's gaze fell upon the floor, her brow furrowed in lines of concentration as she considered all of what this stranger had told her. Her mind was abuzz with excitement, though she managed to hide this behind a speculative expression. Her gaze shifted to the sleeping form of Nathaniel Simpson. It suddenly came to her that he was the key upon which events might hinge.

"So, if I am to understand what you've told me, Cynara has summoned you here to conclude ' _unfinished business_.' Why now...after twenty years?"

"I've asked myself exactly that question maybe a thousand times in the past six months. The only thing that I can think of is that, For Cynara, time has no real meaning. For her twenty years is like a day to you and I. I can't offer any other plausible explanation."

"You say that Nathaniel was burnt alive. You're implying that he can't die?"

"Yes. At least, that is what I thought until today. Whatever happened between the two of you took a heavy toll on him. He's suffered tremendously, Contayza. No one should ever have to endure what he has." Jimmy broke off, hoping that his appeal for compassion had not fallen upon deaf ears. She said nothing, instead continuing to watch the dormant Simpson, while a cryptic light blazed in her intense eyes. When she spoke again, her voice seemed capricious and distant. "She confronted him here in Romania. Why did she simply not kill him then?"

"I wasn't there. It happened only last night and he was too traumatized to really explain what had passed between them. I get the impression that she subjected him to some kind of test. Then she told him that we would fight our final fight in a place called Chevru."

"Chevru? In the Province of Bistrita Nasaud?" Ivan exclaimed incredulously. "If this is really the same Cynara Saravic, surely she would not be so arrogant as to go there?"

"That is exactly where she would go," Contayza contradicted. "It would be a typical expression of her contempt for our people. Chevru..." she mused. "So it will be Chevru."

There was an exuberance in Contayza's voice and in her amber eyes that was akin to religious zeal. ' _She wants Cynara_ ,' Jimmy realized. ' _More than Nath or I want her. She looks as though she would be delighted to bathe in Cynara's blood_.' The vivid image made him shiver. Then a perplexed shadow clouded her face. "Why would she tell him that?"

"It's all part of some wicked little game that Cynara's playing. I can't even guess beyond that, except to say that it may be an expression of her contempt for the both of us."

Contayza nodded stiffly. His answer sounded earnest enough and his face and mind held a directness and honesty that she admired, but the other man was an unintelligible hieroglyph. Even her extraordinary perception could not penetrate the veil of his thoughts and thus he frightened her in ways that she could not articulate. Their sudden and dramatic appearance was too bizarre to be mere coincidence. Instead, it reeked of predestination. These two Americans clouded the picture, adding an intangible to what had been a relatively simple equation. No, it was preferable that she confront Cynara alone, with nothing to distract her from her purpose. These two men represented unknown quantities and it was not in her nature to trust strangers. "You will rest here tonight. Tomorrow Ivan will escort both yourself and your companion to a safe route out of the country."

Jimmy blinked, not quite certain what he had just heard. "I'm sorry, but I'm not following. What do you mean?"

"You can't very well stay in Romania. Petru's henchmen will be searching for you. Should they find you, it is likely that you would both simply disappear. You have no other option but to leave the country as soon as possible. You've provided me with the information that I needed and now you can go home," She smiled coolly and then stood, dismissing him as though he were no longer there.

Simms sat there, stunned to silence by the woman's presumptuous audacity. He stood, gazing at Contayza with an expression of disbelief. He had not pursued Cynara across half the globe and endured a giant's share of misery only to be dismissed by an egotistical, spoiled brat with delusions of grandeur.

Making no attempt to hide his irritation, he rose and challenged, "You arrogant little brat. I have a good mind to turn you over my knee and give you the spanking you so obviously deserve, but never received as a child."

Contayza wheeled about, regarded the American with a comical expression of shock. Over her shoulder, Simms could see that Ivan was having a difficult time concealing his amusement.

"What...what did you say to me?" Contayza stammered. It was quite obvious that she was not accustomed to being spoken to in this manner.

Slowly and evenly, Jimmy reiterated his statement, adding, "You're behaving like a petulant princess. You have us at a disadvantage, and although your brothers saved our lives, that doesn't give you the right to dismiss us like common house servants. We've come here to find Cynara and that is exactly what we intend to do."

Contayza had colored to a deep scarlet and Jimmy steeled himself in anticipation of her wrath. Instead of lashing out at him with a telekinetic artillery shell, she amazed him by crossing over to where he stood and pushing him back down into his chair. He sat down heavily, almost tumbling over backwards. With her hands curled into fists, she gazed down upon him with a glare that touched him with a palpable weight. "Cynara is mine. I'm warning you not to interfere."

"What do you know about Cynara?" Jimmy challenged, his temper now mastering his composure. "Where do you possibly get the notion that you can destroy Cynara? I've personally seen her in action. I know what she is capable of. She'll have a little girl like you for breakfast. I know what you are and I think that I can gauge the extent of your ability. Still, you don't know, can't know, just how powerful Cynara is. Attempting to destroy her without fully understand what she is would be suicide, plain and simple."

He seemed to consider this for a few seconds and then proposed, "Listen, if you must challenge Cynara, let Nathaniel and I come along. Together, we might have a legitimate chance."

"The two of you?" Contayza intoned sardonically. "What help could you possibly be? The two of you are barely able to stand. Had my brothers not intervened, your bodies would have been dumped in a roadside ditch by now. Your talk of confronting Cynara is hollow. I would advise that the two of you go home before your luck runs out." She stopped, wondering why she was going to such lengths to provoke this man. It seemed necessary to test his mettle, his fire. If so, she was not to be disappointed by his reaction.

Jimmy leapt to his feet and this time his chair did fall over. He towered above Contayza, but she refused to take a backward step.

"We've both faced Cynara and we're both here. I bet that you've had a lot of Gothic fantasies about her. Forget them. She would gleefully slaughter all of us with no more thought than we'd give to squashing a bug. She'll tear your head off and drink your blood as though it were wine."

"Jesus Christ," he exclaimed disgustedly. "Don't you think that we want to go home, to put all of this behind us and lead normal lives? We'd just be deluding ourselves. As long as Cynara is alive, Nath and I are prisoners. There is no freedom of choice for us. Don't you see that?"

His vehemence silenced her for a moment. Jimmy thought that she might even be considering his suggestion of an alliance. Suddenly a flinty shadow slipped across her face and she said, "You will rest here tonight. Tomorrow, Ivan will escort you to the Hungarian border."

Before Simms could protest, Contayza rose and strode out of the trailer. Dejectedly, Jimmy sat down and stared at his hands. Ivan walked over and placed a hand on the American's shoulder. "Don't judge her too harshly. I'll speak to her. I'll send food around with some painkillers and tape for your ribs."

Then he left the trailer, leaving the two men alone. Glancing over at Nath, Jimmy found himself envying the other man's exile into the void.

Chapter Twenty Three

1

It was seven o'clock in the evening and Yuro Petru was worried. No, worried was far too mild a term for what he was presently feeling. He had reached the stage where he was plain terrified and was within close proximity of outright panic. Something had gone terribly awry in the north. He was certain of that now. The men that he had dispatched were specialists in covert assassination. If they had failed, Yuro knew that he would suffer the consequences of their failure.

At about eleven o'clock the previous morning, he had received a call from his chief operative. Yuro had been informed that the two Americans were moving north. Petru had ignored the impulse to simply have them followed and determine where they might be going. It was likely that they were heading straight for Cynara Saravic.

He had tried to reason why she had wanted only one of the Americans killed, but found no plausible explanation. Whatever her reasons, they were her own and not for Petru to grasp.

"Cynara Saravic," He mouthed the words while staring into the blustery darkness of the Bucharest night. The name was like an evil incantation that sent rivers of ice water coursing through his veins. He was equipped to deal with terrorists, revolutionaries and enemies of the State, but supernatural entities were things far beyond his capacity for understanding, much less combat. Experience had taught Petru that fear was the greatest form of leverage. If one could discern an enemy's greatest fear, it then became possible to manipulate and eventually destroy them. Petru had spent the better part of the day reading the Morgan chronicles, which read like a lunatic's ravings. Still, Petru had the distinct impression that Saravic had been a master of manipulation and intimidation even then. He doubted that he could ever triumph in her game of intrigue. He shook his head, feeling the biting shackles of despair clamp down around his heart. He could entertain all of the useless thoughts of revenge that he wished, but it was all just a pointless and dangerous exercise in self-delusion.

He withdrew a handkerchief from his jacket and mopped his brow. He had issued his orders in very concise terms; kill Simms when the first opportunity presented itself, but under no circumstances must harm come to the other man, Simpson. He had emphasized the importance of not harming Simpson, recalling the menacing blonde's warning. The mere thought of that witch evoked a shiver of terror in Petru. He turned his thoughts away from her like a child fleeing from a night terror.

All through yesterday, Petru had grown increasingly anxious as the hours crawled by. He had managed to maintain his usual facade from years of practice. Inside, however, his nerve was slowly and inexorably coming unraveled. The hours crept by with a languid slowness, and still his field operatives did not report. By the end of that interminable day, he had become convinced that something had befallen the seven man team. He had made his way home with the awful certainty that he would soon have to answer to Cynara for his failure.

Now, a full day later, he sat at his desk with the Prowzi files spread before him, surprised that the Dark Lady had yet to make her appearance. Her continued absence did nothing to alleviate his anxiety. Instead, Yuro grew increasingly frantic, sure that ineffable horror was about to befall him.

Petru glanced up as the digital clock turned time with a mechanical click. It was fifteen minutes to eight now, but he could still not arouse himself to go, as though this office was an inviolable sanctuary. His eyes played over the twelve photos on his desk, settling upon the latest government photo of the girl. Every three years, each Romanian citizen was required to have an official photograph taken. That photo would be added to the citizen's internal service dossier. The photo before him had been taken only seven months before.

"Very lovely," Petru murmured as he gazed at Contayza Prowzi's government photo. The limpid amber eyes blazed intensely from above the ridges of her high cheekbones.

Could this gypsy beauty be part of the organization that had plagued him over the past three years? Surely not. Nonetheless, the collection of photos had been part of the witch's bit of silver for the deeds that he had and would do.

"A family of gypsies," he muttered thickly. He might normally have dismissed the idea that such a lot would be active revolutionaries as patently absurd, but Cynara and her stoic enforcer had changed his entire perception of reality. Yuro realized that there was a certain undeniable logic to all of this; if the revolutionaries were comprised of a single family it would go a great distance toward explaining how they had succeeded in maintaining absolute secrecy. He laid the girl's photo back amongst the others, shaking his head as he did.

This collection of photos represented a coupe that would pave his way to the very top of the internal security office, possibly even to the lofty mantle of Minister of Security. The prospect of attaining such dizzying heights did little to alleviate Petru's sullen mood. By dispatching a team of operatives into another section to operate covertly, he was jeopardizing his entire career. If the operation turned out to be a debacle, as he now feared it had, his head could well end up on the government chopping block.

He pushed back his chair and began to pace about his office, wondering how his life had become so bleak so quickly. The telephone rang then, shattering the intense silence and causing Yuro to utter a small cry. He rushed to it and picked up the receiver, struggling to suppress the tension that was gnawing at his insides.

"Petru, go ahead," he said abruptly.

"Comrade Director, I have a call from Major Beru on line three," his receptionist announced in her cool, efficient voice. Where once he had found the voice to be symbolic of the precise, structured Communist ethic, now he found it grating in the extreme.

"Put it through, Magrit," he snapped curtly.

There was a short buzz, and then Major Beru's voice came on the line. The Major's anxiety was clearly relayed across the hundreds of kilometers of micro thin wire. "We've just located the operatives, Director." Petru could hear the drawing of a deep breath and then the Major added, "They've all been murdered."

Petru's grip on the phone tightened and his jaw clenched, though he successfully staved off the urge to scream. When he felt sure that he would not cry out, he asked, "Where?"

"About thirty kilometers north of Brasov. We found the Lorries abandoned on a nearly overgrown side track. About forty meters into the thicket, we found the seven bodies abandoned in a drainage ditch. Each had been shot several times. Whoever did the killing had made certain that they were dead by putting a bullet directly into the center of each forehead."

Petru winced, familiar with the implications of that gesture. "Beru, is there any chance that the Americans were able to do this alone?"

"No," the Major responded emphatically. "The wounds were inflicted with automatic weapons. The pair was constantly under surveillance. It would have been impossible for them to have procured that kind of weaponry."

Petru's glance was drawn instinctively to the photos upon his desk. His throat constricted painfully. Events had taken on the shape of an ever tightening noose, closing steadily about his throat.

"Is there any sign of the two Americans?" he asked distantly.

"No. Their rental was found on the main expressway, but they were gone. The rental had suffered a great deal of damage, including several bullet holes, but it was still drivable. There was a fair amount of blood smeared on the dashboard, directly in front of the passenger seat."

Petru grimaced. Things had gone wrong, all right. He was not certain exactly how wrong, but he now stood poised on the brink of the abyss. If Simpson was dead, then so was he, and if the operatives were found, his career would be left in a shambles. He would do everything within his power to prevent the latter and prayed against the former.

"Major Beru, I want you to listen closely and do exactly as I ask. It is imperative that you be discreet, do you understand?"

"Yes, Comrade Director," Beru replied evenly. Had there been a hint of subtle satisfaction in his voice? Petru thought that there had and in his mind, the Major had just issued his own death warrant. By gaining leverage over Petru, the Major had gained an advantage that, should the Director be foolish enough to allow it, he would not hesitate to use when the opportunity presented itself. Naturally, a seasoned veteran of the Communist hierarchy, Petru would not allow Beru the opportunity to cash in on this bit of subterfuge.

"Major, those bodies must never be found. Dispose of them and when you've done this, set the Lorries aflame. Personally drive the Mercedes back to Bucharest. Once back, discuss this with no one and report directly to me."

"Shall I have one of my operatives remain here and try to pick up the trail of the Americans?" Beru asked.

"No! This side show has cost us enough lives already. When you've completed your assignment, come back and bring your entire team with you."

"Yes, Comrade Director," Beru concluded. Petru replaced the receiver in its cradle, swiveled about and resumed his perusal of the Romanian sky. Being a devoted Communist, he had never really believed in God; until now. He was no longer a Communist, though he was uncertain where he now fit into the scheme of things. He knew conclusively that his position as Director was a mere charade.

The phone rang again and he snapped it up, thinking that it would be Beru requesting some manner of clarification. Instead, his receptionist informed him that his wife was on line one. Yuro depressed the proper button and Ludmilla Petru's anxious voice filled his ear

"Yuro, I'm sorry to bother you at the office, but I wondered when you might be coming home?"

She was making an obvious effort to sound casual, but beneath the conversational tone he could perceive a distinct thread of tension. Petru had learned to detect such tiny indicators through the years. "Is there something the matter, Ludmilla?"

"No...no, it's just that it's getting late and I hoped that we might spend some time together tonight."

Petru glanced at the digital clock and was startled to find that it was now after ten. In his preoccupation with this entire affair, Petru had failed to notice the swift passage of time. Normally a meticulous man, this absent-mindedness shook him quite badly.

"I have one or two more things to attend to and then I'll be right home," he promised.

"Oh." He could clearly discern the disappointment on the other end and something beyond; an unease that Ludmilla could not completely disguise. Though clearly shaken, she concluded, "Very well, Yuro."

"Goodbye, Luda," he said affectionately.

"Goodbye... please come home," she added suddenly, desperately and then hung up.

Petru stared at the phone with a bemused expression and was about to hang up when another voice added, "Yes, Yuro, do come home."

His heart froze, almost stopping in his chest. That voice was indelibly branded in his memory. Clearly, it was the voice of the witch...the voice of Cynara Saravic. There was a sharp burst of derisive laughter and then a third voice added, "Yes, come home, boy. It's been a long time."

Yuro managed to suppress the scream only by biting his tongue. He had not heard that detestable voice in decades, but he still recalled it as though those years had flashed by in the blink of an eye. He slammed down the receiver and rushed out of the office, praying frantically that it was not too late.

2

Ludmilla Petru hung up the phone, feeling an abstract, but nearly incapacitating dread. Her husband's continued absence did little to placate that fear. All day, she had been plagued by the sense that an unseen peril was hovering over either herself or her husband. Though she tried to convince herself that such fears were childish, the stormy skies and coming of night fall made them impossible to ignore.

"Please come home Yuro," she pleaded and turned away from the telephone. This foolish anxiety irked a part of her. The pragmatic part that was proud to be a Russian Colonel's daughter. Still, there was another, more primal part of her that was every bit the Georgian farm girl. To that part, superstitious dread was an elemental part of life and well warranted.

Ludmilla had no idea what had inspired this anxiety attack. Things had suddenly shifted of late in both her love and her life. Yuro, who had always been so attentive and affectionate, had suddenly become distracted and distant. He bore the expression of a man who was sleepwalking. No, that was not quite accurate. Yuro looked more like a man who was being haunted. She had tried several times to draw him out, but he had been evasive and had dismissed her inquiries with an impatient wave of his hand.

"You've got to stop this, Luda," she berated herself. She was Yuro Petru's wife. He was a man of distinction in the Communist Party. There were allegations that he was ruthless and brutal, but she had dismissed them as fear and jealousy. This was a difficult era in the evolution of the party and he was required to be harsh at times. Sadly, rigidity was necessary if Romania was to remain prosperous and true to the communist cause.

The onset of the dripping pulled her out of her reverie, the metallic pinging causing her to cry out. The sound had issued clearly from the kitchen, exaggerated by the unusual stillness of the house.

' _Don't go in there, Luda_ ,' a tiny voice admonished.

"Oh, for goodness sake, stop this silliness," she insisted aloud. She pulled herself upright and strode into the kitchen. She was not a beautiful woman, but her pleasant face, perfect posture and statuesque body endowed her with an impressive bearing. She pushed through the kitchen door and glared about, almost daring the specters to appear.

The kitchen was empty as Jesus' tomb on the day of resurrection.

"See, I told you, silly woman," she chastised herself, though her relief was genuine enough.

The metallic pinging began again, coming in a machine gun burst. From where she stood, Ludmilla could see no water dripping from the faucet. She blinked in consternation, her face wrinkling into lines of concentration. She crossed the tiled floor, her heels resounding in the silence. The sink was as dry as the very halls of hell.

Still the sound of water echoed in the drainpipe. Heart thundering painfully, she bent forward and peered into the darkness.

What she saw within the tiny enclosure caused her to screech. A small red dot blinked like the opening and closing of a demonic eye. The dot appeared to be miles away as though her drain led down into Hades. A plume of red smoke belched forth then, filling the room with an acrid red mist.

Ludmilla gagged and holding her hand over her mouth, fled the kitchen. She raced toward the heavy oak doors with their ornamental handles. Extending her hand forward, she curled her palm around the handle. There was an intense argent flash and then the room filled with the stench of burning flesh. As Ludmilla pulled her hand away from the handle, the skin came away in long flaps. With eyes as wide as silver dollars, she held the hand up for examination. It was a ruined horror of raw muscle and tendon. Here and there, white hints of bone could be seen peeking through the blackened skin.

Clutching her wrist and moaning piteously, Ludmilla staggered backward. The handle gave off a molten glow as her lost skin sizzled like bacon in a skillet. The pain was enormous and for one horrifying moment, Ludmilla feared that she might faint. Only fear of the consequences prevented her from sliding into the void.

"What the hell is happening here?" she wailed at the door handle as though it might be the perpetrator of this madness.

There came a loud crash as something toppled over in the den. She could clearly hear something shuffling about in the darkness. She glanced longingly at the door, but quickly deduced that there would be no escape.

Ludmilla Petru was suddenly and thoroughly frightened, though not yet to the point of paralysis. Her heritage was one of perseverance and a steadfast refusal to submit to terror. Trying to quell the mounting panic, she crossed over to the fireplace and withdrew the poker from its holder over the stone hearth. Grasping it in her good hand, she quietly made her way to the door. Her wounded hand throbbed wickedly, making rational thought a triumph of will.

There seemed to be no chance of escaping whatever had invaded her house so it was better to confront it rather than cower helplessly in the darkness. She pushed open the door and groped along the wall in search of the light sensor. Passing her hand before it, she triggered the sensory mechanism and the room was at once flooded with a warm, muted yellow light.

She turned, expecting to come face to face with her tormentor, but was instead greeted with an empty room. The pounding of her heart virtually drowned out the surge of relief, but that sense of relief quickly dissipated when she glanced down at the beige rug. A trail of muddy boot prints led from the oak desk to the common wall between the den and the dining room. There, the left boot had left an impression, but the right had never come down as though the intruder had simply walked right through the wall.

Panic redoubled its grip upon Luda's heart. A block of black ice had formed deep in the pit of her guts. The thing that the missing boot print implied simply wasn't possible.

Still brandishing the poker, she backed out of the den. Another thunderous crack ruptured the tense silence, this time coming from the dining room. She could clearly distinguish the shattering of crystal. ' _My Italian goblets_ ,' she thought dumbly. This was followed by an angry bellow as the intruder cried out, "Where are you, boy! You've hid, but I'll find you. I'm going to give you what you've got coming, you impudent little bastard."

Ludmilla froze. The intruder seemed to be looking for a specific target upon which to vent his anger. Who? She was struck by the inexplicable certitude that all of this was somehow related to Yuro and his distraction of the past week.

The intruder appeared insane as he rampaged about the room, indiscriminately destroying anything that caught his attention.

"Oh, Yuro, where are you?" she whispered desperately. Stealing a glance at the door, she saw that the handle still glowed, mocking her in its intractable way. It occurred to her that she would have to face this deranged lunatic alone.

This thought had no sooner taken shape in her mind, when the oak door connecting the living room to the dining room was suddenly splintered into firewood. Ludmilla shrieked and leapt clear, refusing to surrender her grip on the poker. Something burst through the door and stood surveying the living room, his malefic gaze sweeping over its confines like a column of fire.

It was a man, or more precisely, it had once been a man. Some twist of dark magic had resurrected it as a vindictive abomination; a demented engine of destruction sent from the asylums of Hell. Ludmilla's breath seized in her throat and she had to consciously wrench her diaphragm up and down just to inhale. The things which served as clothes were rotting cerements of the grave. Only the green rubber boots seemed to have survived whatever trauma that had befallen this apparition.

His flesh was mottled and rotting, glowing a ghastly luminous yellow and its face was an absolute ruin. The skin had sloughed away from the bone and hung in great dangling flaps. One dull blue eye had collapsed back into its socket, but the other blazed at Ludmilla with an immutable enmity. In his left hand, the monstrosity brandished a long handled spade, the blade of which was thickly coated with rust. "Where's the boy, woman? Don't bother trying to hide him. I'll find him sooner or later."

Ludmilla attempted to speak, but the unreality of this nightmare had stunned her into silence. Abruptly, some atavistic instinct for survival assumed control of her senses and she darted forward, swinging the poker with a rising primal shriek. It caught the horror in the jaw with a liquid slap, rocking its head back on the rotting stalk of his neck. She paused for a second and then resumed her attack, unleashing a furious barrage of blows on the thing's head. One. Two. Three. Six. A dozen. The thing tottered and then collapsed to one knee, its head now little more than a pulp.

Gray fluid, thick with yellow flesh, leaked from the area where the poker had struck home. The resulting stench made Luda want to heave her roiling stomach, but she grimly fought to suppress the urge. Thinking that she had bested the thing, she stepped back and prepared to thrust the poker into its skull.

There was something elemental and distinctly primitive about this conflict. All of the dressings of civility were gone as Ludmilla darted forward, employing the poker like a jousting lance. Uttering a shrill cry of triumph, she surged forth, only to impale herself on the rusty end of the specter's shovel. Her own momentum carried her forward, driving the spade a full six inches into her abdomen.

The two stayed this way for an interminable length of time; him on his knees holding the spade thrust forward and her staring in disbelief at the rapidly spreading stain on her purple dress. Ludmilla opened her mouth to scream, but her cry was forestalled by a glut of blood that spewed from her mouth like water from a facet.

Sporting a wicked grin, the thing slowly rose to its feet, and with a malicious twist, jerked the shovel from Luda's abdomen. She staggered backward, as her intestines accordioned through the gaping wound, and then fell unceremoniously onto her back. She continued to twitch like a bug upon a pin, until the abomination finally struck a killing blow to the base of her skull.

"Now you'll listen, won't you?" the nightmare demanded. It raised the shovel above its head and then brought the edge of the blade down squarely upon Ludmilla Petru's neck.

3

Petru drove his government Mercedes through the icy streets of Bucharest like a man possessed. He was forced to come to a skidding halt several times, only averting collision by the slimmest of margins. Something horrible was about to happen, if indeed it already hadn't. The second voice on the line had been that of the witch and the third had most definitely been that of his paternal tormentor. Though he had tried to erase it from his mind, Yuro still recalled that baleful, drunken rasp.

He turned onto his crescent and came to a stop in front of his house. His breathing was labored and ragged as he climbed out of his car to discover that the interior of his house was submerged in a forbidding darkness. He hurried up the walk, but even as he did, some part of his mind declared its desire to be far away from this place. Hating that feeling of cowardice, he brushed it aside and exploded through the door.

He experienced a feeling of relief when the brass and stained glass porch lamp flicked into life to greet his arrival. That sensation of relief rapidly dissipated as soon as the door swung open.

Cynara stood watching him, obviously delighted by his reaction to her unexpected presence. On this dreary November night, she looked every inch the story book witch, attired in a dress of black velvet and belled sleeves. The material of the plunging neckline was trimmed in cool silver. The twin strips shimmered in the pale moonlight. The material appeared sorely tested by the weight of her breasts.

"Come, Yuro. I've been waiting for you," Cynara said, extending a hand toward Petru. As he moved to comply, Petru observed how Cynara's lovely eyes appeared less radiant tonight. Even her aloof demeanor seemed somehow contrived.

"It's a wicked night to be about, Yuro. Come inside," the witch breathed. Placing a hand upon Yuro's shoulder, Cynara ushered Petru into the foyer, then closed the door behind him with a finality that made the Romanian shiver.

Petru attempted to speak, but found that he could not. His sense that something horrible had befallen Luda robbed him of his ability to speak. He stepped into the living room, desperately hoping to find some sign of his beloved Ludmilla. The cold part of his mind, the part that turned a deaf ear to torture, informed him that Luda was already dead, irretrievably lost to him now.

The charade of the congenial hostess evaporated the instant that Cynara closed the door. She darted forward and clubbed the stricken Petru across the shoulders. He stumbled forward, hitting the carpeted floor with a muffled thud.

"You've failed me, bastard!" Cynara exploded, hovering over him like a penumbra. "I warned you of the consequences of failure, did I not?"

Cynara's towering rage caused Petru to fear that she might kill him where he lay. Instead, she grasped the lapels of his jacket and hauled him to his feet. "Your bumbling incompetence has allowed my enemies to congregate."

"My wife. Where is my wife?" Petru managed, suppressing his terror slightly.

Cynara's eyes narrowed to gleaming slits and her lips twisted into a feral grin. "She's in the kitchen, Yuro. Where every faithful wife should be. I told her to wait there until I sent you to her. She's a complaisant bitch."

She prodded Yuro toward the door leading into the kitchen. It was then that he first became aware of the eldritch odor that filled the house. He tried to place the smell and finally succeeded.

"Oh, Jesus. Mother of God, No!" he muttered. The smell of water gone sour assailed his nostrils. It was the kind of odor that he had come to associate with swamps in the spring. ' _Or a well that had been boarded up in a long time_.' With this last thought came the nascent stirring of primordial terror.

"Ludmilla!" he shrieked, tugging to be free of the witch. Uttering a spate of derisive laughter, she dropped her arms and let him go. He burst through the door and stopped dead in his tracks.

Back in the living room, Cynara smiled as Yuro's inarticulate wail of anguish shattered the silence. She paused and then followed him into the kitchen. Yuro had collapsed to his knees and was whimpering hysterically. On the utility island, Ludmilla Petru's head sat perched on a crystal cake tray. Her eyes were wide with terror and her mouth hung open in a mask of agony. Around the base of the neck thick blood congealed in the tray.

Yuro squeezed his eyes tight as though this might somehow eradiate the nightmare, erasing it from reality. Ludmilla had been the single private joy of his life, the one thing that he had genuinely loved. Now she was horribly dead. He wanted to cry, to scream, to take up the knife and cut out his own heart. Perhaps then he could assuage the pain, the irreducible sense of loss.

Cynara watched Petru suffer; feeding on his misery as though it might have been a rare and heady delicacy. She knelt beside the Director and put an arm about his trembling shoulders. He tried to recoil, but she held him fast. In a voice fraught with feigned sympathy, she began to speak. "You loved her, didn't you, Yuro? It's unfortunate that she had to bear the price for your failure. If it's any consolation, I'm told that she died admirably. She was a strong woman."

"It pained me to take her life, but you left me with no other alternative. I'm sure that you can appreciate that I'm attempting to impart a critical lesson. You have let me down and I have taken from you the thing that you love the most. There are things afoot that are far beyond your comprehension; vast conflicts and tremendous struggles for power. I've selected you to play a part in this war. Yet, you've failed to appreciate the solemn honor I've bestowed upon you. There are things that I can give you. Treasures beyond your imagining."

"Look at me, Yuro," she whispered.

He despised her; loathed her sadistic lust for brutality that had taken his most precious possession. Yet her words were undeniably compelling. They appealed to his instincts for power and the realization of his destiny. Beyond the loathing that he harbored for this monster, there existed the knowledge that she could actually deliver her outrageous promises. He turned his reddened eyes to hers. The amber flecked jewels gleamed beneath the long lashes, brazenly flashing a galaxy of possibilities behind those eyes. "I have taken your most prized possession as fair remuneration for your failure, but I can give you back so much. Do you see, Yuro, that I am the pathway to the realization of every dark desire of your soul? All that I require is your faithful service. Is this an unreasonable demand?"

She awaited his reply, gently stroking the hollow of his temple. No, it was not an unreasonable demand. Had she not provided him with the identities of his most persistent adversaries? She had and he had repaid her benevolence with failure. He could almost appreciate the justice that she had extracted.

"No, it isn't," he responded wistfully.

"You've lost Ludmilla, but I can give you back so much more. I can bring you an impassioned angel to fulfill your every desire; to cater, unquestioningly, to your every whim. Contayza Prowzi is the embodiment of your every dark fantasy. She could be yours. The warm, luxuriant breasts, the full hips and the eyes burning like liquid fire. These things may be yours to command alone, if only you would pledge fealty to me."

Petru's imagination constructed a mental portrait of the girl in all of her pride and defiance. She was truly magnificent. He could feel a black lust building within him; a fire that well near effaced the image of his dead wife's strong and handsome face.

"To give yourself to me," Cynara continued "you must first come to understand the intrinsic nature of what you are. Though you lack my power, we are one of a kind, you and I. Should you have the fortitude to face your blackness and reconcile yourself to it, serving me will be that much simpler. You have my personal assurance that the Prowzi girl shall be yours and that is only the first of the rewards which you shall be yours."

She bent toward him and he automatically inclined his head. Cynara pressed her full lips to his. As his dead wife's lifeless eyes stared down upon them, Petru gave himself to the dark lady's tenderness. The feel of the crushed velvet and the exquisite flesh beneath, numbed his misery, making it more palatable, if not inconsequential. She broke the contact and held him at arms length. "Do you pledge your service to me? Are you ready to accept your rightful role in my order?"

Her gaze bore into him, shredding his defenses and his petty delusions. This was a master to be served and respected, with the power to dispense ecstasy and pain. She had punished him tonight, but if he served her well, she would grant him favors which would make his suffering seem trivial by contrast. Without reluctance, he vowed, "I will serve you. Whatever you require of me, I will do."

Cynara smiled indulgently. "Then come into the den. We have much to discuss."

Yuro rose and followed his new mistress. In the thrall of the witch's spell he was able to face the spectacle of his wife's ruined body with only a mild twinge of regret.

4

Cynara elaborated upon her need of Yuro and as she did and as Petru came to grasp the essence of her machinations, he realized just how insidious this woman was. By the time that she had finished with her explanation, Petru's grimace had given way to a broad, twisted grin.

"You are clear on what I require?" she asked at last.

"Yes," Petru replied enthusiastically.

"Very good," the witch concluded. Then a shadow stole across her face. Her brow furrowed and Petru's heart did a nasty double beat. "To properly serve, one must be open and honest with their masters. A little knowledge can be a most dangerous commodity."

Petru frowned, not comprehending her instruction. As he watched dumbly, she produced a book and folder as though from the air. He recognized these to be Morgan's book and the information package on Cynara Simonovic. He suddenly shook his head in absent terror.

"A little knowledge can consume the knower, especially if it is misused. I would suggest that it would be wise if one were to consume that knowledge and then hold it deep inside of themselves.

She opened the book and perused the first page. As she quickly scanned the text, a smile rose to her sensuous lips. "Amazing! Such a childish ghost story."

Cynara casually ripped one of the pages from the book and held it out to Petru. "Come and feast upon your knowledge."

Petru gasped, knowing what she meant to have him do.

"Yuro?" she demanded insistently. Petru swallowed hard and took the page from the witch's long, aristocratic fingers. He then folded it into his mouth and began to chew. As he did, he thought of the promise of Contayza's silken thighs. Suddenly, his appetite became insatiable.

Chapter Twenty Four

1

As Yuro Petru endured his moment of humiliation and shame and then surrendered his soul to the Dark Lady, Jimmy and Nath passed the day in a sort of suspended animation. Morning had dawned pale and silent as huge flakes of snow floated down from the indifferent sky, appearing almost indolent in their descent. Nath slept fitfully through most of the long day, while Jimmy sat silently enduring the relentless ache in his side.

Near Eleven o'clock, the man named Pierca brought the pair two steaming mugs of coffee, along with eggs and several rashers of bacon. He placed the tray in front of Simms and left the room, avoiding eye contact with something akin to shame. Jimmy woke Nath and the two men devoured the food in silence. As he ate, Jimmy studied Nath. There was an unhealthy pallor about the smaller man and the simple act of eating appeared to require his every ounce of energy and concentration. He had suffered much and seemed to have reached the limit of his endurance.

"You're not well, are you, Nath?" Jimmy inquired.

"No, I'm not," Nath replied simply and then went back to eating. After a brief pause, he added conversationally, "I'm dying, Jimmy."

Jimmy shook his head in a subconscious gesture of denial. He was not prepared for this casual acceptance of death. "What are you talking about, Nath. You're tired and in desperate need of rest, but you're not dying."

Nath turned his eyes to the larger man and Jimmy's vehement denial withered on his lips. His normally incisive gaze had grown listless, his eyes dull. His face seemed beyond old, it appeared wizened. In that face, Jimmy recognized sinking desperation and close proximity to the grave. "Cynara's brand has turned sour. It has filled me with some malignant venom, rotting me from the inside out. If we don't find her and kill her soon, I'll die. Cynara can win this war by default, if she so chooses."

"We'll find her, Nath," Jimmy insisted savagely.

"Perhaps, but it is also possible that Contayza will elect to attack her through me again. If she tries, I'll never survive the trauma."

"She can't do that. I won't let her," Simms rasped, wondering how he could forestall such an eventuality, should Contayza elect to pursue it.

Nath shook his head sadly. "Don't be deluded, Jimmy. If she wishes to do so, there isn't a thing that we could do to stop her. I've experienced her power first hand. It's awesome. Terrifying. She is obsessed with destroying Cynara to the point where her fixation has occluded her sense of right and wrong. If she sees me as a gateway to killing Cynara, then she won't hesitate to use it."

Jimmy pondered this for a moment. He pictured the strong, uncompromising fire in her eyes and her willingness to torture him and knew that Nath was right. If Contayza suspected that she could gain access to Cynara through Nathaniel, then she would do so, irrespective of the consequences. He could sense the vice of circumstances tighten around him ever so slightly. If they had ever held control of their destiny, now it had vanished. Nath had returned to his breakfast, chewing his food with a mechanical detachment that touched Jimmy as vaguely repulsive. Frowning, he glanced away.

"Then we have to find a way to get out of here and go after Cynara on our own," Jimmy declared, mentally considering the options for escape. To his surprise, Nath began to chuckle. Jimmy glanced at the smaller man with a measure of exasperation. "What's funny?"

"You really don't see it, do you?" Nath replied, shaking his head regretfully. "It's out of our hands. We have no control over what may or may not happen next. "

"What the hell are you talking about?" Jimmy snapped.

At once, the levity vanished from Nathaniel's face. "El Zaltaro, Jimmy. Think back to your angel and his augury. Is it not apparent that our encounter with these gypsies was foretold in his augury? "

In all of the chaos that had befallen them since they had entered Romania, Jimmy had nearly forgotten about the splendid creature that they had encountered in the holding cell in El Zaltaro. What had he foretold? `The number of your fate is to be four...Two others will influence the outcome of your destiny...The first, you shall encounter in the course of your search.

Jimmy's mouth unhinged and he cursed his own lack of lack of foresight. "Are you saying that Contayza is the one who's supposed to help us?"

"Not necessarily," Nath amended. "The angel said that she could serve us well, not that she ' _would_ ' serve us well. He was not conclusive and it is possible that she may hinder us or prevent us from reaching Cynara altogether. Her attitude has been far from accommodating."

Jimmy frowned, as though the full ramifications of their dilemma were just making themselves clear to him. After a moment, Nath continued, "Essentially, we've progressed about as far as we can. From this point forth, our success depends upon the benevolence of our hostess and beyond that, our mysterious forth person. Events are on some kind of auto pilot now."

He paused and flashed Jimmy a fatalistic, fey grin "The only thing that I know with any degree of certitude is this; if we don't find Cynara soon, it isn't likely that I'll be around when we do."

Jimmy groped for the words that might sway his step brother from his position of desolation, but to his dismay, found that he could not produce a single conflicting argument. All that Nath had said was irrefutably true. Where things went from here depended largely upon Contayza and thus far, the girl had proven hostile. In the end, Jimmy was forced to shake his head and avert his eyes in bitter disgust.

Their fate rested squarely upon the shoulders of the enigmatic firebrand who held them. Jimmy peered into the depths of his steaming coffee, wondering what the woman might be thinking at this precise moment.

2

It was seven o'clock before the pair received another visitor. As the day progressed, Nath seemed to withdraw even deeper into the sanctuary of stony silence, while Jimmy paced about the small trailer relentlessly. Several times he glanced through the tiny window at the rear of the trailer, hoping to see some sign of the people who had now evidently become their jailors. Much to his frustration, he could see nothing other than the thick stands of pine tree and the falling snow.

Finally, as night descended upon the land, the two were roused by footsteps upon the wooden stairs. Jimmy leapt to his feet and even Nath managed to rouse himself, sitting upon the edge of his cot. It was most likely Pierca with their evening supper, or possibly Ivan. Both men were visibly surprised when Contayza opened the door and entered the trailer alone, carrying a covered tray. Without saying a word or gazing at either man, she crossed over to the table and set the tray down.

To Jimmy, Contayza appeared unsure of herself, a condition he believed to be rare and uncomfortable for her. Her eyes darted to his and finally back to the tray. "I've brought you supper; a stew of both beef and pork. There is also a loaf of bread and a pitcher of spiced wine." After a second, she added. "I made the stew myself."

Her tone suggested that she found such domestic undertakings enormously delightful. Both men remained still, knowing that she had come for more than delivery of their supper. Her awkwardness was apparent and she gave a small grin and a gentle shrug of her shoulders. "It's really very good."

Her expression was so unlike the combative glare of the previous day that the two men could not help but be disarmed.

"Thank you," Nath said finally, rising and pouring himself a glass of the steaming wine. Contayza rose and poured Jimmy a glass, handing it to him with a nervous grin. He accepted the wine with a smile, feeling his resentment melt like snow in spring.

As they drank, Contayza began, "My brother tells me that I behaved very badly last night. Looking back on it, I wasn't what you might call hospitable."

She paused and waited for the two men to react, but their faces remained inscrutable. Contayza dropped her eyes to her hands, which were folded primly in her lap. "I have a tendency to be a little eager at times."

"It was a difficult situation," Nath responded diplomatically. He could sense that she was unaccustomed to making apologies or contemplating the appropriateness of her actions.

"Still, I have no right to treat you as I did. I'm sorry."

It was Jimmy's turn to speak. "We accept your apology, Contayza. You have nothing to fear from us. You know why we're here. Everything else that we've told you is the absolute truth."

"I've accepted it as such," Contayza remarked. In her words, Jimmy could detect the esoteric weight of implication. Beneath the superficial meaning, her words declared, ` _We are the same, you and I, and we are both aware of it_.'

"Contayza, please listen," Jimmy pleaded. "I'm hurt and Nath is very sick. We have to find Cynara. We can help each other. Together we can find her, and perhaps concoct a way to destroy her."

"If you send us away, Nath will die," he concluded grimily.

Contayza glanced briefly at Nath. As she looked at him, she sensed the urgency of his situation. The witch had infected him in some arcane way and that infection was running rampant in his soul.

"How old are you, Nathaniel?" Contayza inquired softly.

"Twenty four," he replied evenly.

"Twenty four," she murmured incredulously. ' _My God, he looks twice this age_ ,' she thought, horrified by the extent of his deterioration.

"I'm sorry for everything that happened last night...for the way that I treated you. I realize that I can be a spoiled, impetuous brat, but your appearance caught me off guard; shocked me in ways that you cannot begin to understand."

"You'd be surprised, Contayza," Jimmy interrupted.

"Cynara, I mean finding and confronting Cynara Saravic has been a crusade of mine ever since I was a young girl. At my insistence, my brothers and I have searched for signs of the demon for eight years now. They have grown tired of searching and I have despaired of ever finding her. Your timely appearance cannot be ascribed to mere coincidence alone."

"I would say that you're right about that," Jimmy concurred. Contayza shook her head, not grasping his meaning. He elaborated, "All of this seems to have a definite ring of predestination. We were told that we would find you. Not you specifically, but someone who would help us, and we're in desperate need of help right now."

Both men glanced to Contayza expectantly. The extent of their need was a palpable thing. "I spent all of last night and most of the day trying to sort out my feelings about the pair of you. To understand what I was thinking, it is essential to have a sense of who I am. It must be obvious to you that we are gypsies. As such, we possess a well developed mistrust of strangers; an instinctive wariness that has allowed us to survive for centuries, even though we have always been despised and incessantly hunted."

"The Prowzi family is a tight circle. We have never allowed others to enter that circle. That stringent sense of unity has allowed us to do our work here, to fight against this oppressive government without fear of betrayal. So you see my first instinct was to drive the two of you away and not risk the integrity of our circle."

"But we are not here to harm you," Nath protested. "Your struggle against the government has nothing to do with us. We have no way of knowing why the internal security organization seems to want us dead so badly. The only answer might be that Cynara has managed to get to Petru. He is exactly the type of man that she would enlist to do her dirty work."

Contayza recognized the credence of this and nodded her agreement. "That was also my first instinct. This was the reason that I ordered Ivan to bring you to the border." After a protracted pause, she added. "This morning I changed my mind."

An identical expression of relief dawned on the faces of the two Americans, causing Contayza to smile. The smile was a radiant flash of teeth and a twinkling of the eyes that drew each man to her. Still, Jimmy was disturbed by a small voice that invited comparison between this woman's beauty and that of the Dark Lady. The mental juxtaposition caused Simms to frown. Contayza could be impetuous and in the right circumstances, even cruel, but that did not warrant comparison with Cynara's infinite capacity for evil. He pushed the thought away by asking, "And what has changed your mind?"

"I simply took the time to look at you, really look at the both of you and not be influenced by the prejudice. I see two men who are caught in a web of circumstances. Neither of you are willing combatants, but you have the strength that compels you to pursue the right course of action. I've come to the conclusion that you are good men and if we should agree to stand together, perhaps we could rid the world of that hateful bitch."

Contayza stood. While she was small in stature, her presence conveyed a pronounced aura of regal bearing. Her face became set in concentration. The tray upon which she had carried their supper, jumped into the air and began to spin like a phonograph gone wild. As the two men watched, the metal tray folded and crumpled like a length of tin foil. Contayza exhaled sharply and the remains of the metal tray clattered to the floor.

Simms glance shifted from the ball of metal to Contayza, staggered by the display of puissance. "My God, how did you do that?"

She shrugged her shoulders casually, as though such displays were mundane tricks of everyday life. "It's telekinesis. I've always possessed the power, but it's grown immeasurably over the past few years. I also possess the ability to divine thoughts and projects images if I so desire."

"And you can move things even bigger than this tray?" Jimmy pressed, his voice rising with naked wonder, a speculative gleam dawning in his eyes.

"Much larger," she murmured. "The key to the power is concentration. When I'm able to focus my thoughts, I can channel a nearly boundless amount of energy. As I said, through understanding the extent of my power, I was able to augment it further."

Jimmy was too absorbed to notice Nath's intense scrutiny of Contayza. He was perplexed by the diminutive beauty. Beneath her self confident facade there dwelled a set of mysteries that defied Nathaniel. Of all the people whom he had encountered in this eerie misadventure, Contayza Prowzi was the one whom he could not clearly define. She was a volatile, passionate enigma and he felt drawn to her because of it. Still, his natural reserve warned him to distance himself from her. There was a certain glamour about her, yet in his mind, he had still not determined whether that magic was black or white.

A single glance at Simms informed Nath that his step brother was thoroughly captivated by Contayza, though it was not especially hard to see why. The woman was the very definition of beauty. Jimmy also saw in Contayza a woman who shared his unique ability, though Jimmy's power did not begin to approach that of their hostess. Nath could not imagine how such ability could affect a person. Just as they could never hope to grasp the profound impact that Cynara had imposed upon him.

Nath voiced the question that had been troubling him since yesterday. "Contayza, how did you come to know of Cynara?"

Contayza dragged her gaze away from Jimmy with some effort. She liked his face with its strong lines and open, honest eyes. She regretted having hurt him and hoped that she could make amends for that hurt. She looked to Nathaniel and though she never would have admitted it, this small man frightened her. His mind was guarded by an impenetrable veil. He was suffering, that much was obvious, but he bore his suffering with a stoic dignity. His eyes were lovely and oddly familiar. Admittedly, she felt a certain tempered attraction to this one as well. In a discernibly cooler tone, she replied, "I learned of Cynara Saravic when I was a young girl, ah, perhaps no more than ten years old."

She sat once again. As she did, the light in her eyes shifted, becoming distant and melancholy. "When I was a girl, my family lived in the town of Salia, in the province of Surceava. Our life was settled and we were fairly prosperous by Romanian standards. On Sunday afternoon, we would visit my Grandfather, Lemuel Prowzi. At the time, he must have been in his early seventies. Ivan and I would sit for hours while Grandda would tell us stories of the old days of his life and the things that he had experienced and had been a part of. He had watched the time rush by like water on stone."

"He had witnessed the horror of the Nazis and the Communist iron guard. He despised the communists even more than the Nazis. He filled Ivan's heart with tales of our people's struggle for freedom. He inspired my heart in a different direction." She paused at this as if to sort out the details in her own mind, or perhaps to find the appropriate words to describe the things which had shaped the course of her life.

"It was dark and stormy the day that I first learned of Cynara. Grandda' was my mother's father, but he had always seemed to fill her with a kind of nebulous apprehension. There was something about his free spirit that troubled her deeply. I loved my mother, but she was not a gypsy at heart. Still, she felt obliged to visit Grandda' and so we went to see him that Sunday, just as we did every Sunday."

"As we drove over, I distinctly remember my mother telling me, "Contayza, your Grandda is old and not all of what he says is the absolute truth.""

"Would Grandda' lie?" I had asked, too naive to grasp her intent.

"She lashed me with an exasperated glance and said that he would not deliberately lie, but occasionally old people don't remember things as they really happened. At the time, I wondered why she was bothering to tell me this. Now I believe that it was almost as if she knew what he was going to tell me that day."

She hesitated again. The glaze of recollection was even stronger now. Her eyes appeared to be peering over the span of years. Contayza appeared unaware that she was speaking for her own benefit and not theirs. After a moment, she resumed the telling of her tale.

Chapter Twenty Five

1

This Sunday, like all of the Sundays that she could remember over the past few years, was dreary and slow. While the rain ran in rivers over the rippled glass of Grandfather's den, casting dancing shadows about the room, Contayza sat happily listening to the old man speak.

Every Sunday her mother would take the ten year old girl and her four brothers to visit their grandfather for the afternoon. All of the children found that they were never bored as most children were apt to be on such visits. The old man had been blessed with the gift of storytelling and it kept them enthralled for hours. His tales were filled with adventure and danger and he spoke as if he knew all of the great leaders of Europe personally. Contayza remembered him saying on occasions, "When I was a young man, I came within fifty feet of Adolph Hitler. He was a vile monster. I would have gleefully put a knife into his miserable carcass, but he was surrounded by his jackals."

Her Momma would scowl at the repetition of such tales, but Grandda' would just ignore her and go right on with the telling.

This day was different. The boys had stayed at home and Momma had come alone with Contayza. They drove through the downpour and as they did, the girl was unable to suppress the unaccountable excitement that was mounting within her. The source of this excitement baffled her, for this Sunday seemed identical to the hundreds of others that had preceded it.

Lemuel Prowzi greeted the two at the door of his small house that was really no bigger than a summer cottage. He acknowledged his daughter with a stiff formality that puzzled the girl. "Hello Imera. Thank you for coming."

Her mother in turn, only nodded and brushed past the old man. His eyes charted her movements with an expression of mingled regret and pain. Then he turned to Contayza, beamed a broad grin and swept the girl up into his arms. She squeaked with delight as he carried her into the house.

"How have you been, my precious one?" he inquired, setting her down.

"Well, Grandda'," she replied, with unrestrained affection.

Her mother watched the pair from the kitchen. It was probable that she was not aware of the rueful expression that contorted her face, just as she was unaware of the budding cancer cells that would send her to her grave at the age of forty nine. Her father seemed to hold her children spellbound. The notion filled her with ire and alarm.

Shrugging her shoulders, she turned and went into the kitchen meaning to begin preparing the evening supper. Grandda led Contayza to her favorite chair and ushered her into its plush depths. She did not miss the honor that he was bestowing upon her. He smiled and settled into the brown sofa. The sofa was old and threadbare. Something about its worn material filled Contayza with an ineffable sadness as though it were a reflection of the man who sat upon it.

Grandda watched Contayza in silence for several moments. There was a speculative quality about his gaze that forced the girl to glance away momentarily, but then in the manner that would later come to symbolize the woman whom she would become, Contayza raised her face to meet his gaze unblinkingly.

"You are a lovely child, and you will grow to become an exquisitely beautiful woman," Lemuel remarked evenly.

"Thank you, Grandda."

"I suspect that you will be more than beautiful. You are a special child, I think, possibly even extraordinary." Contayza had no idea how to respond to this. She certainly didn't feel special. Different certainly, but not extraordinary.

Grandda stole a quick, furtive glance over her shoulder, trying to discern if his daughter might be listening. She labored at the kitchen sink with her back to the pair. Grandda gave Contayza a conspiratorial wink and dropped his voice to a whisper. "Sit here, my precious. There is something that I want to show you."

Contayza's eyes did not leave him as he crossed the small room, to a bank of wooden bookshelves. He scanned the spines of the books until he found a particular volume. He ran his fingers over its rough surface and then carried it back to a now enthralled Contayza.

The expression upon the old man's face was unrecognizable to the young girl, but she could perceive an inner turbulence brewing behind the man's watery eyes. That perceived excitement must have been infectious because Contayza could feel her own heart begin to thunder. She eyed the book with unfettered curiosity. It appeared very old and fragile.

"Contayza, do you know what a witch is?" Grandda queried, apparently very serious about his question. The girl had to struggle to repress the urge to laugh. Something warned her that to laugh would ruin the magic of this particular moment. She was positive that, should she laugh, Grandda would put the book away without showing her. It was suddenly exigent that she sees the book.

"Yes, Grandda, I do know what a witch is."

"And do you believe that witches really exist, child?"

"Momma says that there is no such thing as witches or vampires. Momma says that they are just things from stories that are meant to scare little children. "

Lemuel looked to his daughter and again Contayza glimpsed traces of a pain that she could not fathom. He spoke to Contayza in a soft voice, but his eyes had grown incisive and emphatic. "Your momma only tells you that because she doesn't want to frighten you, child. Sometimes, I think that your mother is very much frightened herself."

He leaned forward. Contayza could clearly smell him. It was a dry, warm smell; old, yet still vibrant. "There really are witches, Contayza. There are many things in this world that we do not see in everyday life, but they are there all the same. Even if we were able to see them, we would still choose to ignore them because of how much they frighten us."

Contayza listened to him with rapt attention. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and her mouth hung open as though on an open hinge. Grandda held the book up before her, waving it slightly. Contayza's eyes were riveted to the faded leather as if it were the very key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. "This book tells the story of a real witch. It is over one hundred and fifty years old and has been handed down through the Prowzi family from one generation to the next, in search of a very special person. There was a time when I hoped that your momma was that person, but I was mistaken. I feared that I would not live to see the birth of the chosen one, but as you've grown, I once again have reason to hope."

Contayza frowned, once more perplexed by all of the talk of special people and the obscure references and connection to witches. Not wishing him to think her foolish, she posed the first logical question that occurred to her, "who wrote the book, grandda'?"

He fixed her with a gaze of flint. His eyes were the gray of slate after a hard fall of rain in spring. "This book was written by my great, great grandmother, Rebecca Prowzi."

Contayza made a small gesture of surprise with her left hand, trying to stifle a gasp with her right hand. A vague sense of understanding came to her then, filtering through the many layers of shock and bewilderment. Grandda's choice of when to disclose the story of the book was more than a coincidence. Even as a small girl, Contayza displayed a keen and incisive nature. She deduced that grandda's calling her special was more than flattery or affection. Though she failed to comprehend why, his assessment was based upon something he evidently saw in her; though what that something was she could not say.

Grandda's intense scrutiny continued for several seconds and then he remarked, "Do you see, girl, Rebecca was a true Prowzi with a fiery and indulgent nature. As a child, she learned to read and write with the help of several monks from the local monastery, which led eventually to this."

He held the book forward again. The delicate manner in which he offered it spoke of reverence, even awe. "This book is more than just a story. It is a warning and a cry for vindication. Do you understand vindication, sweet one?"

Contayza shook her head slowly, saddened by her ignorance. The grandfather read her dismay and with a smile full of mirth, advised, "Don't worry, my girl, you will learn, in time. I think that you will come to understand the concept more intimately than any other. It will shine forth like a beacon on your journey through this world until you have fulfilled the obligation that the word represents."

The girl flinched back slightly, but the old man seemed not to notice. She could not recall ever having seen him so absorbed, so directed. His eyes, which were usually watery and capricious, appeared to be forged from gleaming iron as were his words. "These creatures prey upon us as though we are cattle or sheep. For the most part, they are correct. Occasionally, one makes the mistake of falling upon a tiger; only then are they made to pay. Rebecca Prowzi may not have been a tigress, but she knew that, in time, our line would breed one to avenge her suffering and shame. Maybe you are that tigress, eh little angel?"

Contayza was speechless. A reasoned response eluded her. His words conjured up a frightening and confusing array of images that made her head hurt. For some strange reason, she felt like bursting into tears, as though she had somehow failed him. A wave of shadow and light passed over the man's face. In an instant that fierce intensity had ebbed from his face. Contayza was almost relieved to find her grandfather regarding her with his usual benign expression. "Don't fret Contayza. There is no need to answer now. The answer will make itself clear as you read. The Prowzi family is destined to rise up and avenge the outrage that has been recorded upon these pages. When you read it, you may well be frightened or disturbed. You may set it aside and bring it to me next time you come. Should you feel something other than revulsion or fear...well, we will talk again."

He extended the book toward Contayza and dropped it into her lap. She merely stared at it for a second and then grasped it in her small hands. It was warm to the touch and Contayza imagined that it roiled beneath her fingertips like a turbulent ocean.

Lemuel stroked her lovely cheek. "Read it girl and mark the words well and consider your feelings about what you read. They will tell you what you must do."

Contayza was much too overwhelmed to grasp the implications of all that the old man had conveyed. ' _I'm only a girl, grandda_ ,' she wanted to shout. The vivid image of his iron gaze kept her silent. A question of vital importance occurred to her then. "Has momma read this book?"

The incomprehensible expression of pain on Lemuel's face alarmed the girl. She had said the wrong thing, though she did not know precisely why. "I love your mother as much as I have loved anything in this life, but she must never know of what we have spoken today. You must never tell her about why I have given you this book or what I wish for you to consider. It would cause her much pain and keep us apart."

"No Grandda," Contayza promised adamantly. The notion of hurting her mother was unthinkable to the girl.

"I love you, child," Lemuel declared affectionately.

"And I love you," Contayza replied shyly.

Just then, Imera Prowzi returned from the kitchen. "Supper will be ready in just a few minutes, so the two of you might as well come into the kitchen."

Both her daughter and her father nodded and smiled. There was an elusive quality to those smiles that Imera found vaguely disturbing.

She regarded the two suspiciously for a moment longer, then turned and went back about her supper preparations. Lemuel drew an exaggerated breath and rose to follow her, giving Contayza a conspiratorial wink. Tayza offered him a tentative grin, though she privately felt as if she had fallen in the path of a violent and totally unexpected storm.

2

Several days would pass before Contayza would muster the courage to begin reading the diary. She had taken it home and hidden it beneath her mattress. From that night forth, she was assailed by a seemingly endless series of nightmares; a flickering, slow motion display of horrifying images that left her feeling shaken and weak. Through it all, Tayza had the distinct impression that she was under constant scrutiny. Two eyes of the deepest brown, flecked with amber, floated through her tormented night world as though attempting to gauge her mettle.

After four successive nights of this, Contayza decided that she would read the diary. She could no longer leave it unheeded beneath her bed. It seemed to fester in the darkness like an open sore. On the morning of the fifth day after her trip to her grandfather's, she retrieved the book from beneath the mattress. Awaiting the right opportunity, Contayza darted out of the house and headed for the woods that began only a block from her home. The forest in this part of Surceava was particularly dense and forbidding, yet Tayza entered it without fear. She moved through the thick stands of trees, with their cool shadows, as though she had existed here as long as they had. It simply never occurred to Contayza that she would have any reason to be afraid there.

This day was different, however. Though it was sunny, the air was cool and held the promise of snow. Only narrow shafts of weak light filtered through the canopy of leaves high above her. The shadows appeared as thick as molasses, flowing and moving about as if they had been animated by some greater force, a force that might not be benevolent. It had not taken the girl long to discover that she was afraid.

In fact, she was within touching distance of open panic.

Her skin tingled with the cool of the day and she cursed herself for not bringing a sweater. Her attempt to convince herself that it was the cold and not fear, that caused her skin to rise into hackles failed by a good margin. Even more pronounced was her desire to throw the dreadful diary into the woods and leave it there until it rotted. Though she had not as much as cracked the cover Contayza was convinced that its pages held some vague, yet terrifying menace to her own future.

She had gone about a hundred yards along the path when her nerve finally broke. She turned and attempting to control the urge to bolt, began walking quickly toward home. The book felt impossibly hot against her cool flesh. She walked nearly half way back when she discerned a shape move out of the underbrush and onto the path. It was still thirty yards away but there was a definite suggestion of menace in its posture.

She ventured closer, refusing to be debilitated by her mounting fear. In the tangle of the underbrush, Contayza spied a branch of about three inches in diameter. She swept it up in a fluid motion and continued to advance toward the thing in the shadows.

The thing in the shadows turned out to be a rottweiler. ' _The devil's dog_ ,' her mind whispered, perplexed by the origin of the thought. As she approached the dog, she could hear a low growl rumbling in its muscular chest.

It watched her with eyes that were both cruel and sentient. It was by far the largest dog that she had ever seen. Muscles rippled beneath a silky pelt of tan and midnight black. An air of violence hung about it like a dark penumbra. It bared its fangs to her as the growling became more threatening, more urgent. Her branch appeared flimsy by comparison to those massive canines. Contayza pushed herself to within ten feet of the dog and it hunched as if to spring at her throat. She wanted to cry, to call out for help, but instinctively understood that to do so would be fatal. She could see no clear way of circumventing the dog.

Then, in a stellar burst of revelation, percipience informed her that the dog would only harm her if she attempted to go around it. A glint of something in its inscrutable eyes confirmed this. Electing to trust this instinct, Contayza cast the branch aside. At once, the dog ceased its growling.

This did little to alleviate the girl's unease, though she realized that the immediate threat had passed. Glancing at the book, it came to her that it carried an arcane connection to the dog's appearance.

"What do you want?" she demanded of the beast as though she truly expected a response. Indeed, it took a single step toward her. Contayza, in turn, took a compensating step away from it. It took another and she did the same. They continued this way though the beast did not close the distance. Evidently, it had no intention of harming her as long as she proceeded deeper into the woods.

Contayza saw that it wanted her to go to her private spot in the woods and keep her rendezvous with the diary and whatever tale it within its weathered covers. As preposterous as the idea seemed, she knew that it was precisely why the dog was ushering her along.

Eventually, she came to the spot that she had come to think of as her hideaway. The dog came to the foot of the path, but did not enter, instead settling to the ground like a hound before a fireplace.

Seeing no other alternative, ten year old Contayza Prowzi sat against a granite boulder, opened the diary and began to read.

Chapter Twenty Six

1

July 17/1840 - My name is Rebecca Prowzi, daughter of Simon and Emira Prowzi of the village of Salia in the province of Surceava. Today is the first full day of my new life and the first time that I have lived in a place other than the village of my birth. On this day, I am twenty two years old.

I am not certain why I have decided to commence this journal. Perhaps it is the elation of simply being able to write, but some presentiment tells me that it is more complex, more abstract than this.

I can best relate this need by describing this place and how I came to be here. Let it first be known that I am the daughter of a gypsy (or perhaps a reformed gypsy as he has lost the urge to wander) and that my family has languished in poverty since generations out of mind. My parents have labored to substitute love and compassion for the basic necessities that our family has been forced to do without. They have indulged me in my fervent desire to learn how to read and write; something that is considered not only odd, but essentially pointless for a girl of my humble station. Through the patient teachings of our local monks, I have achieved my dream.

In doing so, I came to understand the obligations that I have toward my parents. Determined to do something to ameliorate the drudgery of their lives, I requested that my father find me employment as a chambermaid. He was reluctant to do so at first, but I was persistent in my request and he eventually found me employment in the household of Baron Emile Saravic, whose land is situated in the province of Nasaud. The notion of traveling so far petrified me, but I concealed my fear from my father and soon I was leaving the village where I had lived my entire life, uncertain as to when I might return.

As we made the coach journey to the Saravic Manor, the Baron informed me that I would be the personal servant of his youngest daughter, Cynara. He further said that the girl could be somewhat imperious, but was sure that we would get along well.

Something in his tone suggested that his certainty lacked conviction and I gathered that there had been prior problems between the girl and her servants. This did little to assuage my unease over the new world that I was about to enter. The Baron, himself, is a kind man beset by an expression of perpetual sadness. Though I have known him for only a few short hours, I suspect that some horrible incident has robbed him of his vitality.

My first sight of the manor left me speechless. Never did I imagine that people lived in such opulence. Passing beneath the magnificent wrought iron arch and down the tree lined, stone drive, my heart thundered in my chest until I feared that it might burst. That feeling persisted as the Baron led me into the interior and introduced me to the household staff. Then he ushered me into his den and bade me to sit while he summoned his family.

Peyton and Alasha were the first to arrive. He is handsome, with a noble and erudite manner. Alasha is a lovely young woman, who radiates a warmth that is at once disarming and endearing. Her intelligence is made obvious with every considered word. The two went a good way toward placating my anxiety.

My relief did not last, however, for minutes later Cynara Saravic strode into the room. Even at the age of fourteen, she is one of the most strikingly beautiful creatures that I have ever set eyes upon. Her skin is as pure as the richest cream and her hair is a velvety fall of loose curls. Her gaze falls upon me and it is ripe with such contempt and hatred that I flinch.

Her first words were fraught with vitriol. "Is this the peasant tramp that is to be my servant? Surely, you could have found someone more... appropriate."

"Cynara!" her father protested. "I have personally selected this girl. She is quite capable of attending to your needs. You will treat her with courtesy. Do I make myself clear?"

Cynara appeared nonplussed by her father's stern rebuke and I suspect that she is not accustomed to being addressed in such a manner. Her surprise gave way to a smoldering rage. She turned away from the Baron and glided over to where I stood timidly waiting. Seizing me by the wrist, she hauled me to my feet and rasped, "Come with me, then. I will give you my instructions."

Before the Baron had the opportunity to comment, Cynara dragged me from the room and slammed the door. She glowered at me and then pulled me along carpeted hallways and up staircases until we reached her quarters. There, she threw open the door and rudely shoved me into her chambers.

The fury of the subsequent verbal diatribe was bewildering. For the next hour, she proceeded to berate me with a series of threats, cruel barbs and instructions. She demanded that I address her as My Lady and that I should make myself available to her service at all hours of the day. It was evident that the girl wanted a slave, not a chambermaid.

The horrendous circumstances into which I had unwittingly blundered caused me to nearly break down in tears. Somehow I managed to steel myself, knowing that to show weakness before this Hellion would insure a frequent recurrence of this abuse. Beneath her anger, it is obvious that the girl derives a great measure of pleasure from terrifying the house staff.

"You're a gypsy, aren't you?" she demanded. Her particular emphasis upon the word gypsy made it seem like the crudest of obscenities.

Flushing with shame, I simply replied, "Yes...my father was...is..."

"Just as I suspected. It is not enough that the entire household is inundated with peasant scum, now we must further debase ourselves by being served by a gypsy."

With a savage quickness, she locked onto my shoulders and forced me against the wall of her bedchamber. "Mark me well, gypsy. My father has said that I must accept you as my servant and so I shall, but should I ever discover any of my possessions missing, I'll personally gouge your eyes from their miserable sockets. Do you understand?"

"Yes, My Lady," I stammered, but refused to avert my gaze.

Cynara's face twisted into a contemptuous sneer and she snarled, "Very well. You will start by fetching my lunch. Go!"

On unsteady legs, I turned and quickly fled the room. Tonight, I begin this journal in the privacy of my quarters. Perhaps by committing them to paper, I will manage to reduce the memory of these degradations to tolerable levels.

Contayza glanced up from the page. The dog still lay in its original position, watching her with those frightening eyes. She did not understand all of what she had read, but she was able to gather that this Cynara had been a real ` _bitch_ '. That was a word that she had overheard her mother refer to another woman who was being particularly nasty or obnoxious.

Contayza read on. The next several entries described further episodes of Cynara's abuse of the servants; abuse that was not without its physical aspect. These accounts quickly grew repetitive and the girl began to wonder if this was not a misguided twist of grandda's humor. The presence of the dog quickly dispelled this notion. Then she happened upon the entry dated...

August 26/1842 - I am more afraid than I would ever have imagined possible. The terror is nearly paralyzing and my hand shakes as I write. The girl has changed. For the past two years, I have endured the endless tirades and threats, and on occasion, physical abuse. When she was not berating me, Cynara would humiliate me by subjecting me to her theories regarding the subhuman status of gypsies and peasants, reasoning that they subsequently could not be afforded the same standards of decency as other people might expect.

I have learned to live with these things. As much as I loathe Cynara, I have come to love the other Saravics. Especially Alasha, who is the total antithesis of her younger sister.

Now, however, all of this has changed. Whereas before, Cynara was petulant, arrogant and bellicose, suddenly she has evolved into something far worse. She exudes evil the way that a corpse will give off the stench of desiccation. It capers behind her lovely eyes like a coiled snake. Though I have no proof, every fiber of my being warns me that the girl has become the very essence of evil.

I want to run, but some sense of obligation compels me to stay. I pray that there is someone to watch over me.

Contayza frowned and closed the book, using her finger as a book mark. This passage seemed crucial, but she couldn't decipher its riddle. Was Rebecca suggesting that Cynara's evil transcended simple cruelty and malicious spite? The effort to concentrate made her head hurt and her stomach queasy. Perspiration had formed under her collar and upon her smooth brow, though when she touched her forehead, her hand came away feeling cold and clammy.

"The girl had changed...the girl had become the embodiment of evil." Frustrated, Contayza slammed her fist onto her thigh. What had Rebecca been trying to say? None of this made sense to her and she would have abandoned the effort had it not been for the imposing presence of the rottweiller.

"Please! I don't know what you want me to do?" she implored. The dog inclined its head, just as a dog will do when it has no idea what is being requested of it.

Befuddled and verging upon tears, Contayza again turned back to the diary; quickly coming to despise it and the faceless woman who had written it. She scanned through the next thirty pages of text, becoming sickened and repulsed by the litany of senseless violence. The chronicle was a black and white trek through a nightmare world growing increasingly more insane with the turning of each page.

Rebecca's narrative grew more macabre as the years passed. The innuendo-laden text pointed an accusing finger at Cynara. Had she killed her brother, Peytor? Was Cynara behind the slow degeneration of the Baron Saravic? Beneath all of this, there lay the constant references to the supernatural and Cynara Saravic's growing aura of evil.

Contayza desperately tried to absorb all of this, attempting to force her ten year olds mind to grapple with all of the impossible suggestions that this diary presumed to make. The confusion dissipated like dust before a driving wind when she read the next entry. It was written in a shaky scribble, so unlike Rebecca's usual precise pen stroke. The trembling quality of the lettering first conveyed the impression that Rebecca had been either extremely excited or frightened when she had sat down to write this passage. Yet, as Contayza would discover, the palsied handwriting had been the result of intense pain. Unaware of the radical changes that were about to befall her, she proceeded to read the words that would forever alter the course of her life.

2

July 7/1861 - The indifferent sun is rising over the eastern horizon as I write this, come like a wanton whore to claim this wretched land. It is dawn and I have not slept. It is very possible that I may never sleep again. I suddenly dread sleep and the nightmares that are bound to await me there. What has brought me to this woeful state? Revelation... Revelation as bright and clear as a diamond, yet as painfully sharp as the fangs of a serpent.

After living for years in the shadows of whispered allegations and rumors bred from fear and superstition, I have glimpsed the truth dancing forth from the witch's cauldron. Mine has been an expensive price for this vision, yet I have come to a better understanding of why I have chosen to remain here for all of these years, living in the very heart of what has become a tiny enclave of hell.

What have I come to learn and why must I remain here despite the hideous nature of this knowledge? I have been shown firsthand, irrefutable proof that Cynara Saravic is a monster. Not merely because of her iniquitous actions and the nightmare that she has visited upon her people, though her deeds are indictments against the very existence of humanity. Tonight, I have witnessed the true Cynara as though she were turned inside out; the beautiful facade stripped away to reveal the abomination that dwells beneath. Something this ineffably horrible can only be the work of Satan.

In coming to discover what lies beneath the witch's lovely exterior, I have been given a glimpse into the mettle of my own soul. What I have witnessed should send me fleeing wildly, screaming madly for divine intervention, though in reality, my cries would be nothing more than unintelligible gibberish. I would dearly love to leave this wicked place, but how far would I have to run to escape the monster whom I have served all of these years. I am certain that the very bounds of the earth would not suffice to keep me safe.

Today began much in the way that all of the days of my time here have begun. Through the years of my service, Cynara has seen fit to appoint me the keeper of her household. Each morning, before the sun has found the sky, I am awoken by one of the younger servants. This day, Anna was the one to assist me. She is a homely girl, who wears a permanent expression of anxiety bordering upon apoplexy. In this house of trepidation, such a state is understandable.

After setting the staff about their daily duties, I made my way to the Baroness' chambers to present myself. I knocked several times, but Cynara did not respond. Cynara is a nocturnal creature, demonstrating almost no need for sleep. Deciding that she did not require my presence, I returned to my chamber to prepare for my weekly excursion into the village.

Once a week, I make the trip into the village to procure some of the supplies necessary for the Saravic household. It is perhaps the duty that I least enjoy. The reproachful glares of the peasants feel like acid upon my skin. They see me as an extension of Cynara's wickedness, a conspirator in her reign of horror. Their hatred pains me. How many nights had those reproachful, baleful glares kept me from the sanctuary of sleep? How many times have I contemplated falling to my knees in the village square and crying, "Please, her sins are not mine! I despise her just as much as you do. I share your suffering and bleed for those you have lost."

For years, I have been reviled by the villagers, those who bear the brunt of the witch's madness. I have no defense for my continued service or for my failure to inform the Church or the Crown of my monster's treachery.

For reasons that I cannot explain logically, I am convinced that these institutions lack the means to effectively deal with Cynara, or more precisely, with the thing that she has become. Today, those suspicions have been given substance and the reasons behind my inaction have become evident. Through some random twist of destiny, I have been designated Cynara's chronicler. My journal will stand as a register for her transgressions, and I pray, will be the chief piece of evidence that brings her to ruin. But I digress. Better that I describe the gruesome events of this day.

After insuring that the household was in order and that all of the servants were clear as to their tasks, I arranged for the carriage man to bring me into the village. The sky was overcast and threatening heavy rain as I left the grounds. As I rode in the coach, I was possessed by the certainty that something dreadful was afoot and that Cynara's absence was a precursor to yet another episode of evil madness.

Though surely this was the work of a runaway imagination, the very woods that lined the road appeared alive with furtive menace. In the darkness of the undergrowth, evil eyes seemed to peer out of the pervasive gloom; yellow eyes set with vertical slashes. The wind howled like a hungry and frustrated predator. If one could decipher that mournful language, what might they learn?

"Come, merry traveler. Stay awhile and play the age old game of hunter and hunted. Enter our demesne and we shall play always and always and always."

Even the trees, with their bewitched and capering postures, are twisted and sinister as though the land had assumed all of the evil that had been perpetrated upon it the notion is disconcerting in the extreme.

We reached the village of Chevru in a little under forty minutes despite the horrendous road conditions. Chevru is a settlement of four hundred and fifty indigent souls, most of whom are farmers and helpers, petty merchants or foresters. In the years of Cynara's reign, with its public hangings and mysterious disappearances, there has existed a prevalent atmosphere of terror amongst the villagers. Most would have fled long ago had they possessed the means or another place to go. Most have attempted to live their lives as inconspicuously as possible, hoping to do nothing to incur Cynara's wrath. They fail to realize that the witch's wrath is random and indiscriminate.

The village is poorly stocked, but does provide some of the goods essential to keeping the Saravic household functioning. One shop in particular has stocked several items that only a nobleman could afford. The carriage came to a stop before the whitewashed brick and wood structure and the keeper, Anton Sascu, immediately comes to greet me as though he had been patiently awaiting my arrival for hours. He assisted me out of the carriage and onto the wooden walk. His manner is complaisant, but does not entirely disguise the fear and bitterness which he harbors towards anyone even remotely connected with the Saravic house.

Both he and I were engaged in our customary barter over prices and goods, when a local girl named Elima Berscau burst through the front door. She stood in the doorway, frantically gazing about the shop. Her heaving chest and trembling shoulders conveyed the impression that she was on the brink of hysteria.

Rushing over to where I stood, she imposed herself between Sascu and me. Then she grasped my shoulders and began to shake me roughly. "What have I done? Tell me what I have done to anger her?"

Sascu placed his hands upon her shoulders, about to pull her away, but I gestured for him to leave the distraught girl be. He shrugged and stepped back.

Elima was an ancient woman of twenty eight whose features were as bland and lifeless as a long used rag. Her long hair hung limply over her face inflicting her with the appearance of utter madness. Plain at the best of times, her anxiety had contorted her features to the point of being grotesque.

Calmly and firmly, I brushed her hands away and asked, "I have no clue as to what you are talking about. Explain yourself, girl."

Her wailing reply was fetched from hysteria, wrenching my heart in my chest. "Why has she taken my baby?"

"Taken your baby?" I echoed dumbly, wishing that I could disentangle myself from her misery, but knowing that I could not.

"My child is...gone...from its crib this morning! She's been taken. I...I." She lapsed into a string of inarticulate moans and whimpers. These gave way to a wretched weeping that touched me profoundly. I had believed that all of the atrocities I have witnessed had inured me to such pain, but I was wrong. This woman had survived through a life of bleak poverty to which there would be no surcease, save the cold comfort of death. Now she was being subjected to an additional misery for which there could be no justification and I was determined to learn why.

"Take me to you home," I instructed and she glanced up at me, her amazement stanching the flow of tears. Even Sascu appeared clearly surprised by my response. Turning to him, I asked that he prepare my usual order and have it placed in the carriage. Then I led the woman out of the shop and into the muddy streets.

We came to the Berscau house, which was little more than a board and peat moss hovel.

Seeing Elima in my company attracted a good deal of excited attention from the locals, who stopped whatever they were doing to mark our passage. The interior of the house was damp and depressingly gloomy. The notion of raising a child here caused me to shudder with despair.

She ushered me into a small room, little more than a closet, and provided me with a frantic account of everything that had happened earlier that morning. She and her child were alone as her husband was employed at a nearby farm and was away several days at a time. Elima remained at home, earning a pittance by cleaning for some of the local merchants.

On a normal day, she would be awakened by the baby's cries of hunger. On this day, however, she was wrenched from sleep by the dogs urgent barking and growling. At once alarmed by the amount of light in the morning sky, Elima rose to seek out the cause of the commotion. When she reached the bedroom, the girl was gone and the dog was pacing frantically about.

"Still girl, why do you think that Cynara is responsible for your baby's disappearance?"

Answering in terms of irrefutable logic, she replied simply, "Who else would be capable of such a thing?"

Her allegation was so obvious that I could do little but nod. I walked into the heart of the bedroom in search of something that might help identify the person responsible. There was no indication. Not a single clue suggested that anything had been in this room other than the dog and the child. Something occurred to me and I turned back to Elima. "Where is your Shepherd now?"

"It's gone after whoever took my baby. The moment that I opened the door, it ran into the woods behind the house." She placed her hand upon my wrist, anxiety radiating from her like heat from a cooking fire. "Please ask her to give my child back. She's all I have."

She attempted to say more, but her quavering voice failed her.

"Girl, gather your wits!" I snapped with deliberate harshness. "It's folly to claim that the Baroness has taken your child. Nonetheless, I will help you try to find her. Now, show me the direction in which the dog ran off."

Obediently, the girl led me out of the house and into the patch of dirt that served as a backyard. Saying nothing, she pointed towards a clearing in the trees where a narrow path wound out of sight and down a gentle grade. The downpour had turned the path into a quagmire and the idea of trying to follow the dog made me feel vaguely uneasy, yet the look of desperation in the woman's tired eyes made it impossible to do anything other than plunge headlong into the mud trail.

"Elima, I want you to listen to me and do precisely what I tell you. I'm going to try to follow the shepherd. Hopefully, he will lead me to the person who took your daughter. I want you to go back into your cottage and wait there until I return. What's more, I want you to keep your accusations to yourself. Such claims could prove fatal. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Milady," The girl replied meekly. Then she gave me a smile of gratitude which totally transformed her face, rolling back years as though they might merely be layers of dirt. Turning, she moved around the cottage and back into the depressing little hovel. As I watched her go, it occurred to me that I had not seen my own family in nearly four years.

Venturing onto the narrow path, I was assailed by a sense of foreboding and looming danger. The thick trees seemed to press in upon me as though they meant to hinder my efforts. I picked my way hesitantly down the slope which gradually steepened until it became necessary to use my hands for traction and balance. The mud and rain slicked rock made the going treacherous. Soon, thick mud sucked at my boots and the hem of my cloak, but I was spurred on by a sense of exigency that had no easily definable source. An inner voice implored me to go back but I stubbornly ignored it.

Here and there, the dog's tracks were still distinguishable in the mud. Judging by the distance between each set, the dog must have been moving in full stride. There were other tracks as well, but they were blurred by the falling rain.

The rain began to intensify and with it came a sense of excitement and keen trepidation. I knew that I was verging upon a juncture in time. Every muscle fiber confirmed this and so I press on.

After cresting a rise, the land abruptly dropped away, sending me tumbling down a steep slope and into a rushing brook. Stumbling to my feet, I was greeted by a sight that brought a cry of horror welling to my lips. It resounded upward through the forest, only to be lost amidst the cry of the wind and rain.

There, skewered on the branch of a large tree, hung the woman's shepherd. Its body curved in a grotesque bow. Blood dripped thickly from the revolting mess that had once been its throat. Its hide had been peeled back from its haunches in long, jagged flaps, telling me that whatever had done this was not only powerful, but possessed especially large and sharp teeth and claws.

Rising to my feet, I crossed the stream, giving the crucified beast a wide birth. My instincts again admonished me to turn back, to flee; that I didn't really want to locate whatever had done this. Squinting against the gloom, there were no discernable sign of tracks leading deeper into the forest. The prospect of continuing after the monster that had abducted Elima's child chilled my heart and robbed me of whatever reserve of courage I still possessed.

Sparing the poor dog one final glance before turning back, a glint of light from its muzzle caught my eye.

Stopping in the stream bed, oblivious to the cold water pouring over my boot tops, I stared in transfixed fascination at the tiny dot of green light. I could not drag my gaze away from the gleaming dot of light.

"No! Please, I don't want to have to go over there." Yet even as I uttered my plea to an indifferent god, my feet began to move toward the hanging horror.

At closer inspection, the emerald gleam revealed itself to be an emerald studded silver button, sewn onto a bedding of black velvet. Snatching the blood soaked cloth from the dog's jaws, I quickly scampered back across the stream, very much like a field mouse that has just stolen a particularly tasty morsel right from beneath the cat's nose. Moving back to the opposite bank, I sat on a large boulder, unmindful of the condition of my clothes or the chill that had permeated my flesh.

The velvet was soiled with gore as was the surface of the lustrous emerald. I dipped the jewel into the stream and held it up. At the sight of the small letter C, engraved into the silver button, my body began to tremble so violently that I feared it might literally explode.

The stylized, engraved C was a trademark of the Baroness Saravic. This particular piece of velvet had been torn from a velvet jacket decorated with a series of similar buttons. There could be little doubt that the dog had struck at Cynara. As I stumbled back along the path, a fundamental question persistently demanded my attention. How could Cynara have done that to the dog?

Logic dictated that she couldn't have done it and therefore, something else had...but what? The question, answers and refutations came in such rapid succession that my head began to ache.

Elima was standing at the head of the path as I emerged from the woods. The sight of my muddied clothes and my rain and mud soaked hair brought a bitter smile to her lips. Something about my expression must have frightened her, because the smile quickly dissolved into her former panic stricken expression.

"Did you find her?" She swallowed hard and forced the words out. "Or any sign of her?"

"Of your daughter, no, but your dog is dead. I found him on the opposite side of the stream with its throat torn out," I could hear the thread of hysteria grinding its way into my voice and cut it off.

"My baby is lost then, isn't she?" she sighed, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Perhaps not," I replied quickly, though the words rang false even to my own ears. "Elima, I'm going to return to the Manor and I'm going to send three men back to search the path. If it leads to whoever took your baby, they will discover them. I want you to wait here and direct them to the path."

An expression of hope and gratitude dawned in her dull brown eyes, causing me to shiver with a wave of self revulsion. If Cynara had taken the child, then she was already as good as dead. Ushering her back into her cottage, I once again tried to impress upon her the need for discretion. "For the love of God, do not speak to them of Cynara having taken your child."

I returned to the waiting carriage and instructed the coachman to return me to the manor with as much haste as the road conditions would allow. He did not question my lengthy absence and his only reaction to the condition of my clothing was to simply raise an eyebrow. Members of the Saravic staff were accustomed to turning a blind eye to bizarre goings on.

The ride home seemed to take forever. All through that time, my thoughts insisted on straying back to the sight of the impaled dog and the nagging questions which accompanied that grim spectacle. How could the Baroness have done that to the dog? He must have weighed as much as ninety pounds by my estimate and appeared to have been well muscled. Despite his formidable size, he had been torn to shreds as if it was as docile as a rabbit.

Upon further consideration, I realized this was not precisely correct as evidenced by the scrap of velvet that I'd found in the beasts jaws. The dog had managed to strike at least once. Perchance, Cynara had suffered injury in the attack. This would be a possible explanation for her absence this morning.

Whatever the solution, I was determined to find the answer. More significantly, I was resolved to confront Cynara with Elima's accusation; to extract an answer from the Baroness. What had befallen the dog made it no longer possible to turn a blind eye to her treachery. My continued passivity would make me an accomplice in her evil machinations.

When we reached the Manor, I inquired as to the Baroness' whereabouts and learned that she had still not been seen. Then I dispatched three field hands to return to Chevru and search the path, following it to the very end.

"If you should find anything unusual, tell no one. Return directly to me and report what you have found," I instructed at last and sent them off. Having gained the respect of the staff by shielding them from Cynara's displeasure, I was confident that they would do exactly what I had asked. This done, I set about searching for the Baroness.

Her black stallion was still quartered in its stall, so it was apparent that the Baroness was still on the grounds. I suspected that I knew precisely where she was. Immediately after the death of her father and the subsequent execution of poor, unfortunate Alasha, Cynara commenced the excavation and construction of an underground chamber. The extensive Labyrinth served as a retreat for the Dark Lady as none of the staff were allowed entry. Indeed, most of the staff had no idea how entry was gained into the bottom levels.

I, however, did. I had secretly followed Morgan and discovered the sliding panel that allowed entry into the sub level. Descending into the stone passageway that apparently led to a brick wall dead end, I began to slowly run my fingers along the bricks, searching for the right brick to trigger the release mechanism. As my hands glided across the damp stone surface, I saw that they trembled violently. The temerity of my defiance caused my heart to hammer as I finally considered the possible consequences of what I was about to do.

Pressing several different combinations of bricks failed to yield any results and my frustration and anxiety mounted steadily. At once, the temperature in the corridor dropped perceptibly and the corridor lights guttered. Pivoting about, I saw someone step through the very brick of the wall, materializing in thin air like a shade.

The gloom in the corridor made it impossible to distinguish specific features, but the shape of the silhouette told me that this could only be Cynara. Slowly, she moved towards me. Something about the fluidity of her movement reinforced my first impression that this was but a specter.

"So, Rebecca, it appears that you've discovered my little secret. Or perhaps you've known it all along. I wonder what other little secret tidbits you've come upon." Cynara's tone was all danger; thinly disguised threats beneath mocking banter.

"Judging by the condition of your clothes, I would guess that you've had quite an adventure. Perhaps you'd care to share it with me." She drew closer and still I could not see her face. Something told me that it was imperative that I see it, but it was as though her face was veiled by a black cowl.

Gathering my courage before it failed me completely, I retorted, "In the village, a peasant girl's baby has been abducted. I suspect that you already know that."

She began to laugh then, the sound filling the corridor, rolling off of her tongue like silk. "You are priceless, Rebecca. I've come to admire you for your spirit. So you believe that I've had a hand in the disappearance of the peasant's offspring? Very well then, I will satisfy your curiosity."

Before I was able to respond, the Baroness surged forward and clutching me by the throat, pushed me through the wall. There followed a sickening scrape of stone upon stone and suddenly I found myself falling backward, tumbling down a set of winding stairs. Not tumbling exactly, more precisely floating with Cynara hovering beside me. Descending ever downward to an incredible depth, with the dull blue iridescence drifting past with a dreamy slowness. At last we reached the bottom where Cynara threw me roughly to the floor, her false levity replaced by naked disdain.

"So it is the truth that you desire, my gypsy servant? You wish to strip away the veneer and gaze upon the true face beneath? Inquisitiveness is not always a good trait to possess, but you have come in search of answers and so you shall have them."

The stench in the chamber was putrid, warm and eldritch. Blood and desiccating meat filled my nostrils and lungs, bringing my breath in retching gasps. There was a blaze of blue light and then the true horror revealed itself.

My screams were nearly lost beneath the roar of the blood thundering in my veins. The thing which loomed over me was half Cynara and half shambling monstrosity. Cynara's exquisite cheekbones were covered with a mottled, wet yellow skin. The perfect nose pushed upward to reveal raw, flaring nostrils encrusted with drying mucus. Her one reptilian eye blazed a blinding yellow, split by a jagged vertical slash of black that served as a pupil.

Above the strong jaw line, sensuous lips were shredded by sharp, curving fangs. Its breath was a foul current which exacerbated the oppressiveness of the air in the chamber.

The body was likewise half Cynara and half night creature; one side, the very picture of feminine perfection and the other, bare knotted muscle beneath a festering skin which expelled pus and filth like sweat.

I was stricken, unable to move as the thing towered over me. My fear and shock must have amused Cynara for she threw back her head and laughed hysterically. "Is this not what you expected to see? You, along with all of the other filth that I allow to serve me, have long thought me to be a monster and...well you were right."

She tittered gleefully with a sound akin to breaking glass. The laughter faded after a time and Cynara whispered, "I suggest Rebecca that you begin to examine just where your loyalties lie. I have quartered you here, tolerated your incompetence and provided you with a better life than you had ever hoped to expect and you still possess the effrontery to challenge the way in which I conduct my affairs. I would well be justified to have your throat this very minute."

Cynara's threat broke my paralysis and I sprang to my feet, sprinting headlong toward the stairs. The abomination made no move to stop me. I had reached the bottom riser when mad Morgan lunged from the shadows and with a blow delivered to the pit of my stomach, sent me sprawling to the stone floor. Looking up breathlessly, I saw Morgan's eyes; a mad zealot's eyes filled with blood lust.

Cynara strode into view, her horrid visage rapidly shifting, becoming more Cynara and less monstrosity. "Really Rebecca, by what power of delusion do you think that you could run from me."

"The child! What have you done with the child?" I demanded, using anger to temper my mounting terror, reducing it to manageable levels.

Mad Morgan chortled, but Cynara silenced him with an incisive glance. Stooping down, she hauled me to my feet, demonstrating tremendous strength. "There is your child."

In the far corner of the chamber, lying near a sweating stone wall, the shadows partially obscured a small shape. Cynara moved a hand and the thing started to rise against the strident protest of a pack of rats that had apparently been feeding upon it.

"Oh, Holy Mother of God!" I exclaimed, barely able to recognize the sound of my own voice. By some trick of levitation the lifeless body of Elima's daughter drifted toward me. Its tiny head lolled back, unseeing eyes set upon ceiling. The body was as white as chalk.

"You're inhuman," I whispered, transfixed by the gruesome horror. "Depraved."

"Indeed," Cynara agreed and then waved her hands again. The small body burst into flames, its blazing pyre burning a blinding white. The flames consumed the body ravenously, filling the chamber with the reek of burning flesh. Watching Cynara's nostrils flare with delight caused me to shiver with revulsion.

Within a short span of seconds, all traces of the girl's body had been effaced.

Cynara spun me about to face her, her beauty once again restored. Only her right hand, with its needle point claws, remained to give evidence of the beast within. Her eyes peered into mine, cold and deadly. "What am I to do with you, Rebecca? Other than Morgan, you are the only human to have glimpsed my true nature. To preserve my secret, it would be prudent to simply kill you, to have you vanish just as your precious peasant whelp has done. That would be vulgar and despite your traitorous actions, I admire your misguided courage. Still, it would not do to have you spread stories of what you have seen."

She placed her thumb and long index finger on the line of her chin as though contemplating the matter. After a time, a malefic delight dawned in her eyes and she declared, "I believe that I've found an equitable solution, one that will ensure your silence and allow you to live."

With awesome speed, the monster placed her hand upon my forehead and pushed back vigorously. In reaction, my jaw popped open and before I could do anything to prevent it, Cynara forced the beast claw into my mouth. There followed a nauseating swell of white agony as the razor points dug deep into the yielding flesh of my tongue. The wave of blood induced a gagging fit, but the claw did not release its grip. Again, the reek of burning flesh filled my nostrils and then the pain was gone. With a casual flip of her hand, Cynara allowed a small lump of pinkish flesh to fall to the floor.

I attempted to scream, but the sound was nothing more than a garbled screech. Realization filtered through at last and my legs lost their fiber, sending me tumbling to the floor. Cynara spoke then, her voice low, toneless and terrifying. "You shall spend the remaining days of your life as a babbling mute, serving me without question. If you try to run, be assured that I shall find you. You shall live with the knowledge of what I am and you shall bear witness to my work and my deeds shall become yours. Now Go!"

Without hesitation, I fled my tormentor and sought the privacy of my room. Through the hours of my grief and misery that have passed between then and now I have tried to divine some meaning, some purpose for all of this insanity. The pain has served as a catalyst for comprehension. Cynara believed that, by taking my tongue, she would guarantee my silence. Her prejudice never allowed her to entertain the possibility that I might have other means of communication. This journal shall serve as a testimony to her wickedness. It will pass through the ages and with God's help, shall bring retribution down upon the monster and purge the stain from my own soul.

Chapter Twenty Seven

Contayza glanced up from the journal, unaware that at some point in the reading she had begun to weep. This monster, this Cynara Saravic, had been a truly wicked woman. She had tortured and maimed Rebecca and more unimaginable still, she had killed a small baby. The very thought of killing a small infant made Contayza want to cry. And so she did, without restraint or shame.

Her sobbing echoed through the forest, alarming birds and small animals and sending them scurrying for cover. She sat there, a small girl, grieving for the injustices of a tyrant over one hundred years gone. Her chest heaved and her breathing came in shallow, ragged gasps. Eventually, the pain and tears abated, giving way to an immutable fury that raged like a wildfire. Something stirred deep within her soul, something alien and violent, though she understood that this was not precisely correct. The thing inside of her felt as if it were truly a part of her being, though a portion that had long been dormant. Yet, in its nascent stirrings, she knew that it was an integral part of what she would grow to become.

Contayza felt a measure of fear at the welling of forces within her. The wind around her sighed, grew frantic and then began to howl. A low growl came over the wind, reaching Contayza and reminding her that the rottweiller still blocked the head of the path. Now it had dipped its head at the shoulders and bared its fangs in an unmistakable gesture of aggression.

Before delving into the journal, Contayza had been terrified by the muscular beast. In the aftermath of the tale, she felt only hatred for it as though it was a modern accomplice to the nightmare she had just read.

She watched the dog as it approached slowly. It provided a focus for the escalating power gathering within her, a release for her newfound loathing. Abruptly, the air around her crackled, filling her nostrils with the acrid smell of burning ozone. There was a momentary shimmering of the air, followed by a whip like hiss and the dog was suddenly lifted off the ground and sent tumbling as though it were a bolt of cloth.

"Get away from me, do you hear me? Get away from me or I'll make you sorry," Contayza raged. The startled dog landed badly, flanks hitting unyielding granite with a distinct, sickening crunch. It rolled on the ground, yipping wildly, frightened and confused by what had just befallen it. The rottweiller attempted to flee, but the best that it could manage was a three legged stumble.

Once unleashed, the power within the small girl lashed out without restraint or control. The air again crackled as though it were being ripped asunder. Scant seconds later, a large pine tree snapped three feet from its based and toppled directly onto of the dog's spine, sending its insides spewing out of its mouth and anus. It laid there, muscles twitching spastically, dying within seconds of the impact.

Still, the furious outpouring of energy did not falter, instead growing to immeasurable levels. The air snapped and crackled as Contayza's fury ran rampant. The very soil beneath her feet began to heave upward, propelling trees and stones toward the heavens. Like a statue, Contayza stood at the center of the carnage, watching the wanton destruction of the land with a mixture of awe and wonder, but not the slightest trace of fear.

Finally her telekinetic tirade played itself out and the clearing was again still, though now it resembled a blast site. Contayza stood in the center of the clearing, surveying the destruction with the calm detachment of one who feels no part of what she is seeing. Then acceptance closed in and she was stricken by a bout of trembling so severe that it drove her to her knees.

' _I did this_!' she thought to herself. Though the puzzle resisted her best effort to resolve it, it was undeniably, inescapably true. Some part of her, one that she had not known to exist, had conjured this awesome wave of destruction. The proof was all about her, spelled out in ruptured earth, fallen trees and spilled blood. Contayza wrapped her arms about her shoulders and hugged herself in an effort to allay the spasms. The thing within her quaked like a caged beast...yearning for the moment of release when the world could be reduced to unrestrained violence and destruction.

"She ripped the tongue from her mouth," whispered a small voice that bore an eerie resemblance to Lemuel Prowzi's venerable timbre. Though the image sickened her, it also roused an intense anger, igniting another burst of energy. The eruption raised granite boulders from the earth and flung them toward the heavens. Contayza watched the masses of rock rise, tumbling languorously before plummeting back to the earth.

"Impressive, little angel. Impressive indeed," came the familiar voice from behind her. She spun about to come face to face with her beloved grandfather. Yet there was something distinctly different about the man before her. He appeared to have a shimmering, less than substantial quality as though he might be a specter. The old man stood erect with square shoulders. Contayza intuited that this was the man who dwelt beneath the age-ravaged exterior. In his now limpid eyes there gleamed a brilliant, impassioned light that spoke of cold competence and self assurance.

"So, it is as I've always suspected. My little angel is to be the one." Lemuel glanced about, absorbing the sight of the carnage with a hint of satisfaction that baffled the young girl. "This is truly incredible, far exceeding anything that I would have hoped for."

Contayza could discern his excitement, though she felt only a sense of post traumatic numbness. She understood too little of what had just transpired to share in his enthusiasm.

"Grandda, what just happened? Did I do this?" she asked in the voice of a bewildered little girl.

"You've been born, my child. You've burst out of the womb. The power that has been stirred from its slumber here, shall grow in magnitude, will be nurtured until it shakes the foundations of the very world." Pointing toward the journal, the apparition continued, "Contayza, this is the catalyst, the impetus that commenced the process. After more than a century, you are to be Rebecca's avenger. You are the culmination of the Prowzi line."

"But Grandda...surely this bad woman is dead by now?" Contayza exclaimed, growing more agitated by the man's talk of retribution and hereditary avengers. She wasn't an avenger. She was just a small, pretty girl who had just stumbled on something she neither understood nor desired to be a part of.

"She is not dead, girl. This monster lives, infecting the world with her evil even as we speak. She will go on spreading her vileness until she is destroyed by someone with the strength and faith to confront her. You are the chosen one little girl. Within your heart and mind are the means to tear away her wickedness like a weed from fertile soil. The witch lives and in time you shall go to her, winding you horn like Gabriel before Jericho. Destiny does not ask that we seek it out, my angel. When the time is right, it will reveal itself, though that destiny may be of no consequence or earthshaking in scope. Your road leads to the Queen of Darkness. Her heart is your food and her blood is your wine. When you have indulged in both, our debt to the past will be paid and the souls of Cynara's victims will rest knowing that they have been vindicated."

Somehow, Contayza subdued the impulse to burst into tears. The enormity of this burden settled upon her like a millstone. Lemuel saw the burden register in her large, expressive eyes. "Don't fret child. There will be a span of years before you are asked to stand against the witch. In that time, your power will grow in leaps and bounds as will your faith and the understanding of the obligation that you must meet."

Contayza nodded her head somberly, implicitly trusting the old man who she had grown to love so dearly. He granted her a warm, reassuring smile. "Go home, precious one. Learn to live and see the world through open eyes. Learn to see yourself and explore the gift that you've been given. It may be employed for more than simple vengeance. If you should find all of this alarming or confusing, don't despair. Time is a great teacher, child."

With this last pearl of wisdom, the apparition winked and was gone, leaving Contayza alone to ponder everything that had befallen her in the course of the fateful morning.

She collected the journal, taking it under her arms, and headed back along the path toward home. She walked unaware of the new gait in her stride and the blossoming gleam of resolve in her eyes. Ironically, she returned home, feeling the same sensation of being altered that had possessed Cynara Saravic the night she felt the immortalizing sting of Gregory's dagger over a century before.

Chapter Twenty Eight

1

The jeweled vault of the heavens stretched over the frigid earth, resplendent with a billion suns, whirling through the infinite, airless spaces. The tiny lights winked at the earth, glowing in different magnitudes like celestial beacons. Pierca Rescu did not catch the wondrous display and if he had, its beauty and mystery would have been entirely lost on him. He lacked both the imagination and the proper perspective to appreciate such natural splendor.

With the darkness had come bone chilling, sub zero winds, howling like a freight train out of the northwest. The wind served to make such guard duty a miserable ordeal. Pierca pulled his fur collar tighter at the neck and leaned a little closer to the fire, trying to gain full advantage from the crackling flames that burned at the center of the clearing.

Pierca was a man who could be considered an amiable slow wit by many. Despite being a bit of a plodder, he had proven himself to be a courageous and dedicated soldier of the cause. His dedication was, in truth, superficial and not rooted in commitment to the cause of extricating Romania from the bonds of communism. In reality, Pierca's entire world revolved around the need to have a sense of ' _place_ '; to be part of something that would allay his fear of being alone.

Pierca had long been convinced that he was in some way invisible. While growing up, his nondescript looks and his quiet reserve had allowed him to fade into the background, easily ignored by even his own family. His brothers, more gregarious all, had captured the family attention, while he had been left to float into a bewildering state of obscurity...an unnoticed fixture, at best.

When it appeared that he would be condemned to a lifetime of emptiness on his father's farm (or more correctly, the State farm that his father managed), he had been unexpectedly rescued by Contayza and Ivan. He had been enthralled by their talk of freedom and lofty political idealism...even if he had failed to completely comprehend most of it. He had agreed to join the pair in their quixotic quest and over the past three years, Pierca had seen and done things that were far beyond the narrow limits of his imagination. He derived no joy from the violence and the physical confrontation, but the camaraderie provided him with the acceptance and purpose he so desperately desired.

Staring into the flicker of the camp fire, Pierca shivered and gazed about the clearing. The light snow fall had quickly evolved into a heavy snowstorm that had reduced visibility to a few yards at best. He knew that his cousin, Simon, was pulling guard duty about one hundred and fifty yards up the road. Most of the trailers were dark except for the trailer where the two Americans were being kept. He had seen Contayza go into the trailer over three hours ago and still she had not come out.

Through the small side windows of the old trailer, he could see an inviting light glowing warmly. He tried to consider what might be transpiring between the three. Pierca saw the unexpected appearance of the two Americans as an ill omen; not because he regarded the pair as bad, but more because of the shadow of doom that hovered over them like a penumbra. He hoped that Contayza would adhere to her decision to send them away. The strong sense of imminent destruction frightened Pierca as did the very mention of the name Cynara Saravic. Her name was like an evil incantation that could unleash things that no simple man could ever want to see.

Whenever Pierca allowed himself the luxury of thinking of Contayza, he was swept up in a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. He viewed his cousin with awe; child like reverence that glowed in his mild brown eyes whenever she would glance at him or speak his name. Contayza was the family jewel, a jewel which he privately longed to possess...one that he would quite simply die for. A log in the fire popped, startling Pierca back to the task at hand. He silently cursed the cold and extended his hands toward the fire. As he did, Pierca was accosted by a sight that nearly stopped his heart.

There, in the very heart of the fire, floated two glowing eyes. They watched him unblinkingly.

Pierca closed his eyes, thinking that the cold was making him hallucinate. Opening his eyes, he saw that the disembodied eyes were still there, regarding him with a cold malice which rivaled the arctic winter's night. Still, Pierca could do nothing other than stare in numb wonder. Seconds passed and then an entire face took shape, fabricated from the crackling flames. The face was very much like Contayza's, lovely and exotic, yet more esoteric and far less innocent.

"You are cold," the fire woman remarked quietly, her tone suggesting sympathy.

Suddenly, Pierca felt as though the blood had been drained from his body and replaced with ice water. The sudden need to be warm replaced whatever logical thought might lie within his power. His muscles contracted violently and painfully as the glacial cold tightened its grip upon his flesh. There was an amused murmur from the thing within the flames and then it offered, "I could warm you, if you like."

Pierca, feeling his fingers and toes stiffen miserably, rasped between clenched teeth, "Yes, please. I'm very cold."

"From this moment forth, you shall be eternally warm," the thing promised soothingly and then hell reached out and embraced Pierca Rescu. The icy silence was shattered by a series of horrifying shrieks.

2

Contayza concluded her tale and then lapsed into a somber silence, having given away more of herself than she had initially intended. There was something about the two men that invited candor. She felt strongly comforted by their presence as if their arrival had removed some tremendous burden from her shoulders, or relieved some of its weight at the very least.

She punctuated her story by saying, "So, you see, it was Rebecca's journal that put me on the path to the evil whore, Saravic. It was her tale that forced me to confront what I really am."

Jimmy shook his head in wonder and admiration. Any feeling of animosity that he had harbored toward the girl quickly vanished.

"And so you've devoted your entire life to hunting down Cynara?" he asked, astounded by her devotion to a cause that most would have regarded as deranged.

Contayza smiled, an enchanting flash of ivory, and admitted "At first, I was a little reluctant. I was only ten and rather intimidated by the responsibility and the power that I possessed. As the years passed, I came to accept the obligation. I embraced Grandda's dream and made it my own. There is a privilege in being so chosen. He made me realize that. Avenging Rebecca's suffering and that of all the others has become my entire life."

Nath smiled, though his true emotion was one of bitterness. They were of a kind, these three. Each had suffered losses and each had sacrificed a portion of their lives to settle a score. He felt a twinge of pity for the young woman, so beautiful and intelligent. She had been denied a normal life thanks to an ancient evil and a century old plea for vengeance. He wondered what Contayza would have been like had she not been steered onto this wretched course.

"Where is your grandfather, now?" he inquired softly.

Contayza glanced at Nath. Something about his fey, slightly sad expression brought to mind the angelic lady of her encounter with Cynara. There was an unmistakably similarity between the two. It could be seen in the cool reserve in the man's eyes. "Grandda still lives in Surceava. He is over ninety, but still healthy and sharp."

"He sounds like an extraordinary man," Nath offered, while wondering what kind of man would put such a lovely woman on a path of open conflict with a monster like Cynara.

"He is," Contayza confirmed affectionately. She stood and turned toward the trailer door, not wanting them to see the mist of tears that were forming in her eyes. Trying to control the tremor of emotion in her voice, she continued, "I'm so sorry about what happened last night. My behavior was inexcusable. You're coming here, it...it frightened me. You both are good men. I feel that. If you can forgive me, I'd like the two of you to help me find Cynara and destroy her." She paused briefly. Then she revealed something that she would not have believed herself capable of only days before. "I need your help."

Jimmy glanced at Nath, who gave him a slight nod. Jimmy then rose and extended a hand toward Contayza as though closing something as mundane as a business contract. "It looks as though you've found yourself a couple of new team members."

Contayza laughed. "With a team like this, I would say that Cynara is living on borrowed time."

The two men joined in the laughter. It was then that the screaming started.

3

The cries of profound agony reverberated throughout the camp. Within seconds, these cries were joined by shouts of confusion and panic, as men, half dressed and still groggy with sleep, poured out of the trailers, all brandishing automatic weapons.

Upon seeing the nightmare that awaited them, the entire group degenerated into utter chaos. In the center of the clearing, Pierca Rescu was performing a gyrating death jig as blue yellow fire transformed him into a gruesome human torch. The others watched helplessly as their comrade stumbled about, issuing an agonized plea to be killed.

Still, even this grim horror paled in comparison to the thing shimmering in the heart of the flames. The fire had blossomed to a full fifteen feet above the ground and in its heart, a fiery facsimile of the Dark Lady shimmered and glowered, her exquisite body reproduced in flame. The fire sculpture viewed Pierca's death with obvious delight. A single shot rose above the roar of the madness and Pierca Rescu fell mercifully to the ground.

All eyes turned to Ivan Prowzi, who stood holding a smoking pistol in his right hand. He appeared broken and plainly diminished as he lowered the gun and slowly descended the steps. As he did, Contayza burst through the door of the adjacent trailer, followed closely by Jimmy and Nath. Contayza looked from the burning mass on the ground to the thing in the campfire. A piercing wail of rage and loss ripped from her lungs and she charged down the steps and across the snowy clearing, fully intending to plunge into the flames and rip Cynara apart with her bare hands.

Before she could reach the flames, Ivan intercepted her and threw her roughly to the ground.

"Enough! Pierca is dead, dammit. There must be no more deaths. Now stay where you are," He screamed miserably. His posture suggested that he would hit her if she attempted to rise.

"Let her come, peasant," A voice implored from the flames.

Falling to the bait, Contayza howled furiously and sprang to her feet. Cynara's mock levity vanished. "Come, my gypsy whore. Let's write an end to this absurd drama here and now. Dare you step into the pyre and face me one on one when you are not armed with the element of surprise?"

Cynara was snarling now, hatred marking her face like a fiery lunatic's mask. Jimmy could see that Contayza dearly wanted to oblige the Dark Lady, so he rushed to position himself between the pair. "Don't be foolish, Contayza. It's a trap. She's trying to bait you and can't you see how desperate she is. She senses that we are going to finish her."

Behind him, Cynara barked derisive laughter. "Bold talk from a condemned man. I should incinerate the lot of you now, but I've come to inform you of exactly what I have in store for you." With a sweeping gesture, she motioned toward the nine Romanians huddled near the burnt corpse. "This rabble can look forward to unpleasant deaths. Even as we speak, the forces that I have selected to destroy you are well on their way. If you wish to save your pathetic little lives, then flee while there is still time. To remain with this impudent little slut will mean certain death."

Jimmy could see that fear, that elemental dread, register in every eye. He wondered how many would still be here when the morning light made its blessed appearance. He shifted his gaze to Cynara. The flickering light made her seem utterly alien and thus all the more deadly. "You've managed to hurt me, but for that small victory I shall ruthlessly destroy everything that you love. You will live to bury all of these imbeciles, knowing that it was you that brought about their demise. By the time I am finished, your sense of guilt shall have you pleading for a mercifully quick death."

Contayza stood motionless, fixing Cynara with a baleful glare. If she felt any trepidation at the witch's threats, it was not reflected in her lovely amber eyes. "You are not only a whore, but you are a craven, miserable miscreant. You cower behind witchcraft and sorcery because you don't have the courage to confront me face to face. All of this will avail you nothing. The day will come when I will find you, and on that day, the ghosts of the innocent, from Rebecca to Pierca, will howl with satisfaction."

Cynara roared, enraged by Contayza's temerity. A wave of her hand sent a ribbon of flame coursing through the air, igniting the very earth around Contayza. In the ensuing commotion, everyone, including Jimmy and Nathaniel, began screaming for the girl to flee the circle.

Contayza did nothing to heed the others wild exhortation. She remained rock still as the circle of flame closed upon her, burning frozen ground that had no right to burn.

"That is just as well, girl. Stand there like a sheep and meekly accept the inevitable," The pyre creature hissed triumphantly. The howl of triumph turned to consternation as the ground about Contayza folded back upon itself, completely extinguishing the blaze.

An astonished silence fell upon the group, one so profound that the incessant crackling of Cynara's fire sounded as loud as thunder. All eyes were locked upon Contayza as though seeing the girl for the first time.

"I have no patience for such games, coward. Show me your real power, if you have any to show," Contayza taunted.

"I will show you, you little bitch, but not now," Cynara seethed, evidently on the verge of hysteria. This impudent little whelp was getting the better of her. Her defiance was filling the others with renewed confidence. "After I have disposed of all of the others, I have a special surprise prepared for you. After I've raped your soul, I'll leave what is left to someone who is most anxious to meet you."

Turning her attention to Jimmy, she continued her tirade, "You are a corpse. You have been for the past twenty years, since the day that you first walked into my office in Semelar. Very soon, I shall lay you to rest."

Moving to Contayza's side, Jimmy retorted, "Idle threats, Cynara. I've heard them all before. Have you forgotten El Zaltaro?"

"No, I haven't. And I suspect that there is another here for whom the memory is agonizingly vivid. Am I right my sweet Nathaniel?" Cynara's voice echoed with something that almost, though not quite, resembled affection.

In the calamity of the night, no one noticed Nathaniel Simpson as he stood gazing down upon the charred remains of Pierca Rescu. His eyes had narrowed into slits and his jaw was clenched tight as though he were struggling to suppress a scream. He was oblivious to everything that had passed since he had first set eyes upon the human torch. The horror had evoked the excruciating memory of his own moment of burning pain upon the stake in El Zaltaro. The high, eldritch stench of his own burning flesh flooded back to him and he could almost hear the pop of fat cells as the flames ravaged his body. The memory of it made him want to cry, to run and scream until his heart and lungs burst.

The sound of her voice penetrated his wall of misery, forcing him out of the nightmarish recollection. He could actually hear the creak of tendons as his head swiveled to meet her call. She smiled as though genuinely pleased to see him. "Ah, sweet Nathaniel. Blue eyed cherub. I see this corpse holds special meaning for you. You should have accepted the generous proposition that I offered you on the occasion of our last meeting. I hope that the significance of that encounter was not lost upon you."

Nath's face crumpled in reaction to the memory; the waters of the sewer channel suddenly boiling red as the steel jaws folded home. He murmured something that none of the others could hear. Something had passed between the two, something that even Jimmy could not fathom.

"Perhaps you could enlighten your friends about weakness of the compromised heart. Of this entire rabble, you are the one who might possess the fortitude to stand against me. You are my most formidable adversary and it saddens me to know that you might also have become my greatest ally. We are truly bound together, you and I. After all, have we not shared in the most sacred of rituals? It is unfortunate that your death has become necessary. You have the gypsy harlot to thank for that turn of circumstance."

Through the flames all could see genuine regret etched upon Cynara's flickering features. "I've arranged a pleasant end for you, dear one. Merciful and sweet."

Nath turned back to the ruins of Pierca Rescu, staring numbly at the blackened husk. He felt a special kinship to the dead man. Despair drove Nath to pray that he would soon be joining him.

Cynara shook her head in feigned sorrow and then turned to the others, certain that her vague allusions to that night in Brasov would sow the seeds of dissension amongst her enemies. "I've delivered by warning and I would advise that you all mark it well. Reflect upon what I am and what it is that you propose to do. To think that you could ever hope to destroy me is sheer folly. You will all die as surely as this mass of kindling has fallen before you. For my part, only Nathaniel, Simms and the insolent bitch concern me. The rest of you are of no consequence. You may go home and be spared or you may stay and die. Hell has limitless capacity."

With this, the Cynara creature guttered and flared, the flash blinding her enemies. Before their collective vision could clear the flames had been extinguished and the witch was gone.

Everyone remained stationary as though they had been turned to stone. When finally the group began to move, no one seemed willing to break the brooding silence. The Dark Lady's display of puissance had shaken everyone, except perhaps Jimmy and Contayza. Pierca's smoking remains gave credence to her promise of death for all. Contayza could read their general mood; somber and pessimistic. Crossing over to the remains of the campfire, she administered a savage kick to the logs that scattered ashes and partially burnt bits of kindling in every direction. Then she turned back to the group, who collectively watched her, waiting for the words of inspiration that would renew their hope. Her eyes played slowly over each one of them, feeling their need for reassurance. Still, they were her family and she could never deceive them.

She spoke then, "You've all heard the witch's words and have been provided with a painful illustration of her power as well as her capacity for savagery and sadism. She is my sworn enemy and I have vowed to seek her out and destroy her. You, however, are under no such obligation. Pierca was our brother and now he has died fighting a battle in which he had no part. I can do nothing to bring him back, but I can prevent any further needless deaths.

"Tomorrow, we will break camp. I, along with the two Americans, will go north. The rest of you will return to your home and families."

There followed a loud chorus of protests, but Jimmy detected the unmistakable echo of relief couched in most of the voices. Cynara's vulgar and ruthless display of brutality had not been without its debilitating effect. Most would be nagged by guilt, yet they would go nonetheless; not because they were cowards, but because they realized that they were ill equipped to deal with a supernatural adversary. Still, some of the more fearless warriors objected vigorously. "Do you actually expect us to abandon you to that thing? How could we ever live with ourselves? Surely you do not question our heart and courage? Have we not demonstrated our dedication again and again?"

"I have never questioned your collective courage," Contayza countered heatedly. "You have all exhibited your dedication and conviction. Your courage is not being questioned here. The operative question is whether or not you are ready to wage a war against Cynara Saravic. I am not willing to provide her with more fodder. Don't you see that she is impervious to bullets and the other conventional weapons of man? You have all violently opposed the tyrant that has oppressed our nation. In their wildest imaginings, the State barbarians could never have conceived of something as insidious as Cynara Saravic."

She stopped, small in stature, but enormous in the eyes of her family. "Go home! Your deaths will serve no purpose. I have been bred to stand against this evil. She is to be mine and mine alone."

The men grumbled, but guardedly agreed to obey her wishes. They shuffled about and not glancing at the human wreckage on the ground, gradually drifted back to their trailers.

Without meeting his eyes, Contayza said, "Ivan, arrange to have Pierca's body prepared for shipment home."

Ivan merely nodded glumly and went off to seek help. He appeared sickened by the violence and terror of the death that had befallen his cousin. He had been exposed to a great deal of horror in his thirty six years, but none of his past experiences had prepared him for what he had witnessed on this horrible night.

Contayza watched Ivan until he had vanished from sight. She drew a deep, tremulous breath, shivered perceptibly and turned to face the two Americans. Her brave facade was beginning to show tiny hints of cracking. "I've asked you to help me. Before I can trust you, I must be certain of who and what you are. Nathaniel, something has passed between yourself and Cynara and I must know what that something is."

"What are you trying to say?" Jimmy interrupted, not liking what Contayza seemed to be implying.

Contayza's temperamental side flared at Simms. "I cannot risk being betrayed. Cynara seems to harbor a special sentiment for your friend. I'll be candid and state openly that this ' _affection_ ' concerns me. Unless he can convince me of his dedication to the cause of destroying Cynara, then I'll be left with no alternative but to send him away."

"Goddamn you! What gives you the right to question Nath's loyalty?" Simms raged indignantly. "He has endured more than any human should have to and you have no fucking right to force him to justify anything to you." He took a rapid step forward, towering over the Romanian. Contayza, though not taking a backward step, seemed to lack the energy to rise to his challenge. He snarled and waved her off. "I've had it with your bullying. To hell with you, do you hear me? We'll leave here tomorrow and be glad to be rid of you. You should follow your own advice and go home. You're a fool for thinking that you could match Cynara."

"Jimmy, that's enough," Nath interrupted his voice was soft, almost maudlin.

Jimmy shook his head and turned his back on Contayza. Contayza sighed wearily. Close to tears, she whispered, "I'm sorry."

Bowing her head, she left the two alone with the corpse of Pierca Rescu.

Chapter Twenty Nine

1

Three hours after the bitter confrontation with Cynara's fire incarnation, a sullen hush had descended upon the camp. The fire, which had conceived the flaming monstrosity, had not been relit. Pierca Rescu's body had been placed in the cold storage trailer for its final journey home. Most of the camp's inhabitants lay in their bunks contemplating this disturbing new world where monsters, such as Cynara Saravic, lay waiting behind a veil of darkness and disbelief. Most mourned the grizzly death of Pierca Rescu and gave fervent thanks that they had been spared a similar fate.

There was a sharp crack of cold air and metal as one of the trailer doors opened and a single man stepped out onto the crudely fabricated porch. He stood there for a moment, breathing in the fresh, crisp air and feeling the needle sting of the north wind as it attacked his exposed skin with a mindless fury vengeance. The temperature had dipped to 9 degrees Celsius. Driven by a cruel arctic wind, the cold had plunged central Romania into a deep freeze.

Nathaniel Simpson crossed the clearing, his purposeful stride belying his deteriorating condition. Since that moment of agony in the sewers of Brasov, Nath had slowly, yet steadily begun to run down as though the witch had infected him with a pernicious virus that strove to destroy his spirit and vitality. He had glanced in the mirror earlier that night and had noticed the first physical manifestation of his decline. Around both of his eyes and the corners of his mouth, tiny networks of wrinkles had embossed themselves into the skin of his face. This disturbing development had driven Nath to the realization that the witch's curse was taking a frightful toll upon his body; one that would eventually kill him if he did not manage to reclaim his soul.

There was a dull, muted light leaking through the single window of Contayza's trailer. He watched it flicker for a moment, gathering himself, knowing that he would have to reach some accommodation with the tempestuous beauty if the three were to form a true alliance. Spurred by the chill of the night air, Nath mounted the stairs and rapped lightly on the aluminum door. He hesitated for a moment, heard no response, and then knocked more vigorously.

The reply was faint and unintelligible. Nath correctly surmised that Contayza thought that the caller was one of her family members, and had replied in Romanian. He knocked a third time and heard muffled footsteps as she came to investigate. She swung the door open and began to speak in Romanian, "Look, it's very late and I..."

When she realized who the late night caller was, she stopped in mid sentence, clearly startled by Nath's unexpected appearance.

"We have to talk," He offered mildly. "I know it's late, but I don't think we can leave this thing unresolved. Can I come in?"

2

She sat on an ancient bridge chair, studying Nath intently. Her swollen eyes betrayed the fact that she had been crying hard during the past few hours. Tears glistened like diamonds on the plush, velvety beds of her lashes. She absently brushed at them with the back of her hand. Simpson understood that this was a woman who did her grieving in private. Tears were a symbol of weakness in her mind and Contayza would never allow herself to display weakness before others.

She motioned for him to take an armchair and he sat, grateful to be off of his weary legs. For a brief moment he felt a tremendous force brush against the fabric of his conscious mind; that place where the real Nathaniel Simpson lived. She attempted to probe his thoughts, though with more grace and subtlety than she had the day before.

"You could simply try asking," he offered amiably.

Contayza blinked slightly. "Very well, why have you come here?"

"To express my sympathy for your loss and to try and answer your questions. It may not be such a simple matter for there is much that I do not understand myself."

She was again struck by the sense of serenity that this man exuded. The veil around his thoughts resisted her best effort to penetrate it. "Why didn't Jimmy come with you?"

"This is between the two of us. Jimmy has a tendency to be a bit harsh in expressing his opinion when his dander is up."

"And you are more composed?"

"Yes," No emotion. No presumption. Only a neutral declaration of fact. He smiled at her then and the tension and weariness fell away from his face like a shed skin. His eyes were placid and unassuming, not the eyes of a man in league with a demon.

"I'm sorry about your cousin," he offered somberly.

The mention of Pierca nearly shattered Contayza's charade. Tears still lurked close to the surface, though there was something about this small man, with his sage manner and placid eyes which suggested compassion and understanding. She supposed that it would not be a disgrace to cry in front of him and yet her characteristic reserve was too deeply engrained. Her emotions were too tightly reined to shed tears before another. Speaking in an inflectionless voice, eyes fixed on her hands, she said, "This was one eventuality that I was not prepared for. Since I was a little girl, I've readied myself for a confrontation with Cynara Saravic. Not for a moment did I consider the possibility that one of my family members would be in danger as a consequence. In hindsight, that was a decidedly foolish assumption."

Nath said nothing, allowing her to speak, knowing that expression of grief was the first step towards healing. He could see her throat working as she struggled to find the proper way to articulate her regret. "Ultimately, I am responsible even if Cynara was the one who actually killed Pierca. I am the one who exposed him to that threat."

"He worshipped me as though I were some manner of gypsy queen. He was so sweet and innocent; no more than an overgrown child, really. I took him away from his home and his family. All for the sake of the sacred cause." Contayza emitted a bitter laughter fraught with self loathing.

"I never knew him, but seeing him standing next to you yesterday, I would say that he seemed very content," Nath offered, hoping that his words had not sounded hollow or contrived.

"That much was true. He was happy, though not because of his dedication to the great democratic ideal. Pierca yearned to be a part of something. I used that, dammit! I exploited that need to my own selfish end. Can you understand how despicable that makes me feel?" she began to rock herself.

"I took that trust and exploited it. Now I've betrayed it. I might as well have killed him with my own hands," Contayza concluded wretchedly. The dam burst and hot tears of shame and negation ran over her high cheekbones. Nath groped for a way to console her, found nothing and instead decided to tell her about his own moment of guilt. Trying to surmount his own natural reserve, he came to her and held her in his arms. Her breath, warm and sweet against his neck, stood in sharp contrast to his ordeal in the sewers beneath the streets of Brasov.

"I can certainly empathize with some of what you are feeling," he began, carefully selecting the words. In the intervening days between the girl's death and this conversation, he had been afforded little opportunity to examine the nightmare and its ramifications. "Jimmy remarked that you had no right to question my loyalty, but he was wrong. You would be foolish not to be cautious, given the circumstances. That is why I decided to come here and let you question me, hoping that you could lay your doubts to rest."

Contayza gently pushed herself away from his chest and regarded him with a speculative expression. Her withdrawal evoked a strange twinge of regret and he realized how easy it would be to grow accustomed to her touch and the proximity of her body. "Cynara seems to harbor a disconcerting sentimentality toward you, almost as though she dotes on you. I have to know why."

Nath nodded with a tight lipped grin. "Though it's not necessarily the beginning I'm not sure where that point would be I'll tell you about Brasov. What happened there is the key to all of this, or so I suspect. Maybe that's only deluded thinking because I really haven't had the opportunity to think this all through. What happened there was intended to impart some kind of lesson, but I've been unable to decipher the exact riddle of what or why."

She watched him, clearly puzzled and anxious to understand. He began to recount the tale of his encounter in the sewers. Slowly, ponderously, he related every detail of his hellish tryst with the Dark Lady. He told her everything faithfully, except for the specifics of Cynara's failed seduction. He spoke with the detachment of one who is relating another man's story. Only when he had come to the girl's gruesome demise in the jaws of the grotesque snake creature could Contayza perceive a change in his tone and emotion. His tale provided Contayza with further insights into the workings of the Dark Lady's mind.

When he had concluded, he reached into the pocket of his leather bomber jacket and produced a small locket and a lovely teardrop jade pendant. "These are mementos of that night. If it were not for these, I might have been able to convince myself that it was only some kind of vivid nightmare. Cynara is thorough in her wickedness and so she left me with these to preclude that possibility."

"May I see them?" Contayza asked, surprised by the extent of her anxiety. Her heart was thudding in her chest and it was all she could do to stop her hand from trembling as she reached for the small locket. Nath laid it into the cup of her palm, noting how tiny and delicate Contayza's hands were.

She wrapped her fingers around the gold plated piece of jewelry and opened her mind to it, bracing herself against the flood of impressions and images that were sure to follow.

Seconds passed and nothing came.

Perplexed, Contayza opened her eyes and frowned, leaning slightly forward to conceal her bewilderment. The locket was devoid of any residual emotion or impression of its owner. It lay in her palm with the emotional resonance of a stone. Something so personal should certainly have retained some sense of its owner. Opening her fingers, she clutched the locket between her thumb and index finger, depressing the clasp and springing the face of the locket.

This time she could not suppress the startled gasp that escaped her lips. Nath glanced at her sharply and she scrambled to mask her reaction. "My God, she is so young...so sweet."

Nath nodded in agreement and settled back into his seat.

Again she forced herself to look into the tiny cusp of the locket, thinking that her over burdened mind was playing tricks with her vision. There, gazing up at her from within the confines of the locket's interior was a black and white photograph of a smiling Contayza Prowzi as she had been at the age of eleven. She quickly snapped the face plate back into place and handed it back to Simpson as though it might be poisonous. Her mind reeled with a thousand possibilities, each more sinister than the last. She felt a dull ache building in her temples, along with a nagging thread of uncertainty.

Concerned, Nath bent forward. "Contayza, are you alright?"

She glanced up at him, even managing to muster a wan smile. "I'm fine, really. It's just been a trying day and I..."

Her voice trailed off. His concern appeared genuine and his eyes, serene and old well beyond his years, remained unchanged. Despite her mounting confusion, she believed that, whatever he saw in the locket, it was not the portrait had been revealed to her.

"May I see the other?"

He stared at the pendant for a second, caressing its smooth surface with his left thumb. Contayza did not miss the melancholy blend of love and loss which stole across his face like a shadow. With a hint of possessive reluctance, he handed Contayza Elizabeth Simpson's locket.

Perhaps because of the blankness of the locket, Contayza was unprepared for the sensory shock wave that rocked her the instant that her fingers closed around the bit of jade. She could actually feel the tidal wave of impulses shooting through her nervous system, slamming into her mind like an artillery round. She sat bolt upright and then went totally slack as though she had just experienced some type of violent seizure.

Nath leapt to his feet, horrified by her violent reaction. "Christ, what do you see? What's happening, for Christ's sake?"

Contayza was only dimly aware of Nath's vehement query. Everything about her had simply vanished as she was drawn into the vortex that had been Elizabeth Simpson's life, played out with bewildering speed. At the center of the collage of pictures was the ethereal face of the pendant's owner. Eyes of the deepest blue. Face of a goddess; Elizabeth Simpson radiated love and purity the way a fire will emit warmth.

The other woman's world revolved around Contayza, infusing the Romanian with extremes of elation and bitter disappointment, but never despair or cynicism. She heard words uttered by a ghostly voice, the speaker concealed by the shadow of mystery. Contayza correctly deduced that these phantoms had once been influential in Elizabeth's life. Dan Wells and David Stillman. Tayza experienced the emotions that each of these men evoked. For a brief span of seconds, Tayza became one with Elizabeth Simpson; a synchronicity of existence that she had not thought possible.

Then, with the astounding rapidity with which they had first appeared, all of the images evaporated. Now, Contayza saw the exquisite body of Elizabeth Simpson lying supine on a satin draped bed. Her enticing breasts rose and fell rapidly. Then Cynara Saravic materialized out of the darkness, brandishing an emerald encrusted dagger. Emblazoned upon her face was an expression of unadulterated lust and keen anticipation.

The witch raised the dagger above her head and plunged it into Elizabeth Simpson's heart just below the left breast.

"No!" Contayza bellowed, hoping to forestall the fall of the blade, but knowing that she was witnessing a past event and she was powerless to intervene. Elizabeth Simpson was dead.

By sheer force of mind, she willed the images away and groped back toward consciousness. When she had sufficiently recovered her composure to again speak, Contayza noted that she had dropped the pendant to the trailer floor. Nathaniel had stooped to retrieve the keepsake. There was something distinctly child like about his movements, causing all of her misgivings to dissipate. This man genuinely loved the woman who had worn this pendant. Anyone capable of such unconditional love could in no way be allied with a Cynara Saravic, for whom love was anathema.

He stood and gently grasped her shoulders, slowly shaking her without being aware of doing so. "You saw something, Contayza. I have to know what that something was. Did you see my mother?"

She could detect hysteria lurking just below the mantle of quiet reserve. He was desperate to know, virtually shaking with the need. In a flat, almost remote voice, she heard herself reply. "I watched your mother's life speed by through her eyes. I experienced the emotions that she experienced and was affected by the events that shaped her life, just as she was. For the slightest instant, I became your mother. Don't ask me how I know this. I just do."

Nath dismissed this with an impatient wave of his hand. "There is more. At the end, just before you dropped the pendant, you screamed, "no!" Why? What did you see?"

His vehement tone was incongruous to the apprehensive expression branded upon his face. Tayza could sense that he half suspected and dreaded the answer.

"I saw your mother die," she whispered softly, unable to find a way to attenuate the blow. "I watched as Cynara drove a dagger into her heart."

The words slipped out with a brutal finality that she had not at all intended. A low gurgling sound whistled up from deep within Nath's throat and he staggered back, fortunate to stumble into his arm chair. The devastating effects of Contayza's revelation were printed clearly upon his face.

He looks as though he's been deflated...effectively drained of whatever substance and vitality that filled his being...of some fundamental hope that he could not survive without.

"Dead," he echoed weakly. His face was slack and bloodless, reflecting the utter loss and incredulity that he felt.

"Surely, you knew?" Contayza asked, finally grasping the cause of his distress. "Jimmy told me that your mother had been killed by Cynara. You had to know."

"I knew, but I didn't," he replied distantly. "They never found her body, you know. In my head, I accepted her death years ago. I guess that my heart never did. In light of what's just happened, it's about time I confront the harsh truth. My mother is dead. I never knew her, but I've heard so much about her. If half of what I've heard is true, then I can't even begin to imagine what I've lost."

Her brief merging with the woman informed her that he had lost a great deal indeed. Through all of this, Contayza was nagged by the certainty that she had either overlooked or neglected something that would exercise a profound influence over everything that would come after this moment. She struggled to drag it to the surface of conscious light, but it stubbornly resisted, mocking her like an elusive specter.

Nath appeared to be unraveling as though he was a spool of thread. Before she could do anything else, it was essential that she find the right words to console his grief. "Your mother, she was a special woman, Nath. In the few seconds that I held the pendant I could sense how rare and precious she was."

Nath smiled bitterly at the remark. It was a tortured smile that wrung her heart. "You're fortunate. You now know her better than I did."

Contayza glanced down at her slippered feet as a black silence descended upon the two. She understood that his grief was inconsolable and perhaps she had no right to even make an attempt. In that moment, Contayza learned, illustrated perfectly by the man seated across from her, just how difficult it was to do the ' _right thing_ '. The pitfalls and sidetracks were endless and unnerving. One false move could easily send you sailing off into perilous and uncharted waters. It could take years to get back on course and sometimes you never did.

Contayza realized that she had unwittingly robbed Nathaniel Simpson of his driving force, his motivation for pursuing the witch. She had to find a way to repair some of the damage which she had inflicted, as much for herself as for him. "Nath, I owe you an apology. My behavior in the past few days has been inexcusable. I can't begin to rationalize it. If you can forgive me, I would like to try to help you find Cynara. Like Jimmy said, between the three of us, perhaps we can find a way to defeat her."

Nath brightened marginally at Contayza's offer. He still sported the expression of a man who'd been struck by a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky; however, the look of debilitating dejection had vanished. He shook his head, murmured distantly, rose and moved to the door. Reaching for the handle, he paused and said, "Thanks for seeing me, and thanks for being totally candid. I've been deluding myself for all these years. The delusions made the prospect of confronting something as insidious as Cynara more palatable. That aside, lies are pointless and destructive. The lies that we tell ourselves, the little self serving delusions which we embrace, are usually the most destructive of all. I've lived the majority of my life in the shadow of a silly false hope. Though it's cold comfort, at least I can feel a degree of satisfaction knowing that the remainder of my life will be free of that fantasy."

"I'm sorry, Nathaniel," Now verging on tears of shame and regret, Contayza averted her gaze to the floor.

"Don't be, Contayza," he replied remotely. "You've spared me the ultimate crushing heartbreak that was inevitable."

"I'm sorry," she repeated, though this time out of puzzlement.

"If I were to find that, contrary to what my heart believes, my mother was in fact dead only after having found and destroyed Cynara, the sting of disillusionment probably would have been mortal. You've spared me that much, anyway."

Contayza imagined that she had discerned a trace of reproach in Nath's voice, though she had no way of being certain. In all likelihood, any reproach that she was feeling was being generated in her own mind. She cursed her blunt and obdurate nature. She was not a woman prone to self examination, but she was forced to admit that she knew very little about human nature. She had grown self absorbed and indifferent to the people around her. Oh, she cared on a broad, ideological level about her people and their struggle for freedom, but she had stopped regarding them as individuals with their own needs and concerns. She had allowed her heart and spirit to turn to stone. All of these things flashed through her mind in the span of seconds. ' _Please don't let it be that way_ ,' she implored. ' _Please_!'

"At least you know that your choice, the one made in Brasov, was not made for selfish reasons," she offered, eager to efface the forlorn look in his eyes.

He smiled cryptically. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible. "Good night, Contayza. I'm glad to see that we could come to an understanding."

With this, he opened the door and left without looking back. About him, a rush of frigid air sailed in, causing Contayza to shiver violently. The shiver lasted long after the door had been closed and the chill absorbed by the heat of the trailer.

She fetched a deep sigh from somewhere in her chest and went about her preparation for bed. As she turned out the antiquated propane lamp and slipped under the comforter, Tayza prayed that sleep would descend on her, mercifully shutting out the grim images of all that had befallen her family in the clearing.

Much to her dismay, she found that her mind refused to disconnect itself and succumb to exhaustion. She had missed something tonight, some pertinent fact that would dictate the course of things to come. She struggled to draw it out, but failed to make the connection. There was something that she had either failed to see or had deliberately chosen to ignore in tonight's conversation with Simpson. She tried to focus her concentration upon the images contact with the pendant had evoked, but found that exhaustion defied her efforts.

Laying in the dark, she listened to the sound of the wind as it wailed mournfully through the small clearing. There was a forlorn ring to its icy whisper which reminded her of the lost quality of Nathaniel's voice. Sometime in the dark heart of the night, Tayza drifted into a fitful doze.

3

A muffled scraping sound roused her less than two hours later. She was inexplicably, yet utterly afraid, though she could recall no nightmare, only the blessed void. Contayza listened for the scraping to come again. When it did not, she settled back to her pillow.

It is odd the way that things will occasionally resolve themselves. We struggle in futile misery to find solutions to perplexing problems, but our best efforts yield only frustration. Then, when it seems that a problem defies solution or when we've turned our attention to other matters, the answer presents itself like a glowing vision. It was like this with Contayza. As she closed her eyes in search of sleep, the connection that she failed to make snapped into place. She snapped bolt upright, berating herself for having been so stupid.

Elizabeth Simpson and the angelic blond of the astral dimension were one and the same. As inconceivable as that seemed, Contayza knew that this was the irrefutable truth. The two women were mirrored reflections of each other. Though she had obviously undergone some strange metamorphosis, the blond who had further prevented her from attacking Cynara was none other than Elizabeth Simpson.

Instead of clarifying the situation, this latest revelation only served to occlude the entire picture, making the riddle of the Dark Lady and the two American strangers all the more ominous. Now there was Elizabeth Simpson, who she had seen die (actually felt die, to be precise), yet lived still.

Tayza recalled the first thing that the blond angel had said to her. She had thanked the blond for her warning and had told her that she hoped they would meet again, to which Elizabeth had replied, "I am certain that we will."

At the time, the remark had seemed innocuous enough, but her discovery endowed it with a profound significance. Contayza now suspected that they would meet again, but be it as friends or enemies, she had no way of knowing.

"Grandda, I wish that you were here to tell me what to do," she sighed to the darkness, which replied with only an indifferent silence. She felt more alone than she had at any time since that day of revelation in the forest. Tayza was dismayed to realize that doubt had begun to erode her self confidence. Nathaniel Simpson's deflated reaction to the news of his mother's death had been genuine and Jimmy Simms was too forward to be anything other than what he presented himself to be. The Dark Lady was dancing circles around them, goading them into a plodding charge straight into the jaws of the cerebus. They were valiant and resolute, but against Cynara they were grossly overmatched. Why would Cynara taunt Simpson with the pendant? What had been the purpose of her test in Brasov? Contayza could formulate no rational explanation for either question.

Inexplicably, Elizabeth Simpson was still alive, though somehow altered. Jimmy had mentioned the angel's prophecy. Contayza had deduced that she was the first of the two people that the two Americans were destined to encounter. The second, the hinge upon which their fate would turn, was undoubtedly Elizabeth Simpson. She had perceived a virtually limitless power in this esoteric creature and though she had been near the other woman for less than two full minutes, it was sufficient time to grasp the truth of their situation. If Elizabeth Simpson turned out to be an ally, then she and the two Americans stood a legitimate chance of destroying the witch.

However, if Elizabeth aligned herself with the Dark Lady, the three were walking corpses even now.

Trying to conceal her mounting unease, Contayza lit her propane lamp. She then went to a small wooden chest at the foot of her cot and withdrew Rebecca Prowzi's journal. Returning to her bed, she folded her legs beneath her and clutched the book to her full bosom as though it were a talisman.

She remained this way until the first pale light of dawn filtered through her window.

4

During the night, the central provinces of Romania had been hit with thirty centimeters of snow. The sub zero temperatures had crystallized the snow, forming a solid crust that cracked with an audible snap at every footfall.

It was not surprising that neither the Romanians nor the two Americans noticed the partially obscured footprints that led from the trailer where Pierca's body had been stored. The tracks led to the tiny window at the rear of Tayza's trailer and then into the forest.

Chapter Thirty

1

The first day of December had been ushered in on the wings of a destructive winter blizzard that had unceremoniously dumped thirty centimeters of snow into the dreary streets of Bucharest in a period of less than eleven hours. Slate gray clouds stretched from horizon to horizon, hanging like a pall over the Nation's Capital. The streets were hauntingly deserted except for the drone of snow removal equipment. Most shops had elected to surrender to winter's onslaught and remain closed for the day. Gusting winds had caused snow to drift into dunes that reached as much as five feet high. Even the heartiest of shoppers and bargain seekers were apt not to venture out in the forbidding white wastes; at least until the streets and sidewalks had been partially opened once again.

There were some machines that are impervious to the ravages of winter. The Romanian Internal Security Service was one of these. The security of the country could not be neglected simply because of a blizzard. The enemies of the State never relented...never let the weather delay their seditious machinations. The defenders of the State could afford to be no less vigilant and so the office was functioning at full capacity. The Director of Internal Security, Jervac Hmecu, sat behind his dark stained oak desk, sporting a neutral mask as he listened to Yuro Petru speak of the horrors of the previous night.

Hmecu was a balding man in his early fifties with a deceptively soft voice and a dreamy expression. His appearance belied his true nature. Beneath the placid facade there dwelt a heart of ice, the soul of a machine and the calculating mind of a computer. His enemies, those foolish enough to be deceived by his reserved, almost absent nature, had learned just how ruthless he could be when so inspired. As Petru recounted Cynara's carefully conceived version of what had transpired last night, he realized just how dangerous of a game he had entered into. When Petru had concluded his story, Hmecu picked up a narrow gold pen and considered it silently for a few moments, his nimble fingers turning it over and over with a grace that was both hypnotic and oddly repulsive.

Finally, he shook his head solemnly and remarked, "Horrible. Unforgivable. This act illustrates just how precarious our position has become. The enemies of the State are everywhere, growing bolder and stronger by the day. We sincerely grieve your loss, Yuro."

His tone conveyed just the proper amount of sympathy, but Petru saw that the Director's eyes were the cold and unfeeling eyes of a cynic who would feel genuine remorse for very little. A tiny wave of unreality swept over Petru as he glanced about the elegantly furnished office, with its rich dark woods and plush leather upholstery. There had been a time, as recent as a week ago, when he had aspired to the chair on the opposite side of the table. In truth, he had been obsessed by the prospect. Now he regarded the position with indifference. The insignificance, the falsehood of everything that this office and its inhabitant represented had never been more apparent. To Petru, Hmecu was like an actor struggling in an old anachronistic play. The notion caused him to smile.

So like an actor in a farce, Petru acknowledged Hmecu's sympathy. "Thank you, Comrade Director. Ludmilla loved Romania, loved its persevering spirit."

The Director nodded gravely. Yuro knew that the Director was much too shrewd to be fooled by his deception, anymore than he was deceived by his feigned sympathy. Still all of this was part of a time honored game that had to be played; a precursor to the negotiations that were to follow.

Despite their different perspectives, both men shared the same sentiment; both were genuinely glad that they had not been the victim. ' _Better her than I_ ,' Hmecu thought as he stole a furtive glance at the photographs arrayed before him.

The Director watched Petru from behind his steel rimmed spectacles, trying to divine the purpose of the other man's deception. A change had overcome the sectional chief, one that could not be attributed to grief alone. Jervac had no doubt that Petru was concealing the true nature of his purpose behind an inscrutable mask of bewilderment and loss. There were gaping inconsistencies in Yuro's account of what had transpired in his home the previous night. None of the man's barely restrained envy was in evidence today. It was almost as though he had come here by proxy and the real Yuro Petru was elsewhere ensnared in something ineffably terrible. "It's unthinkable that the wife of a devoted government official could be attacked and murdered in her own home. You have reason to believe that this was not a random act of violence, Comrade?"

"Yes, Director," Yuro began carefully. "After finding Luda's body and then...then the head, I ran into the kitchen to report the murder to the regional office. The killers had used her blood to leave their calling card on the kitchen floor: RDLF."

Hmecu could not detect even the slightest hint of revulsion or emotion in Petru's voice. ' _He's lying as though it were to save his life_ ,' Hmecu thought. For a brief moment, Hmecu entertained the notion that Petru had actually killed Luda, though he quickly dismissed the notion. The murder reeked of something much more insidious than domestic violence. The macabre gleam that flickered in Petru's eyes confirmed the Director's suspicion.

"These people, they are also responsible for the rash of bombings and terrorist activities that have plagued us of late?" Hmecu asked guardedly, attempting to pick at the edges of the truth.

"Yes, over the past three months, my staff has accumulated evidence that directly connects this organization to a series of heinous bombings, assassinations and convoy robberies all throughout the country. This is the first instance in which they have displayed the temerity to take credit for their traitorous deeds. This leads me to suspect that this will be the first act in an escalating campaign of violence against the State. It is possible that top ranking government officials and their families will be the targets of choice."

Was there a slight nervous twitch in Hmecu's placid blue eyes? Petru thought that there had been and felt a slight tremor of satisfaction. It was all going just as the Dark Lady predicted that it would. She promised that Hmecu would be receptive if Petru could demonstrate that there was a direct threat to the Director, himself. That momentary display of fear, however slight, proved that she had been correct.

In men such as Hmecu, fear had a tendency to beget anger and extreme violence. Almost ruefully, he remarked, "It baffles me how an organization such as this could survive in a country where daily activities are so closely monitored. Surely there must be some indication of who these people are?"

The implied criticism had not been lost on Petru. Thanks to Cynara, he was quite prepared to confront it. With every passing moment, Petru's respect for her ability to anticipate and manipulate grew by leaps and bounds. Laughing silently, Petru played his ace card. "It's really a rather simple matter, comrade Director. This is not a loose affiliation of fanatics. I have managed to discover that the RDLF is comprised of the members of one family; a group of Gypsies from Surceava. This family is spread everywhere and this has allowed them to operate virtually undetected throughout the country. We happened upon them by chance and I suspect that this is why I was targeted first."

Hmecu frowned, absently massaging his left temple. Whatever else Hmecu might be, he was a pragmatist and an excellent judge of character. He knew that Petru was intentionally fabricating the truth, distorting it and being deliberately evasive. What he could not fathom was why Petru would risk lying to his superior and what he could possibly have to gain from such folly. ' _You would be wise to leave that question unanswered, Jervac_ ,' an alien voice advised.

Abruptly, Hmecu began to experience an anxiety that bordered upon outright alarm as it wormed his way through his bowels like an icy needle. This whole episode, from Petru's story to the lunatic grin upon his face, had assumed a macabre dimension. He sensed that there was a force at work that he could not comprehend, that lay far beyond the sensibilities of his normal world. Petru was speaking again and Hmecu forced himself to concentrate.

"As best as we can determine, the family is being organized and directed by a brother and sister; Ivan and Contayza Prowzi. My section has assembled a detailed information dossier on all the relatives we suspect might be involved in the terrorist activities. We're preparing to arrest them within the next week. Of course, because of jurisdictional problems, I will only be able to take into custody those operating in the southern sector. The Prowzi's are based in the northern and central provinces."

Petru allowed the last thought to dangle, hoping that Hmecu would take the bait as Cynara had predicted he would. Hmecu pursed his lips and pressed his index fingers to his chin. "The Communist way of life has been slowly, inexorably dying throughout Eastern Europe. Our great Soviet Sponsor has seen fit to abandon us and the results have been calamitous. One by one, the Eastern Bloc countries, once staunch Communists, have fallen under a tide of liberalism and capitalism. Only Romania has managed to stave off this pestilence, but our grip on the Country is beginning to slip. This can clearly be seen in the policies of our supposed leaders; policies that advocate free trade and an exchange of ideas with the West. Within the next decade it may come to be that the labor of the past sixty years will be in shambles."

Hmecu allowed Petru a moment to reflect upon the personal consequences of such an eventuality. The Director's words were not mere rhetoric. Petru was not oblivious to the signs of decay which were setting into the Romanian Communist structure. Both men could not expect bright futures in the new political realm that would then emerge. In fact, both were bound to become pariahs.

"Yuro let us be candid. You and I are both pragmatists. The ideals of Marx and Lenin are not all that important to us. What really matters is the system itself. Men such as you and I are essential to its survival. We are the intimidators, the enforcers. Obviously, there is room for rapid advancement in such a system for men who enforce the State security programs. Conversely, in a Democratic system, we become virtually obsolete. Worse still, our efforts would be frowned upon and we would be branded as criminals. You see, it is in our own best interest to preserve the system as we are inextricably bound to its fortunes."

Petru merely nodded his agreement. Hmecu was simply speaking the language of self preservation that Yuro understood. Hmecu swiveled sideways and gazed through his tinted window. The sky was as grim as the portrait of the future that the Director had painted. "This group of fanatics concerns me, Yuro. They are merely a spark, but the smallest of sparks can ignite a raging conflagration. A group, such as the RDLF must be stamped out discreetly, yet vigorously, before they can be allowed to catch flame. Do you grasp my meaning, Yuro?"

"Yes, Comrade Director," Yuro replied evenly. Though his face remained impassive, Petru could scarcely contain his jubilation. He had won, just as she had said he would. Still, it would not do for his eagerness to show. Hmecu was sly and perceptive, and Petru could not afford to slip, lest he reveal an interest which exceeded devotion to his office.

"As I've said, this group must be eliminated discreetly. Now would be an inopportune time to inspire a legion of martyrs." Hmecu turned his gaze upon his sectional Director. His eyes were incisive and cold. Petru understood that he was seeing the true Jervac Hmecu, ruthless and calculating; not a man to deliver idle threats. "My instinct tells me that you're withholding something from me. I'm not certain what, but I suspect I'd be best served not knowing. We all have ulterior motives for doing the things that we do and as I've stated, I am a pragmatist. I'm indifferent to your personal reasons as long as they do not conflict with my immediate needs. Therefore, I'm going to let sleeping dogs lie."

' _Perhaps, the shrewdest decision you've ever made, Comrade Director_ ,' Petru thought.

"Effective immediately, I am appointing you the head of a special anti terrorist squad the sole objective of which will be to find and terminate this RDLF. This is to be done with extreme prejudice and all trace of their existence must be removed. Your force will be exempt from all jurisdictional restrictions. You will have the full cooperation of the other Sectional heads. The arrangements must be made within the next twenty four hours. By this time tomorrow, I will expect a full operational plan detailing every aspect of your plan."

"I appreciate your confidence and I can assure you that the subversives will be eliminated rapidly and discreetly. There is one further request that I would like to make, though it might seem exceedingly unusual," Petru paused, his mind had been constructing a plan, fragment by fragment ever since he had first discovered Ludmilla's disembodied head. He had not assembled the final details until he had parted company with Cynara earlier that morning, understanding that he was toying with a notion that was precarious in the extreme. Nonetheless, it just might be audacious enough to work and if it did, he would have everything that Cynara had promised him and would extricate himself from her noose at the same time. The odds for success were long, but Petru found that he no longer cared about his life as it now was or might be if he failed to redeem himself.

"If there is some special assistance that I may give, then you need only ask," Hmecu replied, thinking that he was drawing Petru deeper into a debt of loyalty.

Petru made his request and Hmecu's jaw dropped and his eyes widened at the sheer temerity of Petru's suggestion. Gaping at Petru, he exclaimed, "In the name of Lenin, man, do you have any notion what it is that you've asked?"

Hmecu's mind reeled. What Petru had requested transcended folly. It was sheer lunacy. Could he willingly sanction such madness? And yet, there was a certain perverse logic in Petru's proposal. If his scheme succeeded, the RDLF would not only be obliterated, the blame would not fall upon the shoulders of the government and thus the martyr danger would have been averted. It took only a second to reach a decision. "Of course, if anything should go wrong you would be crucified."

"I would expect no less," Petru replied calmly, realizing that he had crossed a bridge over which there would be no return. "Then it will be done," Hmecu concluded. The Director hesitated and then added. "Yuro, can you not tell me what is behind this excursion into madness? I'm curious to know why a normally rational man would take such a staggering risk."

"Perhaps someday, but know is neither the time nor the place," Petru replied bluntly.

"Very well. Comrade Petru, as you would have it. I'll be monitoring your progress."

Petru nodded and rose. He had heard the implied warning, but dismissed it from his mind. He was well beyond Jervac Hmecu's reach. Bowing slightly, he turned and strode from the office. He suspected that he would never see the inside of this office again and was mildly surprised to find that the prospect caused him no real dismay."

2

The absolute silence of the corridor was shattered by the ringing report of footsteps as the guard led Petru along the concrete hall. The concrete was slick with moisture. Here and there, puddles of brownish water had settled into the depressions in the floor. Absently, Petru drew his collar up against the dampness that hung in the air.

Petru knew that the east wing of the State's maximum security prison, located some twelve kilometers north of Bucharest, was deliberately kept cold and damp. During the winter, the temperature was never allowed above ten degrees Celsius and never below thirty degrees Celsius in the summer. Guards in the sector were given special dispensations for having to endure the horrendous conditions.

Those who were not slated for execution usually left the east wing as pale shadows of the men they had once been. With spirits and health in shambles, it was unlikely that they would ever pose a real threat to the State again. Most prisoners, unfortunate enough to be incarcerated in the east wing, had been thoroughly broken after six months. The strong willed might manage to retain a measure of defiance for as long as a year.

Petru's escort came to an abrupt halt and executed a precise left pivot, stopping before the iron door of cell 1162. The guard glanced at Petru, who nodded and then slid back the small plate which had been set at eye level into the cell door. Not a word was exchanged between the two men as all conversation was strictly forbidden, even between the jailors.

The lighting of the corridor was subdued, but the interior of the cell was submerged in total darkness for one out of every two hours. Petru turned to the guard and motioned for the light in cell 1162 to be turned on. The guard relayed his signal to a fellow guard in the central control booth. At once, the cell filled with a harsh white light that was well near blinding. Petru flinched and involuntarily closed his eyes against the harsh glare.

As he drew back, a whisper found his ears. "It is not time yet."

The five words turned Petru's blood to ice water and his bowels to jelly. The voice was sardonic and mild, not the voice a groveling piece of human wreckage. Petru advanced to the window and peered through into the blazing interior. The man within gave physical substance to his fears. The prisoner was a giant, exceeding six and a half feet in height. His body, while pallid, was chiseled from the finely honed granite of human muscle. Deep striations cut through the shoulders, chest and legs, giving the impression that an otherworldly power had vivified a statue of a Greek warrior, thus raising the masculine physique to its zenith.

Everything about the man suggested awesome physical strength, from the width of his shoulders to the size of his manhood. Despite this brutish power, or perhaps because of it, there was a leonine grace to his movements that conveyed the impression of a murderous competence. The guard had evidently switched the light on, catching the prisoner in the midst of a set of one arm push-ups. These he continued, unmindful of Petru's scrutiny. The man performed the push-ups with an effortlessness that declared he could continue indefinitely.

Petru backed away from the cell door, slammed home the face plate and gestured for his escort to give him entry. A sharp expression of apprehension rippled across the man's face, who hesitated for a long moment before signaling to the central control booth. The guard stepped back and lowered his AK 47 to firing position, as if he fully expected the prisoner to spring upon him like a rampant tiger.

The door swung open with a low electronic hum and the Romanian stepped over the threshold. The prisoner had switched to the other arm and carried on with his push-ups as though nothing of consequence was transpiring.

Inhaling deeply to calm his frayed nerves, Yuro crossed the cell and hovered over the giant. He watched the man's trapezium muscles ripple and flex with every repetition. Petru experienced a momentary surge of apprehension as the door clanged shut behind him. Only now did he grasp the full ramifications of what he was about to undertake. He subdued his misgiving with an effort and spoke for the first time, "Prisoner is your name Jurgen Gerchnau?"

Petru knew full well just who and what the prisoner was. Gerchnau was a highly efficient killing machine in the guise of a human being. A former East German Commando and mercenary, Jurgen had escaped into Romania some seven years earlier. Four years earlier, he had been arrested for the murders of twenty four people over the course of three months. His indiscriminate murder spree had been the longest and most brutal in the country's modern history... if one chose to ignore the atrocities committed by the Communist Government. Gerchnau had used surgical instruments to divest his victims of their skin prior to garroting them with a wire. The police would find these strips of skin tacked to the victim's wall, arranged in an indecipherable pattern that was as esoteric as it was grotesque.

For some inexplicable reason, which Petru now attributed to providence, Gerchnau had not been executed. Instead, he had been sentenced to life in the east wing, the authorities apparently having decided that death was too quick and merciful an end for such an animal. Thus they had banished him to this place where the believed that he would suffer a more lingering end. Standing before the giant, Petru could attest to the fact that they had grossly underestimated his will for survival and his capacity to endure punishment and deprivation.

Jurgen came to one knee and drew himself erect. The man's face was an amalgamation of edges and incongruent angles that seemed almost chaotic, yet came together in a strongly appealing visage. Gerchnau's eyes were a polar blue that reflected both intelligence and a depraved humor. A playful grin broke across his face as he casually leaned against the cement wall, regarding Petru with unconcealed derision. He appeared unabashed by his nudity as though he was little more than a wild animal. ' _Which is precisely what he is_ ,' Petru thought.

Summoning as much authority as he could muster, Petru repeated his question. "Prisoner, I asked you your name."

A flush of anger crossed the German's face, to be quickly replaced by a mocking grin. "You know full well what my name is, Gunner. Seeing how you've seen fit to interrupt my ritual, perhaps you could return the courtesy."

Petru frowned, realizing that the man was beyond the reach of intimidation. "How long have you been here, Gerchnau? Do you have any idea?"

Gerchnau shrugged. "Does it matter? Time is time. Where you are is really a relative thing. What the fuckers that put me here don't realize is that I thrive on this. My blood doesn't begin to flow until I'm in neck deep and sinking fast. More to the point, you could easily have extracted the answers to such questions from my file. A man of your obvious importance must have better ways to occupy his time than play question and answer games with me, so why don't you come to the point of this visit."

"You've been here for over four years and you will remain here until the day you die. You are not sinking quickly, but with excruciating slowness. You're strong. Exceptionally so. Possibly the strongest, most determined man who was ever condemned to life within these walls. Ultimately, your strength is immaterial and your grim defiance is futile. Eventually, you will wear down, just as all the others have done. The damp rot will set into your joints and then your bones. Not long after the onset of incessant pain, your spirit will begin to wither."

Petru paused, watching for Gerchnau's reaction. The truth of Yuro's words registered briefly in the ice chips of the German's eyes. Yuro saw that, despite the arrogance, the unflagging determination, Jurgen was cognizant of his eventual defeat. He would face this inevitability with fanatical resistance, though Gerchnau had come to see the reality of his own collapse. This knowledge armed Petru with a tiny amount of leverage over the German. He perceived that this tiny amount would suffice.

"Damn you, tell me what you want. If you've come to point out how bleak my situation is, then let me warn you that there are twenty four people who might testify that I am not a patient man. If they were alive." Gerchnau glared menacingly at Petru, who managed to hold the other man's formidable glare.

"I've come to offer you an alternative; a choice between a tenacious, yet fruitless defiance or a way to freedom and even prosperity."

Jurgen's smile faded, his eyes narrowing into speculative slits. "Go on."

"There is a task that I need done and I am certain that you are ideally suited for the job. If you agree to perform this service, then your debt to the state will be expunged. What's more, you will be provided with a new identity and enough money to live comfortably for the rest of your life."

To Petru's astonishment, Jurgen Gerchnau began to bellow gales of hysterical laughter. "You bureaucratic wind up toys are priceless. Don't bother to whitewash your dirty deeds with jargon. Do such euphemisms make your sordid little schemes more palatable? You want me to kill for you. At least have the balls to come right out and say it."

Again, Gerchnau lapsed into laughter. Petru seethed, not only at the man's derisive laughter, but by his own transparency. "You find my generous offer amusing?"

"But of course. Is it not blackly ironic that I am here because I have been branded a savage, senseless killer? Yet my redemption may be found by my willingness to kill. Surely even a brainwashed zombie, such as yourself, can see the humor in this."

"Don't think that I lack the power to ensure that the rest of your life becomes an unrelenting hell."

The German's crude features twisted into a grimace of unadulterated hatred. "Go ahead and speak little man. As you so astutely observed, I have little to lose by listening."

"I'll come directly to the point; there is a group of people who have proven to be troublesome to the state. We must silence them, while conveying a discreet, yet emphatic message to their ilk. In addition to this ' _service_ ', there is woman I wish to see eliminated. If you agree to undertake these sanctions, and should you succeed in fulfilling them, the State will grant you unconditional freedom, not to mention generous dispensation for your efforts."

Gerchnau did not respond at once. Petru imagined that he could almost hear the whir of some ineffably horrible and efficient machinery as it labored behind the killer's glacial eyes. His thick brows were knit into speculative lines of concentration as he considered the Romanian's proposal. His mistrust of the other man was immediate and absolute and thus he declared flatly, "There is something that you're not telling me. I would doubt that your government is so overrun by ineptitude that you could not find someone capable of removing a small group of dissidents and a solitary woman. If you would go to such extremes, this group and this woman must be extraordinary indeed." Jurgen paused as a notion took shape in his incisive mind. Could it be that this piddling bureaucrat wished to assassinate one of his own? "If I am to help you, it will be at the price of total candor. Do you possess such a faculty, little man?"

Again there came the derisive grin and the mirthful twinkle of the eyes that belied the man's true nature. There appeared little point in trying to deceive this man. He seemed to possess the psychopath's ability to discern falsehood. "The radicals are just that. They are exceptional only in that they are comprised of one misguided family of Gypsies. They have proven to be a persistent and increasingly painful thorn in our side. A man of your ability should have little trouble in disposing of this lot."

"The woman is the real target. Her name is Cynara Saravic and she is..." Here Petru faltered, not certain how to articulate his theory of just what the woman was and still sound rational. She was the personification of the vilest iniquity. She was the destroyer of light and the despoiler of souls. She had demonstrated her insidious genius with her scheme to turn Ludmilla Petru's death to positive gain. Numb with terror and revulsion, Yuro had looked on as Cynara had rearranged Luda's head and body, displaying not the slightest aversion to her hideous task. How could he hope to convey the extent of her depravity when it far exceeded his own sensibilities to comprehend?

"Cynara is the most evil being that I have ever had the misfortune of encountering. She is some manner of supernatural entity and would dine on the flesh and blood of our robot assassins. She is capable of things that defy all logic, all normal laws of physical order. Only someone with a minuscule grasp of her staggering puissance would stand any chance of destroying her."

As he spoke, beads of oily perspiration formed upon the Romanians forehead and streamed down his face, despite the pervasive chill of the East block. As the German watched his visitor, Petru wrung his hands repeatedly in apparent agitation as he described the unholy shadow which had fallen across his life like a pall. When he finished, Petru fully expected the German to react with derogatory laughter.

Instead, Gerchnau startled him by declaring, "I believe you, Gunner. Arrange to have me taken out of here and I'll do your wet work."

The German's acquiescence did little to assuage Yuro's mounting anxiety. He knew the risks that were associated with this gamble, just as he could clearly see that the consequences of failure would make death appear merciful in comparison to the retribution that he might expect from the Dark Lady.

Gerchnau smiled, though the expression was devoid of warmth. The smile was reminiscent of the one which Cynara had worn when she spoke of her planned vengeance against the two Americans and Contayza Prowzi. The smile assuaged Petru's anxiety, if only marginally. When Jurgen spoke, his voice was fraught with a dreamy quality that was deceptively gentle. "You've done me a favor, little man. You've allowed me the opportunity to do the one thing that I love above all others, to perform the one act that causes my spirit to soar with elation."

"You've given me the chance to kill, Gunner."

Gerchnau began to laugh, the sound reverberating about the tiny cell like the shattering of glass upon rusted steel. Though the thought of such insanity caused Petru to cringe inwardly, it also aroused a brief glimmer of hope.

Chapter Thirty One

The swirling winds and the drifting snow fled like thieves before the pallid light of dawn. An apathetic sun shone through the gray clouds, its diffuse light doing nothing to alleviate the frozen stranglehold that winter had taken upon the Central Mountains. To the west, large gray clouds, the color of death and imminent decay, were poised upon the western horizon. They lumbered, stately and ominous, across the turbulent heavens. Soon the ineffectual sun would yield to their onslaught, submerging the earth in a dull half light so typical of winter in the Balkans.

In contrast to the languid skies, the gypsy camp was alive with a flurry of frenetic activity as the Prowzi family prepared to decamp. The men worked with a frantic energy that hinted at the anxieties that had been born through the long and fitful night.

As the men went about the task of breaking down the camp, they would occasionally steal quick, furtive glances at the woods surrounding the camp and the charred remains of the central campfire. The shadows seemed thick and alive, swollen with malicious possibilities. Cynara's macabre theatrics had achieved its desired impact for each man moved as though he fully expected the hounds of hell to materialize out of the frigid air and drag them kicking and screaming into the sulfurous pit.

Ivan Prowzi directed the breakdown, issuing terse instructions only when required. But for this, no one spoke, perhaps for the fear that words might summon the Fire Queen of Hell.

A little before nine thirty, Contayza emerged from her trailer and briskly crossed the clearing, her emotions masked behind a mantle of impassivity. She paused briefly to exchange a few words with her brother and then headed in the direction of the Americans' trailer. Her brethren averted their eyes, each feeling dark guilt for allowing themselves to be sent away. Contayza remained oblivious to this, mounting the steps to the trailer and rapping sharply on the metal door.

It was Jimmy Simms who answered the knock. Their eyes met and something vague yet powerful passed between them. A profusion of confused thoughts and emotions swept over the pair; part resentment and part admiration. In a frank, uninhibited exchange of unspoken words, the two shared the same sentiment; though you exasperate me and though I do not understand you, I am drawn to you. We are alike.

Experimenting with her telepathic ability, Contayza projected, "Last night shouldn't have happened. I wish to be your friend. To have you help me, as I might help you."

Jimmy blinked, having understood perfectly, he was still astounded by this new mode of communication. He struggled to respond, sensing that she needed him to demonstrate his power. He had long striven to repress his ' _ability_ ', coming to loathe his gift as though it was somehow obscene. Trying to use his gift was like attempting to flex a long dormant muscle. His mind strained as he pronounced each word in his thoughts and with great effort, pushed them out of the chamber of his skull and into the air toward Contayza.

Faintly, no louder than the whisper of a small child, she heard the thought with a sense that only a choice few possessed. "I had no right to scream at you. When you've been under the gun as long as we have, it's not easy to see things from any perspective but your own."

He hesitated and she could sense the strain that the projection was causing him. "Thanks Jimmy...It's very lonely at times."

She favored him with a radiant smile that allowed him a brief glimpse of the warmth that she kept locked inside. A little clearer and with less effort, he replied, "I know. When I was growing up, I thought that I was the only one. The idea scared the hell out of me."

Contayza nodded grimly. She could no longer deny the truth of her attraction to this man, with his simple, straightforward manner. She was drawn to the strong, clean lines of his face and the solid way in which he was put together. She suspected that any relationship that they might share would be tempestuous; fraught with passion and mystery. Though this prospect frightened her, part of her mind exhorted the diminutive beauty forward, braving the uncharted landscape that had once touched her as foolish and trite.

Speaking for the first time, she said, "We're going to decamp and the three of us have much to discuss before we do. May I come in?"

Jimmy stood back and invited her forward. As she moved past him, his nostrils caught the redolent fragrance of her luxurious hair. It was intoxicating and sweet, causing him to tighten his grip on the door handle until his knuckles turned a bloodless white. The flowing motion of her hips was like watching the languid ebb and flow of the tides. He closed his eyes and drew an anxious breath, knowing that any extraneous emotion would only complicate a perilous situation.

Contayza's private delight at seeing Simms gave way to distress the moment she set eyes upon Nathaniel Simpson. He sat in a folding metal chair, beside his ancient bed, staring dejectedly at the scarred floor, apparently lost in is own world of torment. It was not only his morose demeanor that distressed Contayza, but the alarming visible signs of physical deterioration as well. Nath's hair, which had been the color of wheat and sunlight, seemed to have lost both its luster and volume. More alarming still, the hair at his temples had turned a dead shade of gray.

Deep wrinkles had etched themselves into the skin about his eyes and the corners of his mouth, aging him twenty years in the span of a few hours. A tiny red welt had sprung up along the ridge of his left cheek, just below the eye. It looked angry and painful in the trailer's greasy yellow light.

"How are you, Nathaniel?" Contayza inquired softly.

He glanced up at the Romanian, his eyes dazed and unfocused. The direct glance made him appear more wretched than ever. "I'm fine."

His reply was dreamy and distant, making his host wonder if he even knew what it was she had asked. His eyes sank back to scrutinizing the floor. Jimmy drifted over to his friend and placed his hand gently upon a slumped shoulder. He frowned miserably and then glanced up at Contayza.

' _What happened between the two of you last night_?' he asked in their own private language, transmitting words on the unheard current of thought.

' _Please, I'll tell you later, but now is not the time. Please_!' She replied.

Jimmy remained silent for a moment and then accepted the entreaty with a nod. Tayza smiled gratefully. Before she could openly discuss what had passed last night, she would have to come to terms with her own questions and sense of guilt.

Turning away from the spectacle of Nath's torment, Contayza declared, "We've agreed that we're going to find Cynara and destroy her together. I've come to discuss exactly how we intend to go about doing that."

Jimmy moved away from Nath and sat down on the edge of his own flimsy cot. As he lowered himself onto the mattress, he winced, exhaling with a reedy whistle of pain. He noted her concerned expression and grimaced apologetically. "My ribs are very tender. I think a few of them may have been cracked when our car crashed."

Contayza lowered her face to her hands and silently cursed her insensitivity. The two men had been with them for two days and she had spared no real thought to their needs. "I'm sorry Jimmy. I seem to be apologizing constantly like a blundering schoolgirl. There are times when I can be self centered and obdurate. Obsession has a tendency to do that sometimes. As soon as we've finished here, I'll find some adhesive tape and gauze and bandage your ribs. We have a good supply of morphine and that should be sufficient to relieve the pain while your ribs mend. Perhaps it would be best if we remained here for a few days to allow the both of you to recuperate."

Jimmy vehemently dismissed this suggestion with a wave of his hand. "No, Petru's men will be coming for us. Even if they can't manage to reach us, Cynara knows exactly where we are. If she should become impatient, we can expect a repeat of last night's horror. At least if we move, it will enable us to stay clear of Petru's henchmen. Waiting here would be suicide. I can tolerate a little pain if it means avoiding another run in that man."

Jimmy glanced to Nath who signaled his tacit agreement with a slight nod.

"Very well, but please allow me to do something about those ribs. If they aren't properly bandaged, you'll never be able to endure the arduous trip to Chevru."

"Okay, Contayza. You can bind the ribs and give me the pills," Jimmy conceded. "You said you came to discuss how to proceed from here. Can I take that to mean you have a specific plan?"

Contayza shook her head. "Lamentably, no. We are going to demobilize the camp and send everyone back home. When Petru learns that the hit squad is missing, which he surely has by now, this entire region will be crawling with internal security forces. If we don't disperse immediately, they are bound to stumble upon us while searching for you."

"Then we should leave as quickly as possible, this morning if we are able," Jimmy suggested.

"Yes and no. We must move as expeditiously as possible, true, but it would be impractical and imprudent to move as a convoy. We have twelve trucks and trailers. Even though we'll be using all of the forest tracks, that many vehicles would inevitably attract attention. Ivan and I have decided that it would best to move out in stages. Three vehicles at a time, departing over a space of twelve hours. We will be the last to leave."

"That means a wait of a least three days before we get moving," Jimmy protested, horrified by the prospect of sitting idle for any extended length of time.

Contayza shook her head adamantly. "Nonetheless, to leave as a convoy is to invite certain disaster. We have operated within Romania for the better part of four years. In that time we have neither been detected nor had one of our ranks captured. The reasons for that remarkable success are rather simple; the members of the organization are all family members and we have always exercised the utmost caution in moving and implementing our operations. We always travel in small groups along separate routes. Of course it is time consuming, but in the long run, it has proven to be safe and effective. All travel routes in Romania are constantly monitored by the government. I see no reason to deviate from a time proven method. In light of what we suspect about Cynara's recruitment of Petru, I suspect that any other approach would be blatantly stupid."

Jimmy bristled at Contayza's curt reproof, though he deferred to her wisdom in such matters, mumbling, "I guess that you're the expert. So what exactly is the plan?"

She reached into the right pocket of her white snow jacket and withdrew a folded map. Removing the map from its plastic protective jacket, she unfolded it across her thighs, inviting Jimmy to bend forward and examine the detail and scaled terrain.

Using an index finger as a pointer, Contayza indicated a specific location on the map. "Right now, we are here, about twenty kilometers north of Brasov. Cynara has indicated that she would await us near the village of Chevru, which lies some one hundred and ninety kilometers north of here and further to the east."

"Chevru is a most cynical choice of locations for the final confrontation. It was near Chevru that Cynara Saravic began her reign of terror over one hundred and fifty years ago. That she would dare to go back there is indicative of the enormity of her ego and her contempt for humans in general and her people specifically."

"Do you really believe that Cynara will be there? Maybe she is leading us on a wild goose chase. Toying with us until the time comes to kill the lot of us." Jimmy suggested.

"She'll be there," Nath interjected quietly. Both Jimmy and Contayza turned towards him. Though he did not look at either, both could see that his eyes radiated a certitude and an unsettling, yet vague emotion that neither could define. "If we can't count on anything else, we can count on that."

Jimmy and Contayza exchanged quick glances, unnerved by Nath's morose fatalism. Contayza frowned and continued, "Jimmy, we really have no other alternative but to assume that Cynara will abide by her promise. Ivan and I have outlined the route that we will be taking."

She drew her long, tapered nail slowly along the map in a curving arc that wound through the Central Mountains of Romania. "We will follow the base of the Carpathian mountains, through the Province of Harghita, to a point along the border with Surceava. From there, the rest of my family will return to their homes, while we will continue to Bistrita Nasaud and onto the village of Chevru. It is a rather circuitous route, but it is our best chance of reaching Chevru undetected."

"How long will it take?" Jimmy demanded, dreading the answer.

Contayza paused thoughtfully and then replied, "Including the time that we must remain here and allowing for no serious problems in the passage, eight to ten days."

"What!" Simms exclaimed. "Surely there has got to be a quicker way than that."

"Certainly," Contayza retorted hotly, her patience with contradiction and questioning at an end. "We could take the State Highway north all the way to Chevru. By this time tomorrow, we would all be facing a firing squad. This is my country, Mr. Simms. You could at least respect my judgment in such matters."

Jimmy threw up his hands in exasperation, while part of him marveled at the ease with which they erupted at each other. "I'm sorry. My impatience is getting the better of my common sense."

' _Well, at least he is capable of admitting he is wrong_ ,' Contayza thought, privately pleased by the notion. "The terrain that we will encounter is extremely rugged at the best of times and the going is bound to be slow, but we are not likely to be found. Many of the roads that we will be following are not on any map."

Nath bound out of his chair with an unexpected suddenness that nearly provoked Contayza to cry out. He brusquely pushed past Jimmy, stopping to gaze out of the tiny window. "Enough talk about how and when we're going to get there. We're simply skirting about the salient issue," he snapped with uncharacteristic ire. "It might be more relevant to discuss what we are going to do once we get there. How the fuck are we going to kill Cynara? That is the only issue that matters. We better come up with an answer soon, because time is running out...for all of us."

"What's bothering you Nath?" Simms inquired softly, gleaning some of the other man's despair.

Nath drew a deep breath and closed his eyes as if trying to defuse his anger. His eyelids appeared waxy and transparent. As Contayza had observed earlier, every movement suggested extreme suffering.

Speaking in a more subdued voice, Nath outlined his frustration in brutally frank terms. "There is no point in debating the route we will take or the time required to make the trip. We will reach Chevru! When we do, Cynara will be waiting like a lioness at a watering hole, patiently awaiting the antelope herd. Whether we take a day or a month to get there is of little consequence. If we don't find a solution to our real problem, the outcome will be the same."

"Jimmy, from the day that you and I left Washington, we've been pushed along by some irresistible gale that has blown us closer and closer to Cynara. We've had no real direction of our own, content in allowing events to lead us where they would. This is not some mythical quest, where the means to defeat the invincible enemy will present themselves in a shaft of golden light. We've got to make some concrete decisions," Nath cried, slamming his fist against the trailer wall. "We know where Cynara is. Contayza has told us just how we will reach her. Fine. Now we have to put our heads together and formulate a very specific idea of how to kill the bitch."

Nath stopped, waiting for a response. Contayza said nothing. Nath had seemed so placid, almost reticent, before, but now he had provided her with a glimpse of his mettle. The more time that she spent in the presence of these two men, the clearer it became that she had misjudged them that first day. This led her to consider just what else she had badly misjudged in her narrow, prejudicial manner.

Jimmy regarded the palm of his hand, as though he expected the lines there to resolve themselves into some wondrous, mystic solution to their dilemma. "Nath is right. We've talked our way around the heart of the problem. Why? Maybe because we're all afraid of the lack of tangible answers that we have to the one important question."

"Nath asked how we intend to kill Cynara and I must confess that I don't have a clue. When I try to think about it, my mind keeps circling back to the most unsettling question of all; can Cynara even be killed?"

"Of course she can," Contayza erupted, her tone truculent. She had never once entertained the thought that the Dark Lady was indestructible. The notion was simply unacceptable to her sensibilities.

"You shouldn't assume that too quickly," Jimmy warned. "An assumption like that could cost you your life. Perhaps more."

"No, Jimmy. I tend to agree with Contayza," Nath interjected. Jimmy frowned, glancing inquiringly at the smaller man. "Why? If she has an Achilles Heel, we haven't seen any sign of it."

Nath shook his head. "If you're asking for irrefutable proof, then I haven't any to provide. Philosophically, the concept of invincibility is a grand illusion. God and to a lesser degree, Satan may be invincible. If the universe is an elaborate system of checks and balances, then everything must have a vulnerability...no matter how small or obscure. How could the natural order prosper if one thing was allowed to run rampant over everything around it with impunity? Logically, it couldn't. If a monster such as Cynara could do as she wished, with no fear of reprisal or destruction, how could any race of beings survive given such a predator's appetite for destruction? These questions may seem abstract in light of the horror that she has unleashed, but I assure you that they are of the gravest import. If Cynara is real, and we would all agree that she is, then it stands to reason that there are others like her. If they were utterly invulnerable, such creatures would have ripped the soul of the world to shreds ages ago. At the very least, they would have enslaved humanity for their amusement. Since they have not, it is logical to assume that there is a force to counter balance their evil. Though I have no proof, I am willing to gamble my life on this maxim."

Jimmy nodded slowly, realizing that he had gambled his life on precisely such an abstruse notion. General Philosophy aside, they needed hard ideas around which to plan and act. Cynara must obviously possess some weakness, but if they could not divine just what that weakness was, for all intents and purposes she was invulnerable. "Okay, I guess we can presume that there is some way that Cynara can be killed, but we've got to produce some specifics. Thus far, she's given no indication what her soft spot might be."

' _She has, though_ ,' Nath thought. He was beset by the certitude that, somewhere in the midst of all that had transpired, the means to Cynara's destruction had been revealed, if only in the form of a riddle. Nath tried to focus his concentration on the problem, but dejection and infirmity kept diverting his thoughts.

"What do we really know about Cynara or creatures of her ilk?" Contayza wondered aloud. "There are so many questions and precious few answers. We know that she has the faculty of astral projection and she can assume various shapes and forms, like the fire creature that killed Pierca."

"She also seems to be clairvoyant," Jimmy added, "as well as telepathic. As a child, I learned that she has the ability to project images; horrible nightmares that seem so real as to be paralyzing."

"All right. Those are her strengths. It would be prudent to expect that she has a few other tricks at hand. Now, what are her weaknesses?" Nath asked, throwing the discussion open to the most crucial consideration. The room plunged into a dismal silence. Each gazed at the other, but not a word passed between the three. The dearth of suggestions brought the desperate nature of their situation home with painful clarity.

"Just as I thought," He concluded sadly.

"But I hurt her," Contayza objected stubbornly, angered by his persistent pessimism. "The other night, I broke through her guard and inflicted real pain upon the bitch. That shows that she isn't totally impervious." Her gaze shifted from Nath to Jimmy, daring them to contradict her.

"Yes, but you very nearly killed Nath in the process," Jimmy pointed out gently, hoping to keep the note of reproach from his voice. Contayza grimaced nonetheless, clearly stung by the implied rebuke. Jimmy shook his head and held his hands out in a gesture of placation. "I'm sorry, Contayza. I didn't mean it that way. I just wanted to point out the fact that you probably caught Cynara by surprise. In all probability, you would not be so fortunate a second time. It would be more likely that you would succeed in killing both Nath and yourself. Trying to fight Cynara in some twilight zone astral dimension doesn't strike me as a very good idea."

Contayza glowered, but said nothing. Jimmy had unknowingly reiterated everything that the mysterious blond woman had told her.

"So all of this speculation and discussion leads us back to precisely the same point. The same insurmountable obstacle; Cynara is virtually indestructible. Unless something changes, we have virtually no chance of killing her," Nath summarized glumly.

"So what do you suggest we do? Give up?" Contayza erupted. "Just say, ' _She's too strong_.' and crawl home and pray that she doesn't come for us? I just can't do that. It violates every belief that my people hold sacred. If you wish to run like a gelded dog, then go. I don't need you. I've never needed anyone." She sprang to her feet and charged toward the door, though Jimmy intercepted her before she could get there.

"Contayza, please don't leave. Neither Nath nor I are suggesting that we give up and run. We're just trying to be realistic. Every point that we've raised is a legitimate concern. Nath is right, dammit! If we charge headlong into Chevru without a plan, Cynara will gleefully slaughter the lot of us and bathe in our blood."

Contayza inhaled sharply, trying to subjugate her anger. Over the years, her confidence had been supreme and unwavering. These two men had forced her to consider the bleak possibility that her abilities might not be sufficient to vanquish the Dark Lady. The idea chilled her, and as was Contayza's nature, that fear translated into anger. She brushed Jimmy aside and crossed over to Nathaniel.

Contayza!" Jimmy groaned miserably. She ignored his cry, confronting Nath's reticence with her scalding intensity.

"What would you have us do, then?" she demanded angrily. He regarded her mildly, not intimidated by the daunting weight of her personality. "We have no choice but to go, simply because there is no place to hide. Eventually, she will find us."

"So you believe that we have no chance to destroy her?" her voice had become hysterical, her color deep crimson. Nath averted his eyes and shook his head slowly. "I'm not sure what to believe. I'm instinctively certain that she can be killed in some fashion or another. Can we kill her? As things stand now, I'd have to say no. Granted, things may change."

He turned his attention back to the frozen landscape beyond the window. Speaking in a voice so soft that the others had to strain to hear him, Nath went on, "After you told me about the things that you had seen, I felt shattered and empty. Foolish delusions may be pointless, but they can be comforting. For years, I clung to the prospect of finding my mother. The prospect carried me through the hell that I've been forced to endure over the past few months. Now, I feel like a man who is sailing through shark invested waters and discovers that his ship is sinking fast and is not equipped with a life raft. It's a little difficult to maintain a cheery disposition in the face certain death."

He glanced up at Contayza, his lost and weary expression seeking understanding. "I'm sorry, but I just can't pretend that everything is going to be all right. I just don't believe that we're going to slay the dragon like intrepid adventurers in a medieval romance. I'll help you. I'll die for you if it comes to that, but please don't expect me to sport a jester's grin while I do it."

The despair in his voice defused Contayza's ire, turning it to pity. He suddenly seemed like a veteran soldier who had climbed out of too many trenches and now lacked the will to climb out of another.

"I need you. Jimmy needs you. Perhaps just staying together is worth something."

Nath mustered a fey smile. "Perhaps it is, Contayza. Perhaps it is."

She held his glance for a moment, gaining some intimation of the intense struggle and turmoil that was feeding upon his heart and soul. Then she stepped back and crossed to the door. "The first trailers will leave at six O'clock tonight. Ivan and I are going to supervise the breaking of camp. Jimmy, if you will come with me, I'll attend to those ribs and find the painkillers."

Jimmy cast a quick glance at Nath, who had gone back to his study of the world beyond the trailer window. "Go ahead, Contayza. I'll follow in just a minute."

She shrugged and vanished into the swirling snow. After she had left, Jimmy retrieved his own coat and gloves, intending to follow.

"What was that all about, Nath?" he asked, drawing his zipper up to his chin.

In a remote and small voice, Simms replied, "It was about learning to face up to hard truths."

He then turned to his window and went back to his cot, where he curled into a tight ball, facing the scarred wall. As Jimmy charted his movements, seemingly so ancient and arduous, he felt a lump forming in his throat. Needing to be away from the sorry spectacle of despair, Jimmy fled the trailer in search of Contayza.

Chapter Thirty Two

"Curse it all to hell!" Armand Vorak muttered, as his ancient pick-up crested a rise in the perimeter road that encircled State Farm thirty seven. Once a week, Vorak would dedicate an entire morning to inspection of the fence that delineated the state cooperative.

Though Vorak liked to refer to the large tract of land as ' _his farm_ ', the property belonged to the People's Government of Romania. In its infinite wisdom, that government had appointed Armand as the manager. Still, it was difficult to pour one's life blood and sweat into a piece of land for over thirty years and not come to think of it as your own. ' _Someday, perhaps_...' he thought wistfully.

Armand would admit, however grudgingly, that the state had been generous and even extravagant in remunerating him for his service to the cause of feeding the proletariat. A new vehicle every three years (though he was partial to his 86 pick-up) and a spacious, furnished house had made this tenant station palatable. Better yet was the dispensation of first choice of the best of the farm crops and livestock.

During the summer and fall months, State Farm thirty seven employed forty men and women, but after the winter hush fell over the land, thirty of these were assigned to other duties within the area. Armand privately preferred the comparative leisure of the winter schedule. Not so much because of the reduced workload but for the respite from the people who went with the coming of the snow. Dealing with people was the most taxing aspect of his job. He generally found them to be less amenable than were the soil and the livestock. During the cold months, the farm virtually ran itself, providing Armand with the enviable luxury of doing as he pleased.

Inspecting the perimeter was a menial task, which he could have easily assigned to any of the others, but there was something almost ethereal about the slow drive through the verdant winter landscape. Cruising along the deserted forest roads in the long slow, afternoon in the dead of winter filled Vorak with a simple delight that he could not express in words. The absolute stillness was almost dream-like. There were days when he would pull the truck to the side of the road, let the engine idle (government gas allotments be damned) and simply gaze about him until he lapsed into a kind of trance like reflection on the world about him and its timeless beauty. On rare, special days, he succeeded in convincing himself that he was completely alone; the first man ever to have laid eyes on or set foot upon the earth.

He rounded a tight curve, realizing that he would not attain that euphoric state of isolation today. Pulling the GMC to the side of the road, Armand slammed the shifter into park and keyed off the engine. Opening the door and climbing out into the knee deep snow, Vorak bellowed a stream of vile curses.

The object of his anger was a thirty meter section of fence that had been demolished as if by a runaway truck. Vorak counted eight posts snapped clean off and three others that appeared cracked beyond repair. Here and there, he caught a glimpse of several strands of barbed wire poking through the snow. Vorak figured the repair work could take up to two days, more if extracting the posts was complicated by having to penetrate the frost.

There was something about the carnage, with its random and evidently inexplicable destruction, that caused Armand to feel vaguely uneasy. The fence was set some six meters back from the road and separated from the gravel shoulder by a five foot deep drainage ditch. It followed that this damage could not have been caused by a vehicle that had careened off of the roadway. It could have become hopelessly mired in the snow filled ditch long before ever reaching the fence.

Perplexed, Vorak ploughed through the snow over to the damaged section. Closer inspection revealed something that sent slivers of ice coursing through his veins and along the length of his spine. It was apparent that the extensive damage had been done from inside the fence. The posts had all fallen outward, toward the road. The cracked posts hung like broken teeth all leaning in the same direction. Gripping one of the strands of wire, Vorak pulled it out of the powdery snow to discover that it had been stretched until it had snapped.

His heart was thudding painfully in his chest and Vorak at once felt unaccountably terrified. Wading over to the cracked post, he brushed aside the snow which had drifted up against them during the night. The shards of wood were smeared with a dark frozen crust that was dull brown in color. Inspecting the other posts, he found similar patches on each.

' _It's blood, Armand. You know that_ ,' came a voice from somewhere deep inside of him... that place were the wandering children of Romany still lived with the superstitions of the distant past. He blinked. He knew no such thing. How could it be blood? That was preposterous.

Even as he thought this, he stood up, realizing that it was not preposterous, but perfectly logical. Something had literally bludgeoned its way through the fence. Obviously something very large and immune to the bite of the barbs.

He scanned the length of the roadway, searching for some clue as to what might have passed through this isolated field. The field was deserted, devoid of any sign of life. The only sound was the rapid rise and fall of his breathing, sending white plumes floating into the frozen December sky. Turning to survey the field, Vorak noticed three snow covered knolls lying scattered about ten meters from the fence.

"Get in your truck and go. Now!" admonished the inner voice, its imploring tone bordering upon desperation. He shot a quick, assessing glance in the direction of his truck and the high powered semi automatic rifle that was mounted on wooden brackets in the rear of the cab.

He almost headed back to the truck, but instead hopped over the downed strands and headed towards the knolls. There was something disturbingly familiar about the lumps. As he reached the first, he realized what that something was even before he began to brush the snow away with his mitt.

The snow flew in great arcs as he attacked it frantically, coming to the frozen remains of a steer. Using his feet and hands, he cleared away the remainder of the snow, uncovering the entire carcass. Abruptly, he stood up, emitting a strangled cry of revulsion as he did. The cows' throat had been ripped out and its body mutilated, the flanks ripped to bloody ribbons. ' _Wolf pack_.' was the first thought that sprung to mind. Indeed the animal had been savagely attacked in a way that could normally be associated with a wolf. Yet some sixth sense kept insisting that this was not the work of a roving pack of wolves, but something infinitely more sinister, more deliberate in its purpose.

Kneeling beside the dead animal, Armand brushed snow from the beast's head and closely examined its condition. The flesh above the eyes had been badly mangled and torn, the skin being ripped apart and peeled back in great frozen flaps. Evidently, the beasts, so frightened and intent upon escape from whatever had stalked them, had employed their heads as battering rams, attempting to break through the fence.

The image of the beasts ramming the posts again and again, drawing blood in crimson jets while being viciously attacked by a relentless and merciless predator finally convinced Vorak that a hasty retreat was in order.

Perspiring heavily, despite the frigid cold, Armand wheeled about and hurried toward the truck as the sensation of approaching calamity settled over him like a penumbra.

He had just reached the fence line when a chilling keening arose from somewhere in the woods on the opposite side of the roadway. The sound was inhuman, bestial; part wail of torment, part bellow of anger. The sound came again and this time Armand Vorak could discern another ingredient, one that curdled the blood in his veins. The shriek, markedly closer this time, carried the echo of voracious hunger.

Vorak quickened his pace from a jog to an all out sprint. Upon reaching the ditch, his feet became tangled and he stumbled, sprawling full length into the deep snow. Breathlessly, Armand groped his way back to his feet, crested the other bank and raced for the truck. He had opened the door and was about to leap in when a piteous voice called, "No, please! I need help...I neeeed."

The voice was thick and distorted, but most definitely human. Its cry had been strident with suffering and despair, causing Armand to hesitate just a fraction of a second. His gaze swept over the rifle but he elected not to take it from the rack, instead stepping tentatively to the front of the truck.

"Help me, please. I'm hurt."

"Then show yourself. Come out and I'll help you," Vorak called back, his voice lacking conviction in the cold, dead air. The person in the woods gave no response. Armand strained to determine the direction from which the call had originated, hoping to hear the tell tale rustle of branches or the crunch of snow. There was only the sound of the wind, masking the vast, brooding silence and whatever it evil that wind might conceal.

He was about to retreat into the safe confines of the truck, fully intending to get the hell away from the area, when he discerned a furtive movement from out of the corner of his eye. Spinning about, he found nothing other than empty spaces and fresh drifts of virgin snow.

No, that was not precisely true. Upon closer inspection, Vorak spied a barely perceptible shifting and heaving in the crescent dunes. A section of drift would swell and collapse as something unseen passed through it, burrowing along with logic defying speed.

A strident alarm blared in his head, beseeching him to flee, but Armand was both fascinated and mystified by the eerie spectacle.

Soon the thing reached the roadway and came to an abrupt halt some ten meters from where Armand stood rooted to the ground. Vorak could clearly hear a muffled, raspy breathing, issuing from within the snow bank, like the drawing of air through a scum choked hose.

There was an interminable pause as invisible forces gathered at the edge of the moment. Abruptly, with a deafening roar and an explosion of powdered snow, something erupted from beneath the drift.

Vorak shrieked wildly, stumbled back against his truck and slid to the snowy ground. Still screaming, he used his feet and hands to propel himself toward the truck door.

What towered over him had no legitimate claim to existence, no right to be alive. It was an abomination, a parody of a man that could only have been conjured up from the depths of a depraved horror writer's imagination.

Vorak's eyes crawled over its misshapen body, which was little more than a blackened husk. Here and there, all of the flesh had been burned away to reveal gray white bone that had been fire polished to a brilliant luster. Yet, even though the thing was an ambulatory corpse, there were indications that it was alive with an unholy vitality. In places along the torso, the flesh had been peeled away like a scab from a nearly healed wound. Clearly visible were the bright red muscles that leaked translucent, syrupy fluids like a faucet. Threads of pinkish skin could be seen to be weaving their way over the exposed muscle.

Even in the grip of paralyzing fear, Vorak realized that this monstrosity was undergoing a type of metamorphosis or more precisely, a regeneration that was far from complete.

Vorak reached the door and used it to pull himself to his feet. His legs trembled and danced a spastic jig of fear. He clung to the door, knowing that to relinquish his grip would mean toppling back into the snow.

"I...I need help. I hurt," The thing croaked thickly, extending an imploring hand towards Vorak. Vorak's eyes settled upon the fingers which were elongated, thin and tipped with wicked, curving claws that were especially designed for ripping and tearing.

Yet it was the creature's head that had undergone the most radical and improbable transformation. It was this that struck Vorak speechless and held his gaze in an invisible vice, despite his revulsion. To begin with, the skull was three times larger than a normal human cranium and appeared as though it was an expanse of rock that had undergone a tremendous geological upheaval. The lower mandible had been thrust a full three inches beyond the upper jaw. Small teeth were set into black, cankerous gums, leaning to and fro like sign posts.

Only the brilliant blue eyes appeared human, alive with fear and pain; both piteous and compelling.

The thing began to lurk forward, writhing in evident agony each time the wind blew a gust of snow over its exposed body. An area of encrusted, blackened skin, just below the heart fell away to reveal livid red tissue beneath. The thing screeched in reaction to this, the high pitch rising until Armand feared that his ear drums would burst.

Vorak clamped his hands to his ears and backed around the open door and into the cab.

The thing regarded Vorak's retreat with alarm and screeched, "No! Must stay. Need...need help." There was a protracted silence as it struggled to find the correct words and then, with a cry of triumph "I need to feed."

Vorak shrieked and attempted to slam the door shut, while fumbling for the keys. Darting forward with a speed that seemed impossible, the thing seized the door and held it fast. Vorak tugged frantically, but could not break its grip. It darted around the door, leering at Armand with eyes that were both hungry and frantic...maniacal.

"Must feed...need to feed. Must rebuild," It disclosed.

Armand kicked at the thing's midsection and pushed over into the passenger seat, intending to exit through that door. He still retained enough coherence to realize that he had no hope of outrunning the beast. Its blitzkrieg burrowing through the snow had disabused him of that fatal delusion.

With equal clarity, Armand saw that he could never be able to take the gun off of the rack, click off the safety and fire. The thing reached across the seats, uttering a high, ululating cackle of glee.

Knowing that to live he must fight, Vorak pushed open the passenger door, leapt out and slammed it shut. The thing bellowed in frustration and rage, driving a hand through the passenger window.

Armand winced, feeling an irrational twinge of regret that his beloved truck was being so abused. Then he moved to the rear of the truck, opened the tool storage box and retrieved a large, two headed axe.

All right, fucker!" he raged. "Come and feed on this."

Vorak was quivering with adrenalin as the shambling corpse moved around the truck to face him. Seeing the axe caused the thing's step to falter, but only for a moment.

With a terrifying howl, it charged at Armand, who barely had time to swing the axe in reaction. It whistled through the arctic air, catching the beast in the arm just below the right shoulder, severing the limb completely.

The beast wailed in agony and staggered backward. Vorak expected a deluge of blood, but when none came, he surged forward, swinging for the thing's head. The thing reacted with the speed of an adder, leaning back out of range. The force of Vorak's swing pulled him off balance, leading him to lose his grip on the weapon as he fell.

It flew through the air like lost hope, vanishing into the deep snow. Vorak scampered on all fours in the direction in which it had flown. He had crawled only a few feet and to his horror, discovered that he could proceed no further. Something had taken hold of his foot. Armand craned his neck to see that the abomination had caught his ankle in a death grip. It held him as surely as if he had been caught in a bear trap.

There was a muffled crunch and then the morning air was suddenly alive with Armand's cry of agony. Mewling and screaming, the thing fell upon Vorak, ripping out his throat with a single snap of its huge jaws. The only sounds to be heard thereafter were the liquid smacking sounds of the beast as it fed upon the fallen farmer.

Fifteen minutes later nothing remained of Armand Vorak, save for polished bone and a small amount of gristle. Looking less like a mutant and more like a man, the thing that had once been Pierca Rescu lowered itself into the snow and began to burrow toward the tree line. Though the level of pain had diminished greatly, it knew that it would have to feed again if it was to complete its process of regeneration. It must feed upon humans, not animals, if it was to regain its lost manhood. With this in mind, it set out in search of more fuel to rebuild its mangled flesh.

Chapter Thirty Three

1

He glanced down through the side windows of the Romanian built Simonescu 63 light transport helicopter, watching the land rush by in a blur. Gazing up, he saw clouds hanging lifeless and flat, a field of gray, stretching from horizon to horizon. Gusting winds did little to make air travel, especially by helicopter, an unpleasant experience, but Gerchnau seemed oblivious to the rocking and jarring motion of the flight.

He was free, breathing air that did not reek of urine and stale sweat. For the first time in four years, he was free from that tiny concrete hell that had been his prison. During the obligatory process of finalizing his release, Gerchnau half expected Petru to have him dragged back to his cell. He was convinced that the entire thing was a sadistic new ploy in their campaign to fully break him. Only when he had crossed the threshold of the State facility did he finally begin to take Petru at his word.

Now, as dusk loomed large on the horizon and the second squall of winter's offensive began to howl, Jurgen knew that he had been delivered. The air was frigid, yet so very clean and incredibly sweet. He slid open the plastic slot and let it wash over his angular face. It felt like cool, sensuous satin against his skin.

He stole a quick glance at Yuro Petru, the unexpected savior who had delivered him from the pits of Hades. He stared forward, eyes haunted and vacuous. ' _What terror had this man witnessed?'_ Jurgen wondered. Something ineffable, no doubt. Jurgen smiled, certain that Petru's terror would pale in comparison in juxtaposition to the one that he had unwittingly released upon the world.

If Jurgen were forced to summarize himself, his signature description would read like this; I am a man who lives to kill.

From the battlefields of Africa and South America to the alleyways of Europe, Jurgen had thrived upon that sacred moment; the spilling of blood and the taking of life. No sexual intimacy could ever compare to such euphoria. He could close his eyes and picture the mystical moment when the victim first grasped the reality of his approaching death. Jurgen relished the expression of terror that flooded their features. Then, as they resigned themselves to the inevitable, he would watch the life light drain slowly, languidly from their eyes like sweet nectar draining from a peach. It was a sublime moment of bliss and Gerchnau had enjoyed it more times than even he could recall. He had not partaken of that joy for some time, but soon he would again. The prospect filled him with gleeful anticipation.

A sharp gust rocked the craft, leading the pilot and co-pilot to exchange anxious glances, though neither commented about the suicidal folly of venturing out in the high wind.

Gerchnau smiled, silently amused by their discomfort. As the mountainous forest sped by below, the German reflected upon the black irony of his situation. It had been his uncontrolled appetite for killing that had condemned him to the hellish confinement of the past four years. Ultimately, his proficiency, his savage craving had earned him his freedom. He had long ago discovered that men of his ilk would flourish in a country controlled by iron fisted dictators, who would always require specialists to perform their wet work.

In such places, morals, the guidelines of myth and compassion, were dispensable follies. Preservation of the order was the only true priority and there were absolutely no limitations upon the methods by which that preservation might be achieved. That included utilizing compulsive killers to do the dirty work.

' _God bless Romania_!' he thought exuberantly. Still, Jurgen had not survived by harboring delusions. He did not truly expect Petru to honor his promise to free Jurgen once he had fulfilled the bureaucrats sanction. Even if Petru did actually intend to keep his promise, his superiors undoubtedly had no such intentions. He was destined to return to his cell at the State prison; more likely, he would be terminated and left as fodder for the wolves.

Jurgen could almost visualize the headlines, skillfully manufactured by the State's propaganda machine: "Homicidal Killer Escapes Custody, Killing Several Citizens before Being Killed Himself by Security Forces."

The details would be insidiously skillfully fabricated, never questioned and quickly forgotten. The Government would have killed two birds with one deceitful stone.

Yes, he could quite easily envision such a scenario and because he could, their conniving was destined to fail. He would comply with Petru's orders. He saw little challenge in dispensing with the band or revolutionaries and their American cronies. No doubt, Petru had capable men who possessed the skill of dealing with terrorists. They were obviously not the prime targets, though they would serve to sharpen and refine his skills.

This mysterious woman, Cynara Saravic, she must be the one who inspired the government lackey to resort to such drastic and unconventional methods. Could she be everything that he had portrayed her to be? Surely not. There were no demons other than the ones which the world forged in its own crucibles of cruelty and hatred.

In spite of such logical conclusions, Gerchnau was plagued by nagging uncertainty. Its origins were founded in the lost, haunted look that never left Petru's eyes and a wave of fear, alternating hot and cold, which swept over the man like the waters of a fetid river. When he spoke of this woman, Petru's tone conveyed an atavistic dread. If this Saravic was not a supernatural entity, Yuro Petru did not know it.

The co-pilot turned to Yuro and speaking loudly so as to be heard above the din of the rotors, declared, "Major Petru, we have reached the requested reference points."

The Romanian nodded and leaned across Gerchnau searching intently for something in the rugged landscape below.

"There...there it is. Just as she said it would be," Petru exclaimed, his tone fraught with awe and a trace of fear. Craning his neck, Gerchnau spotted the small clearing beside a dirt track which cut unobtrusively through the rugged terrain.

"That is the clearing, Gerchnau; the one that Cynara insisted would be here. She also claimed that we need only wait and they would come to us." To the pilot, Petru instructed, "Get us down in that clearing."

The pilot winced. The clearing was no more than thirty feet across. "Major, the wind conditions make such a landing extremely dangerous. A sudden gust would push us into the trees."

Petru's face turned a deep shade of crimson at the pilot's perceived insubordination. He began to rage obscenely at the pilot. Looking on, Gerchnau thought that the Romanian seemed on the verge of apoplexy or outright nervous collapse.

Petru continued to threaten and bluster and still the pilot seemed reluctant to land in the appointed clearing. Gerchnau leaned forward and placed his hand upon the man's shoulder. The pilot grimaced as the large fingers dug into his deltoid muscles like steel pincers. Speaking in a voice that was soft and deceptively amiable, the German remarked, "Major Petru has asked you to land this helicopter and that is exactly what you're going to do, isn't it Gunner?"

Something in the German's glacial blue eyes must have intimated who he was and what he was capable of doing, for the pilot merely nodded and jerked his face forward. Gerchnau sat back and resumed his scrutiny of the countryside below.

There were a few tense moments as the crosswinds buffeted the copter, but eventually it touched the ground unscathed. Gerchnau, clad in a winter combat suit, opened the side door and ducked into the frigid cold and gusting snow. Running bent over, he moved out from under the whirling radius of the rotors. Behind him, Petru did the same.

The two men crossed the clearing, coming to a halt in the middle of the track that bisected its belly.

"It's all as she assured me it would be," Petru reiterated, mesmerized by the reality of the small clearing and the roadway that ran through it as if its mere existence was a thing of wonder.

"Don't be so easily mystified, Petru. It isn't impossible to believe that she knew of this roadway beforehand...perhaps even traveled it at some point in time," Gerchnau observed dryly.

Petru shook his head vehemently. "She divined the presence of this road and she knows that our targets will soon be traveling along it."

Gerchnau elected not to debate, instead deciding to let time be the judge of this woman's prescience. "As you say, Major. You will move to the second staging area and do nothing until you receive my radio signal. Do nothing!"

Petru took no offence at Gerchnau's assumption of authority. When it came to activities such as this, it was only logical to defer to a man of proven expertise. What's more, if Petru was ever to escape the specter of the Dark Lady, he would need this man. "We'll wait. Do you have everything that you require?"

The German brandished his weapon and grinned broadly. "More than enough."

He then held aloft his pack, which contained a thermos of hot coffee and a silenced automatic pistol, along with ten twelve round clips of ammunition. A large, serrated combat knife was sheathed to the outside of his thigh and ten thin pieces of wire, each three feet long, were sown into the lining of his jacket.

Satisfied, Petru nodded. "Then we will move to the second staging area and await your signal."

The Romanian then pivoted and moved through the heavy drifts, back toward the waiting copter. Gerchnau watched for a moment and then waded into the trees, where he settled to wait for his first wave of precious victims.

The two men had parted without exchanging a single wish of luck, perhaps knowing that they had the very luck of the devil on their side.

2

While the jackals went about preparing for the feast of carnage, those for whom the trap had been set were inadvertently preparing to move into it. During the course of the day, all of the trailers had been taken off of their restraining blocks and hitched to the vehicles that would pull them north. The men went about their preparations stoically, understanding the need for haste. Without being told, each rebel knew that traps were being laid and only rapid withdrawal would allow them to escape.

The general mood was somber, almost sullen, made more so by the churning sky that threatened another winter storm. As the afternoon hours crawled slowly by, the weather situation continued to deteriorate, until gusting winds threw great sheets of snow across the clearing, reducing visibility to less than ten feet at times.

With dusk only hours away, Contayza, Ivan and two other members of the Prowzi clan convened a hasty conference to discuss the situation. As Contayza peered into the hearts of the other two men, she glimpsed fear, crippling and cold. She understood the roots of this apprehension perfectly well. It did not come from the prospect of an armed confrontation with Petru's henchmen, for they had all lived with violence for the past four years. The odds now made the situation more difficult, but not hopeless.

This uncharacteristic fear did not spring from the prospect of one final battle. These were Gypsies. Their fear was more elemental...more atavistic. While their lives had taught them to live with violence and the looming prospect of death, their heritage had imbued them with a dread of the supernatural. These were not the fortunetelling, potion selling Gypsies that the world seemed to fancy; that gypsy was nothing more than a cardboard cut-out that catered to some preconceived notion and expectation.

The genuine gypsy understood darkness and the things that dwelled on the night side of the universe. They felt something akin to dread and reverence for the things that lived there. Unlike the white man, the gypsy did not let the limits of their imagination and fear direct what could and could not be. Now, seeds of terror had taken root in the hearts of the Prowzi men, where normally there would have only been stone.

And how did she feel? Contayza, the woman avenger of past wrongs, was she afraid of Cynara Saravic and her seemingly infinite array of deadly skills? She would concede, if only to herself, that Cynara's display of power in disposing of Pierca had been unnerving. Not because of its promise of a gruesome, agonizing death, for she had felt no fear and believed her skills rivaled those of the Dark Lady. No, her fear of Cynara was more ambiguous, more spiritual than physical. Though she could not articulate the exact sentiment, Contayza felt that the demon stirred something within her; a rancorous, dark passion that made the gypsy shiver. Was her own soul inviolate? Contayza thought not. This doubt made her feel weak and vulnerable, though to precisely what, she could not say.

Someone was addressing her. She shook her head apologetically. "I'm sorry, what was it you said, Ivan?"

Her older brother fixed her with an inquisitive glance. Contayza appeared distracted, almost absent. "I asked how you felt about accelerating our departure."

"What do you have in mind, Ivan?"

"We think that it's best that we leave tonight...all of us. The storm is intensifying and may soon make the trails impassable. If we delay any longer, a portion of the vehicles could become stranded along the roads. Moving in the storm could provide us with excellent cover against air surveillance."

"How do you suggest we go about it? You've often cautioned against the dangers of bunching up."

"We'll reduce the gap time to two hours. Contayza, we have two four wheel drive trucks equipped with ploughs. If we send one truck and one camper ahead at dusk, they would be able to blaze a decent trail. Two hours later, three more campers would leave. The road should not have filled in enough to hamper their progress. Two hours later, the remainder of the vehicles could follow the final truck. By this time tomorrow, we would be most of the way home."

Contayza could feel the three men awaiting her approval, desperately needing it, and so she gave it with a tacit nod. Pushing back her chair and rising, she announced, "I'll inform the two Americans. I'm sure that they'll be delighted."

Contayza left the three men to finalize the details, glad to be out of the cloying warmth of the trailer. The wind had temporarily abated to a breeze, which felt refreshing against her skin. She crossed to the center of the clearing and stood absently considering the stretch of road that led off to the north. She was suddenly possessed by the certainty that this would be a road of trials and bloodshed; death, madness and worse. At the end of that road lay the dark figure of Cynara Saravic and the call to some unimaginable climactic battle.

Contayza was both drawn and repelled by the road; part of her wishing to flee, while another longed to confront its challenge head on.

There was a darting, furtive movement in the trees that startled Contayza out of her reverie. She spun to face it, squinted into the darkness, but saw nothing. She listened quietly for a moment, but it did not come again. After a time, she headed towards the Americans' trailer.

Jimmy opened the door and ushered her into the warmth of their quarters. Nath greeted her with a quick smile which she returned. He seemed to have regained a part of his spirit, for which she was genuinely grateful.

"I've come to tell you that we've decided to evacuate tonight...before we are mired by the storm. My family seems to think that the snow will give us cover to slip away...perhaps they are right," she concluded without much enthusiasm.

3

Three hours later, the first of the two vehicles began the trip north. The plough truck was being driven by two of Contayza's cousins, while the camper was driven by a distant relative.

The Romanians hugged and kissed each other in the final moments before the two vehicles pulled away. Jimmy and Nathaniel stood slightly apart from the group, both feeling that they were intruding upon an intimate family moment.

Everyone exchanged promises of reunion in the home province, but their words echoed hollow as if each knew that many would never see their home again. Eventually, all wishes were exchanged and there was nothing left but to leave.

As the two vehicles lumbered away, Contayza drifted over to join the two Americans. Her lovely face appeared tight with emotion. Without turning to meet their inquiring stares, she remarked, "If there is a God and if he should truly care about what happens to people such as us, pray that he casts a kind eye upon us now."

She then left without another word. As they watched her traipse through the deepening snow and gloom, both thought she appeared small and delicate, yet somehow immense and indomitable. Jimmy shook his head and quickly sought his own trailer, afraid of the emotion that was blossoming toward the diminutive beauty.

Nath stood alone then, as the world spun away from the light and into the darkness. He stood, unfeeling and unseeing, allowing time to wash over him indifferently. He was unaware of the yellow, gray and blue eyes that regarded him from deep within the trees. Nor did he notice the large wolf that had padded to the edge of the clearing. It sat on its haunches in drifting snow, eyes locked upon the solitary man in the white snow suit. As it continued to watch, the beast's eyes were transformed to a lovely shade of amethyst that shone with intelligence and curiosity.

Time passed and snow fell. Beneath its cold mantle, forces both black and white moved ever closer to the final moment of confrontation.

Chapter Thirty Four

1

While the first contingent of the Prowzi family took the initial steps in their desperate flight to freedom, the woman who had choreographed the dark drama sat alone in her unlit hotel suite.

Cynara had always derived a certain comfort from the darkness, finding refuge from the bewildering plague of doubts which would give her no peace. Things were moving to a cataclysmic finish, but as that end drew ever nearer, the night angel was gripped by a growing disquiet. As she examined the situation, Cynara was forced to concede that she had somehow lost control over the course of events, as though she had attempted to start a vast, infernal engine and bend it to her will. Now that same engine had developed a will of its own, taking whatever course it would, mindless of her best efforts to bring it to heel.

On the face of things, it appeared that her concerns were without substance. She had animated the zombie, implanting in its addled mind the notion that Contayza Prowzi had been the cause of its demise. It would seek her out, never stopping until either she or it were destroyed.

Yuro Petru, the complaisant dog that he was, had prepared a trap for his enemies that appeared inescapable. He had sat across from her just this afternoon promising that her enemies were as good as dead. With an odd, perpetual grin tattooed upon his face, he looked to Cynara like a store mannequin, claiming that he had found a man who was the ultimate assassin. Something in his fixed grin and jubilant tone was decidedly off kilter, as though he might be concealing something. Yet, when she had attempted to probe his thoughts, Cynara had been met with a flood of disjointed images, fragments of things that had no order or reason. She could have pushed him, probably should have, but she discerned that he was standing perilously close to the abyss of madness. She could not afford to lose him before he eliminated the others around the witch and the two Americans.

Petru had relayed his plans in great detail and they sounded workable. She in turn, had provided Petru with their location and probable course of movement. Since that day of pain at the hands of that hateful little bitch, Cynara had devoted herself to the study of the Astral Dimension, learning more about its possibilities and limits. She discovered that, through Simpson, it was possible to project herself into him and if she stayed recessed in the shadows of his subconscious, she could dwell there unnoticed. In this way, it was possible to track the movements of her enemies without exposing herself.

While probing the gypsies' intentions, Cynara had noticed that Nathaniel was faltering badly. His health was deteriorating with alarming rapidity. She suspected, quite correctly, that the reason for this deterioration lay in the use of his body and soul as a conduit. There was a better than average chance that he would not survive the journey to Chevru even without Elizabeth's deadly attention. Simpson's death would leave only Simms and Prowzi to deal with and Cynara was quite positive that she could dispose of the pair without undo effort.

After consideration, everything appeared to be proceeding as planned. Then why could she not shake the sensation that things were about to go horribly, irrevocably awry? A niggling voice whispered that she had committed a subtle, yet critical blunder that might prove fatal.

Cynara sighed loudly and pushed herself to her feet. She wandered aimlessly about the suite, feeling claustrophobic as if the lush interior had become a prison; or perhaps, a coffin. She should leave for Chevru and prepare for the final battle, but found that she lacked the resolve to impel her forward. She moved without hesitation through the absolute darkness of the suite, at last making her way to the master bedroom, where earlier she had suffered a brutal beating at the hands of her lover.

She wondered where Elizabeth was at that exact moment. Watching Simpson, no doubt, and preparing for the moment of the kill.

"Elizabeth," Cynara whispered wistfully into the darkness. It came to her that she had no desire to make the journey home without her companion. On the heels of that, she knew that this was precisely what she would have to do.

"You've lost her," the darkness whispered teasingly. "Elizabeth Simpson has become her own keeper."

"No!" Cynara exclaimed fiercely. Was that laughter in reply? Oh Father, what has happened to me? Surely Elizabeth had not betrayed her. Suddenly, she was struck by the exigent desire to see her lover, needing to gaze into her eyes and glean the roots of her loyalty.

If Elizabeth stood against her, Cynara could well be lost. Cynara's obsession with the blond beauty had given Elizabeth a tangible power over the Dark Lady. The fact that she was hapless to defend herself against Simpson's fury only confirmed this. In a moment of clarity so poignant that it threatened to shatter her reason, Cynara grasped the shape of her disquiet - if Elizabeth betrayed her, Cynara just might be unable to defend herself, could possibly sacrifice her existence rather than raise her hand against the woman who embodied everything that she coveted.

Overwhelmed, the witch sank to her knees. The extent of her dilemma weighed upon her as though she were the very heart of the universe and the weight of all the worlds bore down upon her. She had ensnared herself in her own web. Passion had surmounted reason and had driven her to this deadly dependency; an addiction of flesh and spirit.

Cynara was shocked to discover that she had become Elizabeth's follower.

"Then she must be destroyed," demanded the old Cynara, the one whose only allegiance was to herself. "Kill her. Free yourself!"

Cynara grimaced, pressing her forehead into the carpet and blocking her ears as if to shut out the strident cries. Try as she might, she could not staunch the flow of terrible revelation. She had been altered. To her own incredulity, she had actually come to love someone to the detriment of her own interest and survival.

She had never believed love to be anything other than a mythical, debilitating lie; an oppressive yolk. Now, upon her knees in the dark emptiness of the master suite, the vilest of demons came face to face with the purest of truths: Love was the omnipotent force that governed everything. True love could not be bent or suppressed and it could never be destroyed.

Despite her most ardent denial, Cynara understood that she had grown to love someone, to need them, not just for a thing to be manipulated and exploited, but for themselves. To prove this, she need only look to a prospect of a future without the blond. The prospective desolation was numbing, an eternity of emptiness so vast and dwarfing that Cynara could not bring herself to ponder it.

"Oh Elizabeth, what have you done to me?" Cynara demanded of the silence. This was the root of her misgiving, her nagging doubt. She had surrendered a portion of her soul to the woman she had set out to enslave. To Cynara, love was akin to slavery. What would have aroused soaring jubilation in others, felt like a vile poison in the demon's veins. She lacked the faculties to cope with the power that ravaged her soul.

In her distress, she recalled the presentiment that had struck her the night that she had turned Elizabeth. She vividly recalled the way that her blank, unseeing eyes stared vacantly, while a hand brandished the bloody knife of her creation. She had eschewed that warning and this was where subsequent events had led her.

She had unwittingly created her own bane, which even now could be conspiring to strike the Dark Lady dead. Panic seized her then, twisting her body like a rag doll. The possibility of her death loomed horrifyingly large.

Cynara Saravic, Queen of the Night, curled into a tight ball and began to whimper.

"Stop it, you silly cunt!" she raged, between clenched teeth. It had been the indomitable Cynara who had spoken...the Cynara who viewed love as the pathetic refuge of the weak. ' _Elizabeth Simpson is mine. I created her and I can destroy her if need be. She will do my bidding, just as she always has. Now get up and stop wallowing in self pity like a swine in mud_.' the inner voice spat contemptuously. Gradually the trembling subsided and Cynara was able to push herself to her feet. She felt marginally better. At least some part of her being refused to be polluted by this new cancer. There would be time enough to deal with Elizabeth and the alien emotions which she evoked. Now she had to focus upon destroying her human enemies.

The suite felt more like a casket than ever and Cynara knew that she had to get out into her element. She crossed to the closet, with its large sliding, mirrored doors. On impulse, she stripped out of her signature black garb and selected a conservative red leather skirt and cream colored blouse that Elizabeth had left behind. She also rejected her black sable, in favor of her lover's full length silver fox. She was not precisely certain why she had chosen to dress this way, nor did she wish to indulge in any further self analysis.

What had come to pass tonight had not been as apocalyptic as Cynara had first imagined. Upon reflection, she had discovered her weakness before her enemies could capitalize upon it. Her consuming passion for Elizabeth was leeching away her strength, diluting her black purity. Now that she recognized this, she could still neutralize the poison before it destroyed her.

The key to regaining control lay in the kill. Destruction and depredation was the best defense against the scourge of love. The old Cynara had never lost sight of this maxim. It was the foundation upon which her power had been built.

It suddenly occurred to her that she must seek out a random victim before she returned to Chevru; a total stranger selected to satiate her murderous appetite. The distant stranger whispered its tacit approval as Cynara closed the suite door and headed for the elevator and the promise of the winter's night beyond.

2

The next three hours were perhaps the most bizarre and unsettling of Cynara Saravic's long existence. As she stalked the snow dusted streets of Bucharest, the demon was assailed by a certainty that customary roles had been reversed. She could not cast off the impression that it was she who was being pursued. Wandering through the Central plaza, she actually stopped and searched the crowd for some sign of her unseen shadow. All of the faces about her were blank and inscrutable. The air was alive with esoteric purpose.

She crossed the square and branched off onto a side street that served as the Inner City's restaurant district. She garnered several leering stares from many of the men; all momentarily mesmerized by the statuesque beauty with the amber flecked eyes. Each watched her pass wistfully, not suspecting the fate that they had so narrowly avoided by failing to catch her attention.

Several opportunities presented themselves. She could have seduced a score of men with a simple raising of an eyebrow or a slight wave of the hand. The kill would have been brutally quick, a contraction of a pinched claw about the throat bringing gasping death within seconds. She walked along, concealing the mutated hand within the voluminous folds of her coat.

Yet, each time the opportunity presented itself, the Dark Lady was visited by the unnerving sensation of being observed. Then she would smile broadly at her would be victim and walk by, leaving the quarry feeling warm and aroused by the brief encounter.

After several recurrences of this scenario, Cynara experienced an odd feeling of dislocation, as though she had somehow slipped backward in time to the day that she had walked through the village to her fateful meeting with the gypsy, Gregory.

Now it felt as though several eyes were upon her, all of them aware and baleful. The darkness felt like a thin veil that concealed legions of faceless enemies. The night, which had always been her accomplice, suddenly felt alien and hostile.

Abandoning the hunt, she found a restaurant that specialized in French cuisine and gladly ducked into the dimly lit interior. The Bucharest night was cold and the restaurant felt stifling in contrast. Cynara loosened her fur and waited next to the reception podium.

The subdued lighting, the expensive linens and the period decor all augmented the impression of having slipped back in time. The Baroque engravings all sported semi demonic creatures that prompted Saravic to smile.

Within seconds of her arrival, the host presented himself at the podium. He was balding, with sharp, hawkish features and an aloof manner. Cynara found his affected French accent to be preposterous. "How may I help you, Madame?"

"Quite obviously I would like a table," Cynara retorted, mimicking a flawless Parisian French that caught the pompous ass completely off guard. "Naturally, Madame," he replied, after only the slightest hesitation. Then, in a voice as smooth as velvet, but boiling with scorn beneath, he inquired, "I take it that Madame will be dining alone, tonight?"

Cynara clenched her teeth, exerting a monumental act of will by not dragging him out into the street and tearing the head from his shoulders.

"Yes, I will be dining alone," she replied tightly. Turning to a hovering waiter, the host beckoned him over with a prissy flick of the wrist. Bowing first, the waiter led the Dark Lady to a secluded table. Several patrons watched as he led the splendid beauty through the crowded restaurant. He seated her and presented her with both a menu and a wine list, which he dutifully assured her, was the most extensive in the city. Then he left her to make her selection.

Cynara considered the list absently and then laid it aside. When the waiter returned, she ordered a half liter of the house wine and an entree of French onion soup. Why had she come in here? Had it been to escape the chilling impression of pursuit? Was she experiencing what humans referred to as paranoia? Indecision and doubt beat at her relentlessly, but she fought to stave them off.

She tried to conjure images of the thing that she had been before and up until the days of Semelar. The memory made her smile, but the smile was short lived because such memories invited comparison with the thing that she had apparently become.

' _And what exactly have I become_?' she wondered, bemused...an attenuated version of the demon who had defined the very meaning of sensuality and savagery.

"Perhaps what you have become is more human," Offered a voice that caused her to glance up with a start. A man was towering over her, regarding her with eyes that were both placid and sage. His observation had been made in a voice that was erudite and soft. His face was a vision of perfection and every bit as gentle as his eyes.

I know this man, Cynara realized, but who he was or from where she had known him, she could not recall. Then remembrance filtered through the barrier that her ego had erected. She unconsciously moved her fingers to the snaking scar on her cheek.

"You are...are," she sputtered softly, recoiling from the reality and the horrible memory.

"No need to be frightened. I've merely come to talk. Nothing more," The blond man replied, trying to allay the Dark Lady's trepidation. "May I join you?"

She did not reply, only watched him with terror stricken eyes. He interpreted her silence as an invitation and took the seat across from her. Still Cynara did not move. Graphically and powerfully, the recollection of the humiliation and agony which she had suffered at this man's hands revisited her. His had been the eyes that had watched her, had driven her to seek refuge in this dreary little soup kitchen.

This was her antithesis. Her arch enemy. The Angel.

"As I have said, you have nothing to fear. At least, not from me," he added ominously. His face displayed no obvious satisfaction from her fear. The waiter, surprised to see another seated at the lovely lady's table, returned and regarded the blond man inquiringly, "Will this gentleman be joining you, Madame?"

The angel's eyes never left Cynara's face. Relaxing slightly, she merely nodded to the waiter, who frowned slightly and said, "Would the gentleman care to see a menu?"

"That won't be necessary. If you could bring me a mineral water and a dish of fish and lemon butter sauce, I would be most pleased," the man replied.

"Of course," the waiter replied, immediately set at ease by the man's gentle eyes and humble manner. He favored the couple with a deep bow and left. His gesture of respect was not lost upon Cynara, who found the whole display disgusting.

"What do you want?" she rasped. It was obvious that he had not come to harm her, and thus her fear gave way to a contemptuous disdain.

"Only to talk. To have a dialogue."

"What could you possibly have to discuss with me? I revile everything that you represent and you feel the same toward my kind. The two of us are sworn to destroy the other and so there is no ground for dialogue," she retorted. Regardless, she was still curious. Why had he sought her out? His angelic appearance and timeless eyes were compelling. Cynara experienced a confusing twinge of hate and lust. So serene. So composed. It was easy to forget the puissance this man possessed.

"You are wrong. I do not revile you, Cynara. You are a pawn, worthy of pity, not hatred."

"What do you want," she hissed. Furious tempests blazed in the depths of her lovely eyes. The amber flecks flashed like bolts of lightning.

"I've come to make a request of you. To ask a favor, as it were," His voice carried neither levity nor guile.

Cynara gaped incredulously. Then she threw back her head and began to laugh. The angel sat patiently, awaiting the laughter to run its course.

Near the podium, the server and the host furtively watched the pair.

"They are a very compelling couple," the server offered.

"She is nothing but a well bred slut," the host contradicted venomously. "I'm sure she doesn't appear so lofty when she is down on her knees, where, undoubtedly, she spends the majority of her time."

The server regarded sharply his superior, mortified by such an outburst and found himself despising the officious little man.

The host continued, oblivious to the other's disapproving expression. "I cannot recall having admitted that gentleman into the restaurant."

"I honestly cannot believe what I've just heard. You've come to request a favor of me? This should be most precious," Cynara declared her tone mordant.

"I've come to ask you to renege, to quit your obsession to destroy the two men and the others. Only you have the power to reverse the machinery that you have set into motion."

"Your presumption amazes me. Do you think that you can compel me? You cannot. I can fight you. I have learned how," she snarled fiercely, hoping to disguise the lie.

"Cynara," the angel shook his head sadly, "You are a vain, shallow woman. I have watched you and realized that your actions are always governed by your ego. You claim to despise humanity and yet you are so decidedly human; so childish as to be laughable if you were not so lethal."

"I am not!" Cynara argued like a petulant child.

"You surrender to the baser human vices; lust, avarice, greed. You have become their slave. Still, you harbor the delusion that you are set apart from the rest."

"I despise you, you insufferable puppet. Why should I renege? Why would you think that I would even consider such nonsense?" she demanded.

"You have initiated a process that could well destroy everything...even you," he remarked softly.

"Lies! There is no threat to me. I am invulnerable," Cynara declared. Like a cobra, the angel bent forward and caught her wrist in a vice grip. Cynara attempted to pull her hand away and found that she could not. Helpless, she glared balefully at the angel.

"Woman, open your eyes. Be candid, if only with yourself. You have unleashed a monster over which you have now lost control. You have raised abominations to walk the earth in search of flesh and vengeance. You have coerced soulless men to do you bidding. Be warned woman, these things do not discriminate in their hunger."

He released her hand and she absently rubbed at her wrist.

"I have not lost control," she insisted, but inside she was not so certain. The angel settled back into his seat and watched her thoughtfully. "Cynara, you have changed a great deal since last we met. Then, you were unflinchingly vile. Now, you are less assured. Deny that if you will, but it is the obvious truth. You are winding down like a worn watch."

"No, it isn't true. I...I..." she faltered abruptly, feeling suddenly deflated and weary of debate.

"You thought that you were impervious to any design other than your own. Yet this creature of light, whose soul you sought to defile, has shown you otherwise. You thought that you would corrupt her and recreate her in your own image. Instead, it is she who has remolded you. Cynara Saravic, the merchant of hatred and misery, has learned what it is to love."

Cynara started to protest, and then surrendered the effort. Sensing how badly he had shaken her, the angel forged ahead, "Her love will fester in your iniquitous soul like a cancer for there is no room in the heart for such intense love and hatred It will finally drive you to loathe her, to destroy her," he concluded, displaying animation for the first time. "Then, in the extremity of your despair, you will turn your hand upon yourself."

"Never!" Cynara proclaimed fiercely, though a small segment of her mind realized that the idea was far from inconceivable.

"You are losing her. She slips further away from you with every passing moment. When she is gone, there will be nothing save eternal emptiness; a prison of time so vast and cold that it will drive you mad. Only by reneging may you forestall this fate."

"Why do you tell me this? Would it not please you to see me destroyed?" she asked sullenly.

"I derive no pleasure from destruction. I wish to preserve life, to set the nightmare to rest. Allow the three to live, put the abomination to rest and flee. You will have your Elizabeth, and should you possess the wisdom to give yourself to her, perhaps you will allow yourself to be taught the joys of living and begin to undo the wrong that you have wrought." He fell silent, awaiting her response with a controlled anxiety. Could it be possible that he had actually reached her? "Let her be your teacher, Cynara."

Cynara bowed her head in a gesture that was both humble and winsome. Though he could not see her eyes, her whole body quivered with emotion. Then she raised her head, a sardonic grin twisting her features. Reaching for the wine glass near her plate, she unceremoniously threw the contents into his face.

"Go fuck yourself, you cockless, sanctimonious piece of shit. I am Cynara Saravic and if it is my will that these three should die, then so be it."

The other patrons fell silent, all eyes and ears drawn to the angry sound of Cynara's voice.

"As you say," the angel responded quietly, showing no inclination to retaliate. He pushed back his chair and rose to leave. As he passed the smoldering witch, she grasped his hand and drew him closer. "You profess to be so moral, so loving. Hypocrite. You feel as much hatred as I ever did. You are too repressed and emasculated to show it. We are the same."

Saying nothing, he laid the palm of his right hand upon her scarred cheek. The sensation was cool and not at all unpleasant. She drew her head away. "How dare you touch me!" she erupted. He did not answer. Instead, he held his hand up with the palm facing the Dark Lady. Its surface was the smooth, reflective glass of a mirror. Cynara gasped. The hateful scar that had marred her beauty was gone. The skin was once again a flawless cream color. Cynara glanced up at the angel, stupefied by the gesture. Quietly, he explained, "That is the difference between you and me, Cynara."

Then he was gone, leaving her alone, adrift in a sea of emotional upheaval.

Chapter Thirty Five

Simon and Peytor Jravic maneuvered the lead plough truck through ever deepening drifts that threatened to make the forest track impassable. Behind them, the camper trundled along, laboring up the inclines like an exhausted elephant. In the two and a half hours since their departure, they had managed to cover a meager thirty five kilometers and were still twenty kilometers short of the Province of Harghita.

Yet, with every passing kilometer, each man could sense a loosening of chest muscles as though the encampment had fitted them with tight hoops of steel. As they moved further away from that awful place and closer to home, those hoops loosened ever so slightly. The three were not overly optimistic as there were still nearly two hundred kilometers of mountainous, treacherous road to cover, but they could at least begin to entertain the possibility of hope.

None of the three had given any consideration to what might happen beyond that. They focused entirely upon reaching their homes and families. The vehicles came upon a sharp bend in the narrow road, which gave way to a long, steep hill. Nursing the brake, Simon cautiously began to ease the plough into the decline. At this point, the road was no more than three and a half meters wide. The pines appeared to lean into the roadway, forming a natural canopy that made the road so desirable for inconspicuous travel. In the storm ridden darkness, it created the eerie illusion of traveling in a tunnel, or a gullet.

The plough cut a swath through the snow and both the truck and the camper reached the base of the hill without incident.

Here, gusting winds and sheets of snow reduced visibility to less than five meters. As the night deepened, the storm seemed to intensify. It became obvious to the Romanians that, should the blizzard grow fiercer, they would be forced to stop and wait for the snow to blow itself out. It was quickly becoming impossible for Simon to distinguish the roadway from the forest on either side.

Despite the prudence of stopping, the three were reluctant to pull over. Some ill defined sense of urgency warned them that time was a luxury that they could not afford to squander. The two lead men agreed to push on until all forward progress became impossible.

The road wound gently to the right and once through the curve, opened onto a small clearing.

"Good God, look there!" Peytor exclaimed, pointing at something slightly ahead and to the right of the vehicle. Simon gently pumped the brakes and came to a halt. Behind the truck, the camper did the same.

"What do you see?" Simon cried, heart thundering in his throat.

"There. Christ, it's a man," Peytor declared, growing increasingly more frantic. Simon squinted and saw that there was, indeed, a solitary man, standing at the side of the roadway. He could feel a tightening in his chest as alarm klaxons began to blare in his mind. The man coming toward them did not appear to pose any threat. If anything, he appeared desperately lost, holding his hands out before him in a strange gesture of supplication.

Simon could see that he dragged one leg as though the foot had frozen into a block of ice. The hair peeking from beneath his cap was encrusted with snow. Peytor looked to Simon questioningly. "Who is he? What could he be doing here on such a night?"

"He could be lost," Simon replied, his tone noncommittal. "Then again, this could well be some kind of trap."

Peytor's eyes widened and he glanced fearfully at the approaching man. Suddenly, the man, who the pair realized was quite tall, stumbled to a stop, stiffened and collapsed face down into a snow drift. He disappeared from view no more than five meters from the vehicle.

"He's fallen," Peytor cried, his apprehension making him foolish. "He must be frozen nearly to death."

Simon grunted, liking the situation less and less with every passing second. Gripped by indecision, he sat staring out into the stormy night. Peytor sensed his brother's vacillation. "Christ, Simon, we can't leave him here. He's certain to die."

This was incontestably true. The plunging temperatures and the inclement weather would quickly claim anyone unfortunate enough to be exposed to its fury.

"Very well, we'll help him," Simon said, at last. "But be alert." Before he could fully deliver his warning, Peytor had opened the door and plunged into the blizzard. Simon, who was considerably more cautious, took the time to retrieve his semi automatic pistol from its hiding place beneath the driver's seat. Then he too followed his younger brother into the teeth of the storm.

The wind propelled the bits of crystallized snow out of the northern skies like a churning wall of icy bullets. In the cab of the truck, with the heater operating at full capacity, it had been difficult to appreciate the force of that howling wind. Now, in the open air, Simon found its cry to be deafening He raised his arms, trying to shield his eyes. Squinting, he could see Peytor bending over the fallen form of the stranger, who lay unmoving in the snow.

What followed was as swift and unexpected as a coronary. Peytor had placed a hand upon the man's shoulder and was about to roll him over, when the stranger uncoiled like a spring released from tension. Twisting toward the startled Jrivak, Gerchnau fired a single shot from his silenced Lugar pistol. The bullet was a mushroom tip that entered through Peytor's right eye socket, pureed his brain, and blasted an egress through the rear of his skull, leaving a fist sized hole in its wake.

The impact of the blow took the unfortunate Romanian clear off of his feet. Two meters behind, Simon took only a few seconds to absorb and digest what had happened to his impulsive brother. With a groan, he brought his own pistol up to firing position, but his reaction was too slow and thus fatal.

The German had come to one knee and ripped off two shots before the target could even train his gun. The first shot caught Simon in the throat, precluding any possible cry, and the second took him squarely in the heart. Like his brother, he was dead before he even hit the blood tainted snow.

Gerchnau experienced an intoxicating rush of excitement, but there was no time to revel in the sensation. There were others in the camper and they would soon come to investigate the delay. He had to move quickly to keep the odds in his favor.

Gerchnau had no firm idea how many others were in the second camper, though he suspected that there would be no more than two. He had lost the element of surprise with his first strike and now he would have to rely upon good fortune and proficiency to eliminate the others.

Running, doubled over, he crossed to the passenger side of the vehicle and ducked into the trees on that side of the road. Stealing through the closely spaced pines, the killer moved three meters into the forest and then carefully worked his way through the underbrush, until he had reached a vantage point adjacent to the cab of the camper. Through the undulating, gauzy curtain of snow, Gerchnau caught sight of the wavering red dot in the cot's interior. He was both relieved and pleased to see that there was only a solitary red glow in the darkness.

In the camper's interior, Sergei Pregesti had worked himself into a state of utter agitation that bordered upon outright panic. With every second that this unexpected stop drew itself out, Pregesti became convinced that something unholy was in the works. He absently reached into his shirt, gently stroking the small gold crucifix that hung against his chest. Sergei was a devoutly religious man. The events of the previous night had been ineffably diabolical, most surely the work of the devil himself. All through last night and the long, grim hours of the morning, he had been beset by a host of awful premonitions. The portents were everywhere. Unlike the others, Pregesti felt no relief at abandoning the campsite. His heart had whispered that they were embarking upon a pilgrimage of despair; a trek into the realm of the dead.

And now something had gone horribly, irretrievably awry. Smoking nervously, he attempted to will his frazzled mind into a calm consideration of the situation.

Gerchnau, satisfied that there was only a single occupant, moved through the undergrowth to a point near the rear of the camper. The fact that there remained only one person to eliminate made his plan all the more workable. Simply killing the man would have been an easy matter, but Gerchnau planned to capture at least one of the Romanians alive.

The vehicle was equipped with a large side view mirrors that would make approach from the sides easily detectable. The killer could have simply waited for the driver to become impatient and come out to investigate, which he would inevitably have to do because there were no real alternatives. The German had shrewdly timed his appearance to preclude the truck from leaving the clearing. The road was too narrow and the vehicle too cumbersome to be turned about. Unless the driver intended to reverse the vehicle all the way back to the encampment, he would have no choice but to get out of the vehicle and determine what had befallen his countrymen.

Everything was proceeding perfectly. Gerchnau's only fear was the possibility that the camper might be equipped with a two way radio system. It was possible that the occupant could call ahead to the truck and upon receiving no answer, might alert the others that something had gone wrong. In its aura of paranoia, the government made sure to constantly monitor all air frequencies. It would be extremely risky for insurgents to use this type of equipment, but still Gerchnau staked his life upon his ability to prepare for every contingency, however improbable. He had to prevent communication at all cost. If the Gypsies were alerted, they would disappear like forest animals long before Petru's men could reach their encampment.

Moving to the rear of the camper, Gerchnau mounted the attached ladder and climbed onto the roof, hoping that the motor and the howl of the wind would mask any sound. On top, he crawled forward on his stomach and waited for the man inside to emerge.

He did not have to wait long because Sergei Pregesti could remain cooped in the vehicle no longer. Automatic weapon in hand, he pushed open the passenger door and cautiously stepped out. As he did, the German slammed the flat of his foot onto the top of his skull. The gypsy arched his back, dropped his weapon, and fell into the snow without as much as a grunt.

Gerchnau stood on the camper for a moment, regarding the prone figure of Sergei Pregesti.

"Oh, life is grand," he proclaimed merrily to the blustery heavens. He then jumped from the camper, landing gracefully beside the prone figure of his fallen quarry. Picking the man up effortlessly, Gerchnau threw him roughly into the camper's interior. Then he hopped inside and closed the door, relieved to be out of the cold and snow.

It had not been a difficult matter to fake being frozen for he was well near a block of ice when the Romanians had finally come. Gerchnau was discovering that his four years incarceration had extracted a heavy toll upon his body, despite the intense physical regimen. Nonetheless, he was free now and it would all come back to him. The masterful way in which he had executed the ambush convinced him of this.

Feeling his body beginning to respond to the warmth, Gerchnau removed a small two way radio from the inside pocket of his snow suit. "Winter wolf, this is scorpion. Do you copy?"

"Yes, scorpion, we copy," came the electronically enhanced reply.

"The swine is in the pen. Come and set the table," Gerchnau instructed.

"Very good scorpion," Gerchnau smiled and replaced the radio in his pocket turning to the unconscious Pregesti, he quipped "You and I are going to have some great fun tonight, Gunner."

Chapter Thirty Six

1

Both Jimmy and Nath were making a futile effort to steal a few hours of sleep before their turn to leave. It had been determined that they would be going with the last group out, along with Contayza and Ivan. They were not scheduled to leave until four the next morning, some seven hours hence.

With the help of the painkillers and Contayza's expert taping of his ribs, Jimmy felt physically better than he had since the incident with Petru's agents. His mood was further brightened by the gypsies' decision to accelerate their departure schedule. They were very close to the end of the search now, he was certain of that. No matter how the end should evolve, Simms was grateful that the ordeal would soon be over. More encouraging still was the fact that Nath was beginning to emerge from his torpor. He shared Jimmy's relief to be moving along with the prospect of an end to this nightmare.

An anguished, strident chorus of voices roused Jimmy from his doze. Swinging his feet over the edge of the cot, he stood and went to the window to determine the cause of the commotion. Contayza was at the center of the circle, listening solemnly while the three older men chattered frantically, gesturing wildly for emphasis.

"What's happened?" Nath inquired from somewhere in the darkness behind Jimmy.

"I don't know. There seems to be some type of family conference going on. It must be time for the next group to leave," One of the three men speaking to Contayza suddenly pointed toward the Americans' trailer and began to speak rapidly. Simms winced. "Uh oh, I think that we've become the topic of discussion."

Nath peered over the bigger man's shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of what was happening. The Romanians stood in a circle, mindless of the wind and the falling snow. Contayza's head was down in apparent concentration. She then turned to Ivan and gestured in the direction of the trailer.

"I think we're about to be summoned," Nath declared blandly. Seconds later, Ivan mounted the steps and wrapped sharply on the door. Jimmy opened it and allowed the man entry.

"Contayza wishes the two of you to join us," Ivan announced.

"Has something happened?" Jimmy asked.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not, depending on what you believe," the Romanian replied evasively. Seeing that he intended to divulge no more, the two men retrieved their coats and gloves and quickly followed.

All conversation ceased the moment that the two entered the circle, making them feel like unwanted intruders. Then Contayza offered the pair an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry to disturb your rest, but there has been a development that I, at least, find disturbing."

"What?" Jimmy demanded impatiently.

"Firstly, one of my cousins has just discovered that Pierca's body is missing."

"Jesus Christ!" Simms exclaimed, glancing nervously at Nathaniel.

"Rather disturbing. Even more so when you consider that it was locked in the cold storage trailer. Don't misinterpret me. I'm not blaming either of you. This is just an ominous new development and I thought that you should be aware of it."

"As if we didn't have enough problems, now we have to deal with a fucking ghoul," Simms grunted disgustedly.

"A ghoul?" Contayza repeated, not caring for the sound of the word.

"Never mind."

"That in itself would be bad, but unfortunately there is more," Tayza continued, her expression neutral.

"What could be worse? Vampires?" Simms quipped.

"No, this," Tayza whispered, sweeping her arm in the direction of the tree line. The two men followed her gesture. What they saw caused them to gasp in unison. Perched at the edge of the clearing, in a rough semi circle, were countless wolves. Dozens, of all sizes and colors, were sitting patiently and though their postures were not threatening or predatory, instinct warned the two Americans that their unlikely presence did not bode well for the group.

"What...what does this mean? Is it usual for wolves to openly menace such a large group?" Nath asked with his eyes still riveted upon the beasts.

Contayza shrugged and brushed snow from her curls. "This is definitely not typical of pack behavior. As to what their presence might mean, I'm not really sure other than to guess that it is not especially good. If you should choose to heed my superstitious cousins, it's a sign of impending disaster."

One of the men who'd been speaking with Contayza when Jimmy had first discovered the family conference now stepped forward and began to address her heatedly. She raised a mollifying hand and the harangue stopped. "They've also come to the conclusion that you two are harbingers of death and despair and all other manners of evil tidings." Contayza then took a step forward and winked slyly. "I personally think they're full of shit."

She then offered the Romanians an angelic smile. Her remark was so unexpected that neither of the two men could restrain their laughter, revealing a side of Contayza that had, up until that moment, been well concealed. There was something about the shared levity that drew the trio together and each could feel the pull of that attraction, that closing of distances.

Then she drew away and resumed her serious dialogue. "Personal feeling aside, we've come to the conclusion that the appearance of these wolves can only mean trouble and we might do well to vacate the area as quickly as possible. How do you Americans put it; it is time to bug out."

"You'll get no argument from us, lady," Jimmy laughed. That laughter quickly died when he turned to Nath, who was staring at the collection of wolves with marked fascination as though he had resolved the mystery of their presence. In that solution, he had evidently discovered something that was too horrible to convey with words.

"So when do we leave?" Simms heard himself ask.

"Now and as quickly as possible," Contayza replied, all hints of levity gone from her voice.

2

She watched the Romanians and the two Americans from deep within the trees as the Gypsies prepared to break camp and make their futile run to the north. She did not join the others in the clearing. Her unusual size would have drawn attention to herself and perhaps the Americans or the human witch would have divined her true nature. That would not do. She would wait for the ideal moment and then strike, ripping the throat from her quarry with the impunity of nature itself. Her freedom would be spelled out in his blood, which would hopefully eradicate the belligerent spirit of the prisoner.

After her dispute and subsequent reconciliation with Cynara, Elizabeth had begun the northerly trek in search of her prey. Shifting through a whole variety of natural creatures, she had regarded the activities of the camp with absent interest. In the falling snow, the Gypsies looked like specters in some fatalistic landscape; surrealistic shadow dancers.

Then he had emerged from his trailer and she had fastened upon him with all of the preternatural acuity of a hawk that has finally located its prey. She had anticipated a violent outburst from the prisoner, but was surprised to find that none was forthcoming. Apparently the form of the wolf suppressed many of the human aspects of her personality. In this form, she regarded the world through the cold, dispassionate eyes of the hunter.

Even in this state, the wolf could not help but notice how feeble and infirmly the man seemed. He looked closer to fifty than he did to twenty five. The wolf derived a certain pleasure from the man's condition, yet the demon within felt an odd, ineffable sadness at the sight of the young man. The hours crawled past and nothing appeared to be happening. Eventually, Elizabeth decided that she would attempt to precipitate some action and had dispatched her companions to the edge of the clearing. They had responded without question, held in thralldom by her size and alien nature.

Their appearance had aroused a type of superstitious dread in the Romanians and had succeeded in driving them to abandon their encampment. After the last of the vehicles had vanished from sight, she emerged from her concealment.

Her children quickly followed, nuzzling her flanks and running excitedly about her. She yelped once and they immediately fell silent. She raised her muzzle to the wind and darted forward, the pack following her as she moved off in pursuit of the humans. Moving lithely through the driving snow, the demon began to construct the form that her final strike would take.

3

The caravan rambled through the stormy night like vehicles in an exodus. This flight for life caused the gypsies a great deal of anxiety, but nothing beyond that. Certainly there was none of the soul shattering trauma that an average North American family would have felt had they been forced to race through the dead of winter for their very lives. For such people, quality of life was spelled out in terms of possessions and fixed stability and the concept of impermanence was akin to cancer. To the gypsies, however, the transitory heart was a blessing, not a curse. Flight, while inconvenient, was not devastating.

Contayza, Ivan, and the two Americans rode together in the last camper. Though there was no conversation, the four took solace in each other's company. Contayza was especially glad to have the two Americans in close proximity. Through all of her fantasies of retribution, she had always imagined her day of reckoning with Cynara Saravic to be a grim battle in which both women would stand alone against the other, warring until either the darkness or the light had been served. She had suffered no apprehension at the prospect of facing such an awesome creature alone. That had changed subtly when she had first discovered the Americans' grim purpose.

Events of recent days, most notably Pierca's gruesome death, had jolted her into the realization that her romantic notions were sheer and suicidal folly. With Cynara there could be no honorable duel for vindication, but a mean, ugly battle in which no measure would be too drastic or despicable. In such a war it was comforting to have allies. The two Americans were hers and she was grateful.

She leaned her forehead against the cool glass and gazed into the silent night. In university, she had taken time to read all of the plays of William Shakespeare. She thought that the bard might well have appreciated this dark drama. His tragedies were populated with a plethora of supernatural beasts and images. Like Hamlet and Macbeth, the night was alive with cryptic portents and a pervasive air of foreboding.

"Damn!" Ivan exclaimed abruptly, bringing the vehicle to a lurching stop, half way down a steep decline. The intensity of the storm had made it difficult to see the taillights of the vehicle in front of him.

"Why have we stopped?" Jimmy demanded, suddenly completely alert.

"I'm not sure," Ivan replied guardedly. It had been agreed upon that the caravan would not stop until they had caught up with the others or until the next morning. It was twenty minutes past midnight and the unscheduled stop did not bode well. As if in affirmation of Ivan's fear, frenzied shrieks erupted from somewhere near the front of the caravan.

In a second, Contayza had pushed open her door and was racing toward the source of the outcry. Ivan cursed and reached for his Uzi. Then he quickly cursed and turned toward Jimmy and Nath. "There are more of these in the rear of the camper. The clips of ammunition are in the green crates. Fill your pockets with them and be careful."

With this, he too was gone.

"Is this it?" Jimmy asked Nath as they rummaged for the weapons and began stuffing their pockets with clips.

"I don't think so. Something has happened, but it's not Cynara. We won't find her until we reach Chevru."

Slamming a clip into its holder, Jimmy recalled experiencing a similar feeling from his rampage in El Zaltaro. Under the circumstances, this was not an unpleasant way to feel. "Then it's got to be Petru."

The two men burst out of the camper and sprinted to the front of the caravan. There they came upon the group, solemnly watching the corpses of Simon and Peytor Jrivak swaying listlessly in the wind. Each corpse's snowsuit was stained crimson, indicating that each had been shot before being hung. Long pieces of rope suspended them from thick tree limbs like ornaments in a grotesque Christmas play.

"Ivan, where is Contayza?" Jimmy demanded urgently, blind panic welling up from his insides. The Romanians blinked as though the horror had induced him to forget completely about his impulsive sister. His face crumpled into lines of dismay and he raced into the darkness, north along the roadway. An instant later, Jimmy, Nath and the others quickly followed.

No more than thirty meters ahead, they came upon a small clearing where their comrades had met their deaths not long before.

What Nath saw exploded upon his senses like a small nuclear device. Surely what lay before him could not be genuine, but rather a macabre waking nightmare...the kind to afflict those whose frail tether of sanity had finally snapped. Nonetheless, Nath knew that it was all very real; a lunatic carnival exhibit arranged by a monster.

The entire clearing had been rimmed by large, portable halogen lights, all of which had been directed toward the clearing's center. Nath tried to peer beyond the circle of blinding light, seeking out the source of this nightmare, but the array of lights thickened the wall of shadow beyond, making it impenetrable.

Though he wanted desperately to block it out, his gaze was dragged back to the sickening display at the focal point of the lights. He could see Contayza kneeling dazedly not ten meters before the suspended body of Sergei Pregesti.

The Romanian was not dead, though Nath suspected that Pregesti would have welcomed death at that precise moment. A loop of heavy gauge copper wire had been wound around his neck and then nailed to the crossbeam of an erected scaffold. A pad of thick cotton separated the wire from Sergei's neck to prevent it from cutting his throat.

Whoever had engineered this horror, had placed two stumps beneath his feet, both cut to sufficient length to force Pregesti to stand on his toes to prevent slow strangulation. The man's face was contorted into a death rictus of agony, eyes bulging madly as he fought to remain on the balls of his trembling feet.

Even from this distance, Nath could see that the man was near exhaustion. It would not be long before his muscles could no longer sustain him and he would begin to slowly strangle. Nath closed his eyes, unable to fathom such a capacity for insidious cruelty.

Ivan called frantically to Contayza, who turned slowly to face him. Her eyes were huge and blank; unseeing. With a primal roar of outrage, Ivan opened fire on the spotlights and all Hell erupted.

4

Petru's death squad consisted of thirty specialists who had been trained in anti terrorist tactics. Under Gerchnau's direction, they had prepared the ultimate shock effect trap. As the German had predicted, the Romanians had abandoned their vehicles in a frantic attempt to discover what had befallen their comrades.

Gerchnau almost pitied the stupid bastards as they scrambled wildly into his trap, obviously abandoning all of their supplies. Soon they would be left with whatever weapons they were carrying and nothing more. Even if a few managed to escape the trap, they were not likely to survive on foot in such an inimical environment. The moment was right and Gerchnau gave the prescribed signal. The portable missiles struck home and the night was lit by a half dozen brilliant orange fireballs as metal and glass were scattered to the heavens.

5

The force of the explosions threw the group to the ground, washing hues of orange and yellow. Ivan's hail of bullets had destroyed all but two of the spotlights. After being hurled to the ground by the force of the detonation, he crawled forward and pitched himself onto Contayza, shielding her with his body.

Scant seconds later, an unseen enemy opened fire, strafing the clearing with a sustained carpet of bullets. A flood of emotion ran through Ivan's mind as he lay atop his unmoving sister. He knew that he and his family had crossed a line into the realm of terror and chaos. Their vehicles and possessions had most certainly been destroyed, meaning that they were no longer a cohesive unit. Now, if they were to live, they would be forced to flee blindly like a pack of wild animals. Their lives had become a shambles not much different from the flaming metal hulks that had been their homes.

It was imperative that they get out of this clearing if they were to survive. All around him, horrible cries of terror and pain reverberated through the night air. He raised his head in time to see one of his cousins make a shambling run for the tree line, only to be struck down by a fusillade of bullets.

"Contayza, we've got to work toward the trees. It's our only way out," Ivan cried. She turned to face him with blank, uncomprehending eyes. In a slow, dreamy voice, she protested, "Ivan, we must save Sergei. We can't leave him like this."

Ivan glanced up to see that Pregesti was still suffering upon the stumps. The unseen attacker had taken deliberate care to avoid killing him. Tracer bullets ripped through the night air and two flares burst directly above the clearing, bathing the battlefield in spectral shades of blue and red.

"Sergei is dead, Contayza!" Ivan spat vehemently, understanding the need for a rapid withdrawal. The noose was tightening and soon there would be no way out.

"He isn't," she cried wretchedly. "He is our blood and we are obligated to save him." She began to struggle, forcefully attempting to break free of him and go to her cousin. Ivan cursed. He was enough of a tactician to realize that this reaction was precisely what Petru was counting upon. By employing live bait, he could induce the others into a suicidal rescue attempt. Closing his eyes, Ivan summoned all of the cold pragmatism that his soul could muster. Knowing that he was about to register an indelible stain upon his immortal soul, he rolled to his left and fired a short, sharp burst into Sergei. The body jerked spastically and then collapsed, swaying slightly.

All fire ceased abruptly. Contayza glared at Ivan in horrified disbelief. "You killed him."

Inside, Prowzi felt as though he had also killed himself, but he adamantly refused to display his grief. "I did what had to be done. Now start crawling toward the goddamned trees."

Contayza did not budge, only continued to glare at Ivan with the same baleful expression set upon her face. The ruthless professional that had ended Progestin's life again seized the initiative. With a short hook, Ivan struck his sister high on the cheek. Her eyes rolled upward and she sagged to the snow. Moaning, he began to drag her toward the trees, only dimly aware of the hot tears that had begun to stream down his face.

Though the time seemed interminable, all of this had transpired in the span of sixty seconds. Jimmy ran in and assisted in dragging Contayza toward the edge of the road. Bullets churned up snow about them, but they managed to reach the shelter of the forest without harm. "Simms, take her and run. Head into the forest and don't stop until you can run no further."

"What about the rest of you?" he protested, reluctant to leave the others to fight while he fled.

"Listen to me, man. I don't have time to argue. Contayza must live. You must live. We cannot stop the nightmare, but perhaps the three of you can. We will cover as long as we are able and then we'll follow. Now go!"

Jimmy did not reply for a long moment. Admittedly, Ivan was right. Without the benefit of delay, none of them would escape.

"Please, for the love of God, go!" Ivan reiterated. "Keep her safe." This time his voice carried only the plea of desperation.

Jimmy began to move. He did not stand at once, instead pulling Contayza into the concealment of the underbrush. He paused briefly, thinking about Nathaniel, but then the firing resumed in the clearing, now more intense than before. Driven by an exigent need to save the woman, Jimmy stood and plunged into the forest.

6

Ivan watched them go and then returned to the battle. From his position in the underbrush, he surveyed the situation and discovered that their time was very short. The initial onslaught had killed four of his comrades. Three others lay crouched beside the fallen, pinned down by the enemy's curtain of incessant fire.

The other American was pinioned behind a tree on the opposite side of the road, as were two other Romanians. There was a low, barely audible whistle, followed by a brilliant flash of argent light, as a mortar shell landed in the middle of the clearing. The resulting explosion was of such concussive magnitude that Ivan knew that it could only have been caused by a phosphorus shell. Cursing, he began to fire in the direction from which the shell had apparently come. "Move, all of you. Run for the trees and fire as you go."

Gradually, the others began to work themselves toward the east side of the road. Nath and the two Romanians had managed to cross and the three others were within meters of joining them, when Petru's men moved in for the kill.

The group responsible for destroying the vehicles swept in from the south, catching the three Romanians in the open. Two were killed in a fusillade of bullets, while the other was wounded in the thigh. Ivan's counter fire caught the first two shock troopers in the chest, sending the others diving for cover. At that moment, several heavily armed troopers emerged from the north end of the clearing, all firing rapidly. Ivan realized that his position was indefensible and if they were to go, it would have to be now. Turning to the others, he commanded, "Split into groups and run in separate directions."

The men complied without hesitation. Two turned and ran directly east, roughly in the same direction that Simms had escaped. Nath and the other Romanian angled to the southeast. Ivan unfastened his only two grenades from the inner lining of his parka. Pulling the pins, he heaved them in the direction of the group that was charging from the north. There was a muffled roar, followed by a satisfying series of screams, but Ivan did not linger to enjoy them. Draping his wounded cousin's arm about his neck, Prowzi commenced his scrambling retreat through the forest. He moved as best he was able, driven on by the sounds of the pursuing troops. As he ran, it occurred to him that he was leaving behind not only his chosen life, but a large portion of his soul. There followed the staccato burst of machine gun fire and such speculation vanished, subjugated by the simple, atavistic need to survive.

Chapter Thirty Seven

1

After his troops had secured the perimeter and made certain that all of the rebels were dead, Petru emerged from behind his observation shelter. He quickly joined Gerchnau, who silently stood surveying the carnage. "There are still six left. They have all fled into the forest. Another has been wounded, but he will not live for long."

Petru nodded and began to issue orders. Organizing a spread of twelve troops, he sent them into the forest in pursuit of the survivors.

"It is imperative that the girl be taken alive," he barked as the squad disappeared from view.

"Perhaps it is not wise to pursue them recklessly through the forest at night. An intensive day search would be more prudent," the German advised.

"No! I want them taken tonight," Petru countered irritably. "These men have been trained for precisely this type of operation. They are the best."

"As you say," Gerchnau replied affably, his sardonic smile lost in the darkness. Petru examined the bodies of the dead insurgents with a triumphant smile emblazoned on his broad face. Gerchnau watched him somberly. ' _You're truly a fool_ ,' he thought. The man perceived this to be a resounding success and to the uninitiated, it would indeed seem to be exactly that. Three of Petru's troopers had been killed and another three injured, while nine of the Romanians had died and their entire fleet of vehicles had been destroyed. Total victory would seem inevitable. Yet they had lost the element of surprise and would now have to pursue these gypsies in their own environment. The notion struck a note of disquiet in Gerchnau. His years of experience as a mercenary advised him that they had failed tonight. From this point forward, the price of their failure would be most exorbitant.

2

As Petru had claimed, the shock troopers were competent. Splitting into two groups, six troopers followed the trail that led to the east, while the remaining six branched off after Nath and his companion. As they progressed deeper into the forest, the six formed a skirmish line which positioned each man some twenty feet apart.

The trees were spaced closely together and the underbrush was maddeningly thick, seriously reducing visibility and hindering progress. One hundred yards into the forest, the land quickly dropped off into a deep ravine, through which flowed a shallow creek. The creek was no more than two feet deep and twelve to fifteen feet wide. The group that followed the eastern trail was led directly to the creek where the trail abruptly ended. Since it did not resume on the other side, it appeared as though the insurgents had decided to follow the stream as there were no tracks in the snow on the opposite bank...but had they fled to the north or the south? To the Trooper's dismay, there was no way of knowing. The squad leader decided to follow the stream to the north, reasoning that the other group would intercept anyone fleeing southward.

The patrol moved quickly down stream. Their special night glasses were designed to magnify infra red light. They moved through the icy waters, scanning the east bank for some sign of the rebels.

In their haste, they neglected to scan the west bank of the creek.

Concealed within the thick underbrush, Ivan watched as the patrol hurried by, eventually fading from sight around a sharp bend in the creek. The Romanian waited until he could no longer hear any hint of their passage.

"We've got to move now. Can you make it, Girko?" He whispered to his companion, who had lost a great deal of blood and tottered on the brink of unconsciousness.

Through gritted teeth, the Romanian gasped "I think I can, Ivan."

Prowzi hauled the man to his feet and together they entered the creek and headed south. With every step, Girko became more dependent on Ivan for support. They had gone no further than a hundred meters when the wounded man collapsed tonelessly into the rushing waters. Ivan groaned softly, knowing that Girko was dead. Tenderly pulling the body from the stream, Prowzi left the stream and cut into the dense forest along the east bank.

Thirty yards in, he laid Girko's body against a large pine tree. There was a serenity about the lifeless body that Ivan envied. Whispering goodbye, he headed east, hating the notion of abandoning his kin's body to the ravages of the wilderness. Still, the forest would now reclaim its dead and Ivan supposed that this was only fitting as gypsies were the true children of the land.

With a combination of luck and guile, Ivan had managed to elude his pursuers. Nath and his companions were not proving to be so fortunate. The land to the southeast of the clearing did not break into a well defined ravine. The trees thinned significantly and fingers of rock jutted out of the frozen earth, leaning this way and that at odd angles. The snow, which had fallen for thirty consecutive hours, was now knee deep in these exposed places.

Running through such drifts proved exhausting...especially for Nathaniel, who was rapidly falling victim to the full impact of his declining health. As he shambled through the deep snow, his lungs burned horribly, his legs felt rubbery and near to collapse. His companion, a young man from the northern province of Batosani, constantly looked back to urge him onward. These urgings became more frantic as the sound of the pursuing troopers grew ever nearer.

The pair finally came to a cleft between two large boulders. The Romanian quickly ducked through the gap and down into the gully beyond. Nath, however, came to a halt and hid behind one of the boulders. Peering into the darkness, he could discern several shadows moving quickly through the trees. They were less than fifty meters behind now and closing quickly. The Romanian clamped a hand down upon Nath's shoulder and attempted to pull him into the gully, but Nath shook him off.

The Romanian barked something in his native tongue, his voice low but near hysteria. With a flourish of hands, Nath gestured for him to go. The Romanian hesitated, torn between duty and his instinct to survive. Nath stepped forward and pushed him backward. Angrily, he whispered "Get the fuck out of here. I can't run any further. Now go!"

The Romanian scowled and then fled, leaving the enigmatic American to fend for himself. Nath watched him go with a sense of relief. He had been the cause of one innocent death since coming to Romania and he was determined not to be the cause of another.

Crouching against the cold granite, he again tried to locate his pursuer. He could detect only two. The others must have split off to follow another trail. He clutched his Uzi, but did not relish the prospect of putting it to use, except as a final desperate measure. He was untrained against experts at this type of warfare.

The two troopers were less than twenty yards away now. They were advancing slowly, prepared to meet an ambush from behind every tree or rock outcrop. He would have to move now or they would be upon him in mere seconds. There was no time to run and thus he knew that he must hide. He was searching the immediate surroundings for a possible hiding place, when a loud crack caused his heart to wrench in his chest.

Nearly immobilized by terror, Nath peered into the inky darkness of the gully, thinking that the Romanian had decided to return. He spied a vague shape furtively darting from one tree to the next. He watched as it disappeared into a clump of pines. There followed another crunch, this one even louder than the first. Evidently, whoever was moving through the trees felt no need to be discreet.

Nath dropped to the ground and peered around the boulder. The trooper closest to him had dropped to one knee, rifle trained forward, thinking that his team was about to come under fire. Nath groaned silently. The trooper had also heard the snapping branch. Soon, he and the others would come to investigate. With a sinking feeling of despair, Nath realized that he would be discovered, he would die without having atoned for his complicity in the betrayal of the girl from the Brasov sewers.

The trooper had risen to a crouch and was advancing warily upon the gap between the boulders. Propelling himself backward with his hands, Nath retreated deeper into the shadows. There came a sharp click from behind him. Nath rolled onto his back to find the barrel of a carbine staring back not six inches from his face. A trooper towered over the fallen American with a tight grin of triumph set upon his broad face.

Nath closed his eyes and held his breath in anticipation of the final bullet. Surprisingly, it did not come.

With an inconceivable swiftness, a shape rocketed forth from a nearby stand of trees. The trooper detected a glint of movement, but too late to react to the threat. Before he could bring his weapon around, a claw cut the air like a scythe, ripping the man's throat out in a single savage pass.

Blood spewed into the air, some of it staining Nath's snow suit, and the trooper crumbled to the snow.

As the other trooper rounded the boulder, he was confronted with something that could only exist in an evil fairytale. He attempted to raise his gun, but found his body paralyzed with fright. The thing sprang over Simpson's prostrate body, catching the trooper in the vice of its massive jaws. There came the sickening crunch of bone being pulverized and the next moment, the trooper's ruined body lay twitching upon the snow. As blood began to geyser into the frigid night air, the agonized soldier began to wail, his shrieks driving into Nath's uncomprehending brain like a rusty spike. Another flash of the claw abruptly cut the screams off forever.

Nath had risen to his feet and was about to run, when the thing pivoted to face him. His mind struggled to assimilate what his eyes were conveying to him, but his brain vehemently refused to accept the ghastly entity standing before him. The thing was huge and wolfen in image, with a protruding snout and large jaws. Nath saw that it was tall, though it could not stand entirely erect. The things that passed for its arms were long and sinewy, tapering into paws which ended in razor sharp claws.

What stood before him was a werewolf, very much in the tradition of the ridiculous old horror movies. The thing would have been comical had it not been for the human carnage strewn around him and the thick ropes of saliva which hung from its fangs.

Even in the darkness, Nath could see the luminous glow of the beast's eyes as it watched him with hatred and an immense, unholy hunger. The wolf took a step closer, growling deep in its chest as it did, causing the hair on Nath's neck to bristle.

Then it faltered in mid step. The low growl became a shrill wheeze. The thing raised its hands to its chest as though it were suffering an agonizing constriction. It laid back its head and howled. The sound was both forlorn and haunting. When again it turned its gaze upon him, the hunger was gone, replaced by an intense anguish and a puzzling uncertainty.

"Cynara?" Nath ventured.

The thing hissed and then spoke. Its words, though distorted by its alien nature and the thick glut of saliva in its throat, were clear enough to understand. "Go. Now is not the time. Soon you will be mine...but not...now!"

Bellowing, it swept him up in powerful arms and heaved him in the direction of the gully. He landed, rolled to his feet and stood watching the beast, fully expecting it to come charging after him. When it did not, Nath took to his heels, not bothering to question the reasons for this reprieve. An unearthly howl followed him into the darkness.

3

His body felt as though it had been forced to sprint for hours. The weight of his burden was gradually prodding him closer to absolute exhaustion. Jimmy came to a panting halt and listen closely. He could hear nothing other than the sigh of the wind as it blew its way through the tightly spaced stand of pines.

With grim determination, he tried to resume his dash, but his legs and lungs protested with such vehemence that he knew he could go no further. Searching for a shelter from the cold and snow, Simms happened upon a natural lean to which had been formed by a stand of trees that had bent to meet a rock outcrop. He carried Contayza inside and laid her upon a bed of pine needles, grateful for the respite.

He propped her head against the soft earth as though she had been constructed of extremely fragile porcelain. He was most grateful for the fact that they were dressed in similar snow suits, the fabric of which effectively stone walled the cold and dampness. He could not bring himself to consider what might have happened had they not been equipped with these suits.

Unzipping a small pocket that had been sewn into the material of his snow pants, Simms withdrew a small metal flask. Removing the top, he took out a wooden match and struck it upon a strip of sandpaper which had been affixed to the container's bottom. One of the Romanians most likely Ivan had been meticulous in outfitting the unit, for which Jimmy was also grateful.

The match flared brightly. Simms held it up, while leaning closer to inspect Contayza. She had been unconscious for a good length of time and Jimmy was beginning to fear that Ivan had hurt her more seriously than he had intended.

In the tiny flicker of the match light, Contayza appeared positively angelic. He shook the match dead, took out another and lit it as well. Her beauty was an ineffable thing in the incondign light, her face expressionless and tranquil in her slumber. There was a tight knot of raised flesh beneath the right cheek bone where Ivan's blow had connected.

He could easily have contented himself in whiling away the hours simply by staring at her sleeping face. This was the Contayza that he wished he could come to know, stripped of the searing intensity that accompanied her zeal for vengeance. This was the woman that she might be were it not for the turbulent tides of violence that ripped at her life. Yes, she would always be a passionate woman, but her passions would be more controlled and directed toward aspects of joy such as love and family. He realized that he longed for the day when he might see her so impassioned. Bitter reality cut at the sweetness of the image, causing him to grimace.

Suddenly, he was possessed by a fanciful compulsion that he could not resist. Bending forward, he gently kissed her lips like a prince in an ancient fairy tale. Though, unlike sleeping beauty, Contayza surged up from sleep like a roused guard dog.

Caught totally unprepared, Simms was thrown back against the granite boulder. She was suddenly on him in a dervish of fists and feet. He caught the glint of something metallic in the faint light. He instinctively reached up and intercepted her savage swing. Contayza hissed like a panther, her eyes displaying no sign of recognition, only a blind, immutable hatred.

"Contayza, for God's sake, stop it!" he gasped, amazed by her physical strength. By gradual degrees, the hand brandishing the three inch dagger relaxed.

"Jimmy?" she inquired, her voice distorted by disorientation.

"Yes, Contayza, it's me. You scared the bejesus out of me."

"I wasn't sure that it was you and I had to be certain."

"Do you mean to say that you've been conscious for awhile now?" he asked, utterly astounded.

"And you still let me carry you?" he cried, not certain if he should laugh or be outraged.

"I was not sure who you were. I had to identify you before I could reveal the fact that I had come awake."

"Where on earth did you get that knife?" he demanded. She chose to ignore his question, instead posing one of her own. "Why did you kiss me just now?"

He lapsed into silence and Contayza could feel his embarrassment as he awkwardly groped for a plausible explanation. She smiled to herself secretly delighted by his discomfort. Laying a hand on his wrist, she intoned quietly, "I've come to like you a great deal, Jimmy." With only the slightest hint of humor, she added "You've proven to be a good, honorable man, even if you aren't a gypsy."

Jimmy's embarrassment grew in leaps and bounds, but beneath that emotion, he felt a joy so profound that it literally stole his breath away. For a moment, he actually managed to forget the harsh realities of his situation and think only about the woman sitting next to him. This precious jewel had succeeded in assuaging all of the loss and regret which had plagued him since he left his home in Seattle. In that moment, he knew that they had to survive this nightmare. He wanted to show her that there was more to this world than perpetual struggle and sacrifice. He wanted to love her and for her to love him; to experience things that he had lived without his entire life. He wanted to say this, to tell her somehow, but he simply lacked the means.

Contayza could sense his anguish, hearing the thread of his thoughts in her own mind.

"What are you thinking?" she prompted, needing him to open up and disclose the man that he kept sheltered within.

He seemed about to speak, when the sound of running feet startled him and shattered the spell. Jimmy crawled to the front of the natural lean to and tried to locate the source of the approach. About sixty meters up the western slope, he spotted three men as they broke into the clearing and sprinted down the path, directly toward the place where Jimmy and Contayza lay hidden. Their headlong movements suggested that they were being hunted.

Contayza tugged inquiringly at his sleeve.

"Three men coming fast," he whispered softly, turning away from the converging figures. He felt paralyzed by indecision. They moved like men in full flight and not with the meticulous caution of hunters. Still, could he and Contayza risk making themselves known?

In his anxiety, he had not masked his thoughts and Contayza divined them easily. "We will face them," she said, without actually speaking. "Even if they are hostile, we have the means to kill them."

Before he could raise an objection in the name of prudence, she had scurried past him and stood, blocking the path. "Who are you?" she demanded, her voice ringing out with undeniable authority.

The men abruptly stopped, startled by the emergence of the single figure upon the path. One of the men actually stifled a scream.

"Contayza?" one of the men ventured. The voice was clearly Ivan's. Jimmy exhaled a sigh of relief and stepped out onto the path. He did not notice Contayza's taut stance or the twisted grimace that had embossed itself upon her lovely face.

When the three had come to within three meters of the pair, Contayza launched herself at Ivan. His expression of relief curdled as the pair toppled to the ground. Jimmy uttered a low curse, wondering if this horrible night would ever end.

The startled cries of confusion and anger drew Nath and the other Romanian. The two had been moving steadily since they had reunited along the path a mere two hundred meters east of the spot where Simpson had been saved by the werewolf. The Romanian had picked his way back along the path to find Nath aimlessly staggering eastward. Since that moment, the two had traveled directly east, their progress slowed by Nathaniel, who was unable to muster enough energy to exceed a stumbling lurch.

When they had finally located the source of the uproar, both were shocked to find Contayza and Ivan thrashing about in the deep snow, while the others gazed on in open bewilderment. Nath forged his way out of the brush and demanded, "What the hell is going on? Are you lunatics deliberately trying to bring Petru's troopers down upon our heads?"

All heads swiveled to face the small American. Jimmy gave a whoop and galloped over to him. "Nath, you made it. Christ, I was afraid you'd been captured, or worse. Are you alright?"

"I'm okay," Nath whispered, but the way in which he sagged against the bigger man belied that. Jimmy led his brother over to a pine and gently assisted him into a sitting position. When he had settled himself, Nath again demanded, "What was going on? I could hear this commotion from half a mile away."

His gaze looked past Jimmy, settling upon Contayza, whom he suspected was most likely the instigator of the chaos. She stood glowering at Ivan, who had stepped away from her the way that one might step away from an enraged pit-bull.

"You are a murderer," she rasped from between clenched teeth. "You disgrace our name by killing kin in cold blood without even trying to save him. You are no better than Petru and his butcher's. It shames me to think of you as my brother."

Ivan blanched, clearly wounded by her bitter allegations. Enraged, Contayza continued her tirade, "From this day forth, you are not my brother. I refuse to carry the weight of your disgrace."

Ivan appeared stricken, his face contorted into a mask of pain. "He was dead, Contayza. Could you not see that?"

She rejected his defense with a violent wave of her hand. Shrieking now, she continued to berate him. "He was not dead. I saw him. He was alive and pleading to be saved. You turned your back on him. That is not our way. It is the way of a coward."

Ivan stiffened and Jimmy winced. ' _Contayza, don't you ever know when to stop_?' he thought. When so moved, she was vitriolic, cruel and merciless. She seemed incapable of seeing how much grief Ivan's actions had cost him.

"Contayza, that's enough."

It was Nath who had spoken, much to the general amazement of the others. She whirled to face him, outraged by his interference. He met her anger, with a placid unwavering gaze.

"How dare you interfere in a family matter? You have no right to voice an opinion," she exploded, storming over to the American.

Matching her anger, Nath retorted, "Right now, we're the only family that you have and I have as much a right to express an opinion as anyone. Now, you are going to shut up and listen to what I have to say for once?"

Her eyes were positively venomous, but she lapsed into a petulant silence, staring stubbornly into the middle distance as he began to speak.

"Contayza, your brother saved your life and the lives of as many of us as he was able. Had he acted any other way than he had, none of us would have gotten out of that clearing alive. Forget all of that sanctimonious bullshit about being obligated to save lives no matter what the cost. It's nothing but noble horseshit, the kind that gets people killed needlessly every day."

Nath sprang to his feet with renewed vigor, as though this argument had endowed him with new strength. "That man was dead. Oh, he may still have been breathing, but he was as dead as any of the men that we left behind in the clearing. Why do you think that Petru went to such lengths to leave him out like that? Why did he simply not have him killed and left to hang as he did with the other two? Maybe you would do well to answer those questions before you point an accusatory finger at anyone."

Jimmy watched Nathaniel castigate Contayza mercilessly, feeling awkward and miserable. She had endured so much, had lost the greater part of her family. Nath's scathing attack had to be tearing out her heart. Still, he remained silent, as did all of the others. Somehow, it seemed vitally important that Contayza not be allowed to harbor her enmity towards Ivan.

"Since you seem unwilling to answer, I'll answer both of those questions for you. That man was left there to serve as human bait. Petru was counting on your compassion and sense of responsibility; hoping that we would try a suicidal rescue attempt. Anyone who managed to get within five feet of the man would have been cut to ribbons. Ivan had the presence of mind to understand that. You, on the other hand, did not."

"Did you happen to register the fact that Petru's men took great care to avoid hitting the bait? Had we not rushed into the clearing, they would have wounded him in the arms or the legs. Nothing fatal. Just painful. The night would have been alive with shrieks; screams so horrible and piteous that you never would have blocked them out, no matter how hard you tried. Sooner or later, you would have been driven to try and save him if only to stop the screaming."

"And you would have died!" he exclaimed, startling the others and rousing Contayza to look directly at him for the first time. Her eyes were baleful, alive with fury and something that made Nath smile inside; grudging comprehension. Gripping her shoulders, he now spoke in a softer, gentler voice. "Your brother did the right thing. He not only saved us, but he spared that man a horrible lingering death. You have no right to pass judgment on him." Nath glanced toward Ivan. "Even though his intellect tells him that he chose the right course of action the only course of action his heart will scourge him with guilt for the rest of his life. You do not have the right to add to that guilt with sanctimonious gibberish."

Tears began to stream from the corners of Contayza's lovely eyes. She absently brushed them aside with her mitten. Bowing her head, she rose to her feet and moved silently towards Ivan. He stiffened, uncertain what to expect. Unable to meet his eyes, she put her arms about his neck and whispered something into his ear. He, in turn, beamed a radiant smile and swept her up in a tremendous hug. Everyone seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Ivan set Contayza back on her feet, ruffling her hair affectionately. Not looking at any of the others, she walked slowly to the edge of the clearing. Near the entrance to the shelter, she settled into the snow with her back partially turned to the group.

While he had the momentum and the energy left to do so, Nath turned and addressed the others. "Contayza is not the only one who has to evaluate what has happened and the consequences. All of us do."

Slowly, with deliberate harshness, he declared, "For all of you, your lives in Romania are effectively over as of this moment. Ivan and the rest of you are living with a foolish delusion that, if you should make it back to your homes, you will have entered an inviolable sanctuary where Petru's men cannot reach you. That is pure, unadulterated stupidity and it can only get you killed. As long as you remain in this country, the government will seek you out, not stopping until you are all dead. If you think this is a grim prospect, consider this; even if you do manage to escape the country, the government will simply transfer their wrath onto your family."

"They know who you are," Nath insisted emphatically. Both Ivan and Contayza appeared stricken as though they had never considered this. "When the Prowzi family declared war on the Communist government, you committed yourselves to a road that could only have one of two possible destinations; your complete destruction or theirs. They cannot afford to rest until you've been obliterated. You all have to realize this and understand see what it means."

Listening to Nath speak, Jimmy could see a subtle transformation sweep over the smaller man. For one, his listlessness seemed to slip from him like an unwanted skin. Though he spoke of things unrelentingly bleak, he did so with an exuberance that suggested hope.

"Jimmy and I have survived on the edge for the last six months. If we've learned anything it's that there is no room for compromise. No middle ground, only extreme situations that require extreme solutions. This has pushed us to the edge of the abyss. It's going to take some miraculous flying to prevent us from plunging into it. False hope and stupid delusions are only going to insure that we tumble over. For Jimmy and I, we have to kill the witch. There is no other way out. For the rest of you, there is only one course; gather up your families and get out of Romania."

With this last declaration, Nath's strength appeared to have exhausted itself. His face seemed to settle and grow old before Jimmy's eyes. He moved to a spruce tree and sagged heavily against it, slowly sliding along its trunk to the ground. The group had fallen silent. Even those who had not been able to understand Nath's words seemed to have grasped the essence of his message. The time for championing causes had passed. Survival was the only issue now of consequence.

Chapter Thirty Eight

1

Sometime in the final hours before dawn, she came to him. He had fallen into a deep slumber and the embrace of the recurrent dream that accompanied that state since Cynara Saravic had invaded his life. Of late, his dreams followed the same theme with only the details and location changing from one occasion to the next. The gypsy was his; his chattel and slave. He could do with her as he wished.

She would respond to his needs, not only out of duty, but with an obsequious passion as though she were only a living extension of his will. Ah, but she was lovely. Had he not caught a brief, intoxicating glimpse of her as she lay in the snow of the clearing? God, how he wanted her and in his dream, Petru was able to give full expression to his lust.

The tiny portion of his conscious thought that had not fallen under the thrall of the witch's spell was bemused by this insatiable and uncharacteristic lust. The old Yuro Petru had not been without his cravings, but they had been disposed more towards power and the cautious path necessary to obtain it.

Now, all roads appeared to lead to Contayza Prowzi and the subjugation of her gypsy spirit.

Then, like the flipping of a light switch, he snapped awake. He did not slowly drift out of the dream state and up through the various layers of sleep. He catapulted into wakefulness like a rocket.

Heart thudding loudly in his chest, he focused upon the floating, spectral countenance of his master. Cynara shimmered over him, casting an eerie glow over his cramped sleeping quarters.

"Cynara," he stammered. This ghostly apparition frightened him more than her physical presence. In that second, he realized how heavy and far reaching were the shackles that bound him to her. She could reach him anywhere, at any time. There was nowhere that he could seek refuge from her. His thoughts turned to Gerchnau, but he pushed the image away with blind panic.

"Yuro, how surprised you seem to see me. Surely, you expected that I would come to inquire about the progress of our adventure," Her tone seemed convivial and light, but Yuro detected a subtle thread of anxiety beneath the mundane banter. ' _Something has happened_ ,' he thought, though he had no way of telling if that something had been good or bad.

"You seem rather disconcerted. My form should not surprise you," she laughed. He watched her closely. She had changed somehow. His head was too muddled with sleep and euphoria to discern precisely how, but Petru intuited that she was different.

"Why do you look at me so oddly?" she snapped, suddenly causing his heart to palpitate with fear. He knew how quickly and violently her moods could shift; how mirth could rapidly transform into a compulsion to inflict pain. Guardedly, he offered, "I'm sorry. I'm just drowsy."

She appeared to accept this, but Petru could still sense that turbulence lurking perilously close to the surface. Hovering above him, she demanded "What happened tonight? Spare no detail."

"The operation was an overwhelming success," Petru gushed. "The trap closed perfectly."

"I'll be the judge of that," Cynara snapped ominously. "Forget the self serving embellishments. Just tell me what happened."

So Petru did. His confidence was renewed by the telling of his tale. True, he had lost five men in the skirmish, but he had killed nine of the insurgents, destroyed their vehicles and drove them into the jaws of the storm. Helpless and without provisions, the rest would quickly succumb to the elements or Petru's search team.

Cynara listened dispassionately to Petru's briefing, though unlike her lackey, she grew increasingly uneasy. To Saravic, the people who had been killed, both sides included, were incidental; bit players in her personal drama. In its conception, the trap was essentially perfect and should have succeeded, yet the main characters had all managed to escape unscathed.

"So the Americans and the woman have escaped?"

"Yes, yes," Petru sputtered, his euphoria deflated by the furrowed brow and the expression of anxiety which had dawned upon the Dark Lady's face. "But they will never survive. Exposed in this weather, they may not live to see morning."

Cynara waved a dismissive, impatient hand in his direction. "You surmise too quickly, Petru. They are resourceful, and you cannot afford to take anything for granted."

Her implicit threat was not lost upon the major, who swallowed with an audible click.

"You said that you dispatched a search team; they found nothing?" she demanded.

"Not precisely," Petru began, unsure of how he should relate this last episode. When he had first been told of what had befallen his three troopers, he had dismissed the story as a fatuous attempt to rationalize failure. Now, with this evil apparition dancing before his own eyes, their tale no longer seemed so implausible, so ludicrous. "One of the teams had come to within seconds of capturing one of the two Americans the smaller one when they were attacked by wolves."

"Wolves?" Cynara echoed, arching an eyebrow suspiciously. The discordant note of unease abruptly bloomed into a full symphony. Petru inhaled sharply, deciding to relate every detail of the entire bizarre encounter. "Three of the five men were killed. What the survivors insist they saw could best be described as a werewolf."

Cynara's features contorted in an apoplectic contraction of facial muscles. For a brief instant, Petru thought that she might scream. Her astral image guttered as she struggled to regain her composure.

"What's wrong? Surely, their story is utter nonsense," Petru whined.

"It is not nonsense, you imbecile," she barked, employing all of her frail self control to prevent herself from ripping his throat out. Werewolf, her mind repeated. And on the heels of that; Elizabeth. And on the heels of that; betrayal. She could feel herself wanting to scream until her lungs burst or retreat into a void so distant that she would never be able to come back.

Elizabeth had saved Nathaniel Simpson. She had saved her son! She turned her gaze upon Petru, who was regarding her with bulging, terror stricken eyes. Had Elizabeth Simpson, the thing that she valued the most, now become her bane? Suddenly, the angel's request no longer seemed unreasonable. Part of her mind exhorted her simply to flee. Could she possibly hope to defeat her enemies if Elizabeth stood amongst their ranks? Her body began to ache in recollection of the agony that she had once suffered at Elizabeth's hands and her own shackled inability to defend herself against the onslaught.

' _Oh Elizabeth, have you forsaken me?_ ' she wondered bleakly.

Almost as though someone had usurped control of her faculties, Cynara began to speak, "Petru, you have been witness to my powers and still you would so quickly judge what you do not understand. You are an insufferable fool. This group must be destroyed to a one. Since you lack the ability to do so, I will provide you with the required bait. You will remain here until I bring you further instructions."

She reached out and laid a single finger upon his cheek. It felt like ice against his hot flesh. He was aware of the sensation of tightening flesh, as though his skin was attempting to escape the vile touch. "Heed my words, Petru; should you fail one more time, there will be no reprieve."

She glowered for a time, then shimmered and was gone. He lay there, breathing heavily in the darkness. Though he was paralyzed by intense fear, a tiny portion of his mind soared with elation. Her words had been adamant and uncompromising, true. Yet, beneath the tyranny, he had discerned something that had attenuated his own terror; fear.

2

Lemuel Prowzi was old. No, that would have been a gross understatement, for Lemuel was indeed ancient. He sat by the window, in his faded blue chair with the broken spring, absently gazing out over the unbroken field of white that was his tiny back yard. A cold breeze wormed its way through the poorly sealed window casing, causing him to shiver and draw his ratty gray cardigan closer about his frail bones.

He had awoken this morning, possessed by an abstract sense of urgency as though something profound was about to occur. Indeed, perhaps it already had. It was now slightly past One o'clock in the afternoon. The hours between now and dawn had dragged by with a monotonous, maddening languor, each passing second stoking the fires of Lemuel's anxiety.

Through the scarred window, with its frosty glass and drafty frame, the sky was cast in a monochrome gray, which appeared impassive, yet oddly conspiratorial. Lemuel fetched a sigh from deep in his chest, letting his chin settle upon the mottled skin there. Beneath that bristling sensation of impatient expectancy, he could feel weariness pulling at his eyelids. He cursed his advancing decrepitude as though it were a thinking, malevolent enemy and not a natural process. He had been a vibrant man; an impassioned man whose love for life could not be dampened by tribulation. It was difficult to accept this creeping decay without harboring some degree of resentment.

Lemuel knew that he was going to die soon. He, perhaps, should have been dead already. He ascribed his continuing survival to a simple refusal to lie down and die. There were days when Lemuel viewed death with wide eyed dread and others, when he regarded it as a comforting prospect.

He could feel his eyelids drawing closed, despite his insistence that they remain open. He berated the traitorous bastards and pushed himself heavily to his feet. Then he began to pace absently about his small house. He stopped before an old, dust covered curio, which contained dozens of family pictures, spanning well over a century in time. His gaze fastened upon a small black and white rendering of Rebecca Prowzi, long dead, but revered by generations of her descendants. Lemuel had carried her memory and her pain as though it were his own. He held it forth like a banner of family pride and defiance.

Lemuel Prowzi was the quintessential gypsy. His nature was transient and his spirit indomitable. Unlike most (especially his daughter), Lemuel had accepted Rebecca's tale and her plea for retribution without reservation. After all, he had seen strange things himself and witnessed the workings of the dark side often enough to know that they were very real. Lemuel had learned to accept the existence of the Cynara Saravics of this world, where most never would, preferring death to insanity. The average man lived in a world of electricity, concrete and steel. What couldn't be neatly compartmentalized was best left ignored. To accept the existence of a Cynara Saravic would force such people to redefine the very parameters of their reality. Lemuel knew that most men lacked the courage to subject themselves to such radical destabilization. Better to turn a blind eye to the night spawn than to accept it as a terrifying reality.

' _So many lives. So much living_ ,' he mused as he gazed at the pictures within the yellowing glass enclosure. Most were dead now, reduced to an old man's memories. ' _Soon I will be dead too_ ,' Lemuel thought absently. My entire life will be reduced to a fading picture upon someone's shelf.

"Soon, Lemuel, but not now. There is something that I require of you," issued a soft, melodic voice from behind him, startling the old man out of his reverie. He wheeled about so quickly that he very nearly lost his balance, stumbling back into the curio and shattering some of the tiny glass panels.

When he had recovered his balance and focused upon his uninvited guest, his surprise became so absolute that it caused his heart to palpitate wildly, beating in an erratic rhythm that often preceded total failure.

Though he had never come face to face with her, Lemuel knew that the intruder was none other than the Baroness, Cynara Saravic. Draped in a black velvet cloak, with silver barrettes holding back the mass of curls, Cynara appeared regal and elegant. Nonetheless, Lemuel knew full well what she was; what dwelt behind those amber flecked jewels. He could feel his heart stop, pound wildly, and then stop again. His hand clutched his chest and he began to sag.

Cynara saw his pain, correctly surmised its cause and surged forward. She seized Lemuel Prowzi by his bony shoulders and jerked him upright. She then placed a hand against his chest. Eyes wide in bewildered amazement, Lemuel watched as that hand sank into his flesh and then through his ribcage. He gasped as her long fingers clutched his faltering heart.

Her hand had disappeared at the wrist as though she had plunged it into an opaque jelly. In a voice that sounded benign, if not sympathetic, Cynara whispered, "You will not have the audacity to die before you have served my purpose."

He felt her fingers contracting about his heart with an intolerable pressure. The pressure gave way to a soothing warmth which emanated through his entire body. She withdrew her hand and his heart resumed beating with a more or less regular rhythm. Lemuel was further astounded to discover that all of his omnipresent aches and pains had melted away.

She stepped away and inquired, "Better?"

He answered with a smile. Then, seizing an empty vase which stood on a side table, he leapt forward, attempting to smash her face. Cynara easily deflected the blow sending the vase crashing to the wall. More impatient than angry, the demon sighed, "Such ingratitude! Come now, let's not be churlish. I have no time for this."

Spinning the old man about, Cynara gently propelled Lemuel toward his armchair and settled him into it. Then she settled onto the seldom used sofa, frowning at the dust which puffed up about her in a brindle cloud.

"This place has been sadly neglected. You could pick up a little better," she scolded as though she might have been a disapproving mother. "Age is no excuse. I'm seventy years older than you are, but I would never tolerate such sloppiness."

Finding his voice for the first time, Lemuel retorted, "I'm sure that you wouldn't. After all, you've always had servants to do your bidding. That is, of course, when you're not busy killing and torturing them."

Cynara threw back her head and laughed gaily as if he had just uttered something particularly amusing. Her laughter emphasized her stunning beauty. In the face of such beauty, Lemuel had to remind himself just what this creature was. "Ah, you people are precious, clinging to your ancient ways and grievances as though they were treasures. I have no quarrel with you, and yet you despise me."

Outrage boiling to the surface, Lemuel exploded, "What you have done to my family is insufferable. I shudder to think what you have done to others."

A smile, cold and cruel, twisted over her lips. "You can't imagine what I've done to your family, Lemuel. Five of your brood now lay dead in the cold embrace of the Carpathians. Soon the others will join them."

Lemuel cried out, unable to restrain the question that stood tantamount in his mind. "Contayza? Have you harmed Contayza?"

Cynara's expression darkened perceptibly. "She has managed to escape, but like you, her time is short."

"She's alive! Thank merciful God," He declared to the ceiling, ignoring the Night Queen. The revelation that Contayza had survived the witch's machinations filled Lemuel with a renewed sense of hope. Not for him; for the demon's presence would mean death as surely as night followed day. Lemuel's elation sprang from a certainty that Rebecca's cry for retribution might still be fulfilled. He met the demon's glare. Behind her hatred, Lemuel discerned a burgeoning disquiet. Lemuel began to grin. If his death was assured, hers was embossed on tablets of granite.

"Do you find this situation amusing, you simpering old fool? Have I not told you that half of your family is dead and the rest are soon to die? Has your senility reached the stage where you find such disclosures amusing?" Cynara rasped irritably.

"If I had the strength, I would extract revenge in the name of my family, but I am old and useless. I cannot prevent whatever you intend for me, but my heart is fortified by the knowledge that you will not stop Contayza. She will destroy you, but before she does, she will rip the vile tongue from your head with her bare hands."

Cynara sprang from the sofa, hand raised to strike Lemuel. He met her anger unflinchingly. "Ah, now you display your true colors," he declared disdainfully. "Demonstrate your power by abusing a defenseless old man. Won't that be a fitting tribute to your mastery? Come Baroness, I am just a peasant. Why not beat me to death?"

Cynara gritted her teeth, but held her blow. He was deliberately attempting to provoke her to violence as though he knew that his death would thwart her purpose.

"You transparent fool," she hissed and settled back onto the sofa.

"You have the stink of fear upon you, Baroness. Could it be that you sense your impending doom?"

"Do you really believe that I fear that little gypsy slut that your whore daughter spawned? When I'm through with her, she will lick my ass for the privilege of death," she seethed, frustrated that this decrepit shambles of a man was stinging her so skillfully.

Lemuel made a dismissive wave of his hand and countered, "Your bravado is as hollow as a dried corpse. If your words were sincere, you would be out trying to destroy her yourself and not making a pathetic effort to terrorize a dying old man."

Cynara closed her eyes and struggled to retain her composure. Why was she so badly shaken? How could this peasant be twisting her thoughts so effortlessly? He had sensed her disquiet, though he had misconstrued its source. Still, was he right? Could her own dissolution be so close at hand? Desperate, she closed her thoughts and bade the old Cynara to come forth.

Lemuel watched the witch, blossoming triumph endowing him with a sensation of youth and well-being that he had thought irrevocably lost. This creature was ponderous, uncertain and practically defeated. She was not at all the invincible purveyor of evil that he had imagined her to be.

Yet, this confidence was soon delivered a shattering blow when next the Dark Lady opened her eyes. The face remained as lovely as always, but the expression had congealed into something inconceivably malign. Her eyes gleamed with a malevolence that reminded Prowzi of rusty barbed wire, stretched atop fences in the death camps.

She rose gracefully and slowly, almost ceremoniously, came over to his chair. Placing her hands on the armrests, she bent forward and began speaking in a calm, almost reasonable voice, "So you believe that I'm afraid, old man? That I tremble at the mention of your gypsy slut's name? You will live to learn just how wrong you are. I've come to collect you so that you might serve as bait to lure the little whore and her friends out of hiding. You will witness the sight of her death at my hands, and then you will die, knowing that you shared in her undoing."

"Never!" Lemuel exclaimed, his voice coarse with horror. "She will never allow herself to fall into such a trap."

Cynara smiled indulgently "Lemuel, you could never sell yourself such a lie, much less perpetrate it upon me. She adores you. After all, were you not the one to set her upon her path of destiny? Soon the two of you will learn exactly where this misguided odyssey is destined to end."

Seizing him by his collar, Cynara hauled the aging gypsy to his feet and began shoving him toward the door and his final moment of drama.

3

She first became cognizant of two things, both physical sensations rather than actual thoughts. She was completely nude. She knew this because of the distant chill that tickled the edge of her awareness. This notion did not particularly alarm her as she was impervious to the ravages of both heat and cold. Despite her exposure to falling snow and howling wind, Elizabeth registered these sensations only as one might experience a cooling breeze in the dead of summer.

The other thing that came to her was the presence of her children. They encircled her protectively, awaiting the moment when she would arise and have them do her bidding. She was as much a mystery to them as they were to the rest of the world.

Abruptly, Elizabeth sat up and shook the snow from her body. An ugly, diluted gray light filled the heavens and she realized that the dawn was fast approaching from the east. She had slipped into a strange malaise that had lasted most of the night. She stood and stretched her muscles, her golden flesh incongruous with the frozen landscape around her. The beasts grew excited at her waking, nuzzling against her and running about in circles. Even in her natural human form, they recognized her majesty. She absently patted their heads and scratched their ears as they scrambled for her attention.

Oddly, a dull ache worked diligently at her temples, no doubt the residue of her collapse earlier that evening. The pain, while barely noticeable, disturbed Elizabeth because it further signified the unlikely metamorphosis that she was undergoing; a process that she seemed powerless to stop.

"What is happening to me?" she demanded. The wolves gazed at her questioningly, inclining their heads to one side and regarding her with their hauntingly beautiful gray and blue eyes.

What had happened in the minutes before she had passed out? As she attempted to reconstruct the previous night's events, a part of her mind admonished her not to indulge in such fruitless and potentially dangerous exercises. Still, the question would not be denied: what had happened in the minutes before she had blacked out.

She could recall following the lumbering caravan until it had blundered into Petru's killing box. She had hidden herself and watched through alien eyes as the courageous, yet impulsive girl had led the others into the gaping jaws of the trap. It appeared virtually certain that the others would be killed, but miraculously, several of the hunted ones had managed to slip the noose. Among them was Nathaniel Simpson; the one whom she had come to kill. Her continued existence was predicated upon his death. Fearing that he might escape, she had pursued him with the intention of ripping out his throat if Petru's troopers failed do their job.

Inexplicably, those intentions had become confused during the pursuit. She had stalked Simpson, watching him grow weaker with each step through the drifting snow. She could see his pursuers grow ever nearer, preparing for the kill. In retrospect, Elizabeth now understood that this was the moment when she should have realized that something was seriously wrong...that she had no intention of fulfilling Cynara's sanction. The predator, upon seeing its prey visibly weakened, should experience an elated thrill of anticipation. Instead she was struck by an exigent need to intervene.

She had witnessed the Romanian reluctantly abandon Simpson when it became evident that he could go no further. Elizabeth had been in the process of converting from wolf to human when the first trooper had found Nathaniel.

It had been her desire to kill him with the hands of his own mother. In an uncharacteristically sadistic moment, Elizabeth found herself wanting to strangle the life out of the son while the mother watched helplessly through her eyes.

When the trooper had trained his rifle upon the defenseless Simpson, her intentions had undergone a radical transformation. A thickening of the senses had overwhelmed her, breeding an immutable fury. Springing forward, she had killed the first two troopers without being aware of her actions. Then, for one interminable moment, she was alone with Nathaniel Simpson. For the first time in more than twenty years, she stood face to face with the man who had once been her son.

Confronted with such a shambling horror, he had exhibited no outward sign of terror. There was shock, but no pleas for mercy or blind flight. If he had attempted to run, it might well have allowed the beast to kill him; its natural instinct for death asserting itself. He had not fled. He had merely stood there, watching her warily, through eyes both tired and resigned.

She had frantically fought to deal the killing blow, but her jaws felt heavy as though they were made of lead. A barrage of images radiated from somewhere within her core. Though they were all unfamiliar, the demon Elizabeth knew instinctively that they were the prisoner's memories. The demon sensed that the prisoner's restraints were perilously close to breaking asunder. The demon had attempted one last surge, but remained rooted before the man child.

Enraged and frustrated, she had waved him away, fearing that his mere presence would provide the prisoner with the impetus necessary to break free of her cage. Finally, he had moved off and she had marked his departure with a new comprehension of the scope of her dilemma. This heightened clarity had driven her to spill blood for possibly the first time in her existence.

Moving back through the trees, she had come upon a trooper and had literally ripped him to shreds, reducing him to a pile of blood soaked clothes and mangled flesh. Another had happened upon the carnage, but had managed to flee before she could bestow a similar fate upon him.

Wandering the forest in a frenzy, she had eventually collapsed.

With an irrefutable certitude, she knew that she could not kill Nathaniel while the prisoner remained incarcerated within. If she was to be delivered, it would first be necessary to eradicate the old Elizabeth.

The demon shivered involuntarily, grasping the peril in such a confrontation. The meticulous, calculating Elizabeth rebelled against such an endeavor. The demon did not fully understand the forces that were at work within her. Obviously, the prisoner was strong. She had demonstrated that by swaying Elizabeth from her intended course. By breaking the barrier and confronting the other, the demon could run the risk of being obliterated. The alternative was even more chilling; a slow, inexorable descent into madness.

She was left with no other choice but to make the attempt. What's more, she must do it at once. The surviving trooper would tell his tale to Petru and he, in turn, would pass it along to Cynara.

"A wolf like creature attacked my troopers, allowing your enemies to escape." There was only one conclusion that Cynara could draw. She would be left with no alternative but to seek Elizabeth out and destroy her. Only by killing Nathaniel could Elizabeth prove her fealty to the Dark Lady and thus avert the confrontation that was bound to prove fatal for one, if not both of them.

The demon Elizabeth felt no love for Cynara, but the Dark Lady was her anchor and the primary source of her identity. Should Cynara meet her demise, how long would it be before the demon was dispossessed?

Elizabeth settled herself into the snow and gathered her beasts about her. Composing herself, she prompted her mind toward its state of cold rationality. When she had achieved this trance of concentration, she turned inward and hurled herself at the cage which held the prisoner.

Chapter Thirty Nine

1

It was difficult to distinguish night from the approach of dawn. The heavy snows continued piling decimeter after decimeter upon the frozen and defenseless earth, erasing all traces of the previous night's drama.

The two Americans and the five Romanians had spent a fitful few hours seeking refuge in the natural lean to, piled against each other for precious heat. When the milky light finally filtered into the meager shelter, they gave up the futile effort of trying to stay warm and filed out into the small clearing.

Jimmy found himself taking stock of his companions. What he saw did nothing to suffuse his heart with optimism. The others appeared generally exhausted and bewildered. Contayza's appearance in particular gave him cause for alarm. Deep lines of grief and loss were etched into the almond skin about her eyes and mouth. Only her amber eyes retained any trace of her signature intensity.

The group milled listlessly about the clearing as if awaiting guidance or possibly divine intervention. Neither seemed forthcoming.

Jimmy and Nath crossed over to Ivan and began to discuss their situation. Out of the corner of his eye, Jimmy could see Contayza drift closer to the group. Obviously, she wished to enter into the discussion, but Jimmy suspected that last night's argument with her brother had left her feeling sheepish. He caught her eye and grinned broadly and though she returned his grin, she ventured no closer. Simms understood that she would not join them until Ivan invited her into the discussion, requiring that invitation as a symbol of his forgiveness.

"Ivan, where do we go from here?" Nath was asking. The larger man frowned and rubbed his gloved hand over his beard ponderously.

"I'm not sure. That would depend upon what we decide to do. What you said last night has given us all great cause for worry. Though they are not a part of this, our families are vulnerable and should the government decide to punish them for our actions, they would be helpless. We must prevent that at any cost."

"So what do you propose?" It was Jimmy who asked the question this time.

Ivan sighed, his broad shoulders sagging under the immense burden of the question. "We have to reach our homes, but this may prove to be a difficult matter. Our transportation is gone, we have no food and the terrain which we must cross is some of the most rugged in Europe. The more common hiking passes will be guarded and so we must take the ' _wild_ ' routes. No simple proposition."

"Our chances of reaching Surceava are dismally small," he concluded glumly. A few paces away, Contayza felt herself hovering on the brink of tears. Her brother had led them so well over the past four years. Now they had reached this bitter end and he was assuming the lion's share of the responsibility. Contayza winced, knowing that she had played a large part in helping him draw that conclusion. She had to do something to assuage his torment, to lift him from his pit of guilt.

She had intended to remain silent unless asked to speak, but her spirit refused to defer. Assertively, she interrupted her brother's monologue of gloom, "Still, we are compelled to try, Ivan. We must reach home and then we must kill the bastards who have done this to our family."

"No, Contayza!" Ivan thundered, startling everyone around him. "Last night was the end. We will absorb our losses and get out. No more fighting and absolutely no acts of reprisal."

He held his rifle before him, eyeing it with obvious disgust. "This is not the way to win, Tayza. This is their way and we will never win this kind of war, no matter how many convoys we hijack or how many government installations we destroy. I should have known that from the outset, but I was captivated by Grandda's wild stories and foolish enough to believe them. You're never going to change hearts with one of these. Reforms come in here and in here," he declared sternly, pointing to his head and then his heart. "You only need look at the other Eastern European Countries to see the truth of this. Perhaps it's time that we all stop listening to Grandda's stories."

Contayza grimaced at the reproof of Ivan's final remark. In a low, even voice, she countered, "If you wish to go home, then do what you feel you must. Save the family and take them to safety. I'm going to find Cynara Saravic and kill her, or she will kill me. I could not live with the knowledge that she has decimated our family and walked away unscathed. Death is preferable."

"I'm afraid that I have to agree with her," Jimmy added, moving to Contayza's side. Nath quietly stepped to her opposite side and nodded his tacit agreement. "This will never stop, Ivan. If Cynara is allowed to escape, she will continue to feed on the misery of the weak and defenseless. The three of us may be able to stop her and that opportunity is something that we simply cannot afford to ignore. The moral obligation supersedes the danger."

Ivan regarded Nath with dark brown eyes full of anguish. "Of all of the three, you puzzle me the most. Your actions are not inspired by vengeance or hatred, not even the scar upon your chest. When you speak, I discern no real animosity; only grim logic. Very well, each of us must do what we will. If the three of you are determined to go, then do so with my prayers and blessings."

"Ivan, you must know this land as well as anyone. How do we get away from here?" Contayza prompted gently.

Ivan frowned, but a trace of his former pessimism seemed to have vanished. "There are several more forest tracks cutting through the mountains. Some of these are scarcely more than ski trails, but they are still passable and offer excellent cover from the air. If we can make it to the Gheorghini pass, we might be able to steal through the mountains to Bicaz. From that point, an army of Petru's troopers wouldn't be able to find us."

"And what of us, Ivan?" Contayza pressed, realizing that his route would lead them away from Bistrita Nasaud.

"At Gheorghini, you would break off through the mountains, approaching Chevru from the southeast."

"How much time will this take?" Jimmy wondered.

Contayza lowered her head as Ivan replied "Two weeks at the absolute best. Realistically, closer to four and possibly as much as six if the weather does not see fit to cooperate."

Jimmy closed his eyes and shivered. Evaluating himself, he could candidly see no possible way that he could last another six weeks. He was fast approaching the limits of his endurance and the worst was yet to come. He could feel his resolve crumbling to dust. Six weeks! Hunted like animals, through the cold and snow, only to face a foe that could well be unconquerable.

While Nath studied the ground bleakly, Contayza's dismay grew as she watched Simms seemingly fold before her eyes. It came to her just how desperately she needed these two men, and how they needed her. Darting forward, she grasped Jimmy's broad shoulders and began to shake him slowly. "Don't even think of feeling sorry for yourself or of giving up." she scolded harshly. "Six weeks or six months, what does it matter? Time is immaterial. Only the objective is important. It's going to take time to reach Chevru and there is nothing we can do about that. Irrespective of time, Cynara will be waiting. Your only other alternative is to lie down on the ground and wait to die." Shaking him for emphasis, she declared, "And I am not going to allow you to do that."

Her fierce, almost maternal expression gave way to a smile of such radiance that Simms could not help but surrender his grip on despair, if only for awhile. He returned her smile. "Six weeks or six years, what the hell. As long as the job gets done."

She nodded solemnly and then said without speaking, "Thank you."

He nodded and then averted his eyes, afraid that his gaze might reveal the intensity of his feelings for her. In truth, he could not hide them from her, but he wished to conceal it from the others.

Contayza turned to Ivan. "Please lead us to Gheorghini."

In her open, honest plea Ivan read her deference to his leadership and another subtle request for forgiveness. He had never been able to deny her, not since the days when they were children. Then, he had even entertained the notion that his little sister was magical. As time passed, he came to discover that he had not been far from wrong. "I will."

Her relief was so huge that, for a brief instant, Tayza feared she would burst into tears. Ivan carried on speaking, vocally considering all of the problems and obstacles that they would face, then proposing solutions. They had no stores of food, but they had weapons and a good reserve of ammunition; thus food could be obtained. Though they had neither shelter nor transportation, their snowsuits would protect them from the elements. Journey by foot would give them more latitude in terms of where they could go. Roads and passes, especially through the mountains, could be effectively blocked. Thus, although slower, it might even be preferable to travel on foot.

"Our biggest problem is Petru and his trooper teams," Ivan concluded, and the others nodded their heads in agreement. Ivan registered the general expressions of dejection at the mention of Petru's name. "Even that is not an insurmountable obstacle. There are only so many men that he can use to find us. I'm certain that we have a far superior knowledge of the terrain. If we can get a good enough head start, it's likely that he will never catch us."

"But can we stay ahead of him?" one of the others wondered aloud.

Ivan gazed up at the heavy clouds churning their way across the heavens, carrying blowing snow and swirling winds as their retinue. To the amazement of the Americans, he raised his arms to the heavens and shouted in Romanian "The snow, brothers! It will cover us like a blanket. Petru's surveillance planes will never fly in this. When the storm breaks, we will be gone. Trying to catch us will be as futile as attempting to catch the wind."

At this all of the Romanians, including Contayza, began to laugh uproariously. Jimmy frowned at first and then seeing the clean, honest quality of the laughter, joined in.

Someone coming upon the group might have received the impression that they had come upon an escaped group of lunatics.

Only Nathaniel Simpson did not laugh. He studied the raging sky, squinting against the sting of the driving snow. For whatever reason, his companions had failed to recognize the essential truth of their situation; Cynara or Petru had no need to try and catch them. Both knew exactly where this group would be going.

2

By three o'clock that afternoon, much of the initial optimism had given way to stolid determination. Though the temperatures were not particularly cold, the heavy snow fall made passage through the drifts arduous and exhausting. Thus, each of the seven took turns breaking path through the heavy drifts.

Contayza, the smallest and the lightest, attacked the dunes of snow as though they were her personal enemies, plowing through them with a tenacity the others simply could not match. When the time came to let one of the others break trail, she would fall to the rear of the line, breathing in ragged gasps and standing only by the sheer force of her will. Jimmy was pained to discover that six weeks of trudging through such snow might prove to be a conservative estimate. Still, the group forged ahead, silently ignoring both the weariness and the mounting hunger. There was a unanimous sigh of relief when Ivan announced that they would rest for a half hour. During that time, he and one of the others would hunt for supper. The remaining five settled heavily into the snow.

No one spoke. Each was too absorbed in the task of taking personal stock of their reserves; trying to determine how much energy the day's travel had cost them and then gauging how much longer they would be able to sustain the effort. Of the seven, Nathaniel seemed to be the closest to collapse. Though he had said nothing, his complexion had grown sallow and his eyes stared fixedly into the middle distance, seeing nothing other than the hounds of his personal torment. He replied to inquiries about his condition with guttural grunts or quick dismissive waves of his hand.

The group had tacitly agreed to limit his turns at trail breaking, keeping them mercifully short. Nath seemed not to notice this, slipping to the rear of the line like a man sleepwalking. It was apparent that he would never last through the six weeks of unrelenting hell.

He drew a deep breath and closed his eyes. He took solace in thinking about what he might be doing had he decided to stay at home...probably watching old movies; _On the Waterfront,_ perhaps, or something by Ingmar Bergman. Hard reality kept intruding upon his fantasies. At this rate, he would be fortunate to last another week. Still, as Contayza had so astutely observed, he had no alternative but to go on. He...someone was speaking to him. Mumbling, he turned to see Contayza regarding him thoughtfully.

"Do you hear that?" she repeated anxiously. He stared at her as if she had simply materialized out of thin air. He could hear nothing other than the sighing of the ubiquitous wind.

"What is it I should be hearing?" he asked gruffly.

Contayza frowned slightly, tilting her head to one side. "Pipes. Or perhaps a recorder. Strains of music carried on the wind. Maybe I'm just imagining it, but I would swear that I hear pipes."

Nath rolled his eyes, but the expectant way that she was watching him finally caused him to listen more carefully. Then he heard it as well.

So low as to be barely audible beneath the rush of the wind, the dulcet strains of a lullaby reached his ears. Something about the incongruous sounds of music in the midst of the desolate wilderness caused his pulse to race. Though nothing seemed to warrant such a reaction, Nath felt a sudden and unexpected rush of euphoria.

The wind abruptly shifted, carrying the sound in their direction and soon the others were exchanging puzzled glances.

Ivan quickly moved to join his sister. "What do you suppose it is? A trap perhaps?"

She was not certain, but some intuition informed her that this was not a deadly siren's song. "I don't know what it is, but I don't think it's a trap. Wherever it is, it doesn't seem to be coming from too far away."

Ivan was assailed by a moment of indecision. He did not readily accept Tayza's intuition that the source of this music posed no threat. He had lost far too many of his kin to quickly abandon prudent caution.

Fanning out into a skirmish line, the seven moved silently through the trees in the apparent direction of the music. As they grew closer to the source, it became increasingly difficult to remain either silent or cautious. There was a sleepy, hypnotic ring to the notes; a melancholy lilt which seemed to numb the senses. Contayza felt a strange attraction toward the minstrel. Part of her mind urged caution, but the sweetness of the music made such admonitions easy to ignore. She glanced at the men on either side of her and found that they wore similar expressions of bemusement.

They came to a gap in the trees where a tiny brook meandered through a maze of boulders. A solitary man was perched atop one of these boulders. He sat with his back to the group; the adroitness of his playing holding them enthralled. He wore a long coat with a sheepskin collar, high leather boots and a flat cap. He made his music on a scuffed wooden recorder, long fingered hands passing along the wooden body with an ease and fluid grace that was delightful to behold. Despite the cold, he wore thin woolen gloves with no fingers so that he might play his instrument.

Abruptly, the playing stopped. The mysterious minstrel lowered the recorder and sat silently, seemingly lost in contemplation of the frozen brook.

"At last, you've come," he declared, still not turning to face his visitors. "For a time, I feared that you would not and that my waiting would have been in vain."

' _That voice_ ,' Jimmy thought excitedly. ' _I know that voice_.' Except for a harsh edge, this was the voice of the angel who had come to advise them in the cells of El Zaltaro. Simms pushed his way through the trees and beckoned the others forward. "Nath, don't you recognize that voice. El Zaltaro! The Angel."

The minstrel greeted this with a gale of hearty, genuine laughter. The man swiveled about to face the approaching Simms, causing the American to halt dead in his tracks. At a glance, Jimmy realized that he had been mistaken. This was not the angel who had given them the augury back in the Mexican jail.

The stranger was predominantly blond, though his hair was streaked with a generous amount of gray. Deep lines of either care or hardship had etched themselves into his face. The eyes were a placid blue, but that serenity was dulled by a profound pain which robbed them of some of their luster; a pain that had been absent in the face of the angel.

Jimmy took a hesitant step away from the stranger, while the others came to a stop and raised their rifles in reaction to his unease.

"Who are you?" Simms demanded.

The man smiled warmly, displaying neither resentment nor fear of the rifles trained upon him. "I am a friend with a warm fire, food to spare and a willingness to share both. Come and sit awhile."

He gestured to the boulders with mock ceremony as if he were offering them the very throne of heaven. When he saw their reluctance, he remarked, "Really, come and join me. This might well be your final opportunity to partake in either luxury for a good while."

Slowly, warily, the seven came to the campfire of the mysterious player, who smiled encouragingly, but said no more. They assumed seats around the man, regarding him with expressions that ranged from curiosity to open suspicion. After a time, the stranger began to speak.

Chapter Forty

1

"Who are you?" Ivan demanded curtly. "And how did you come to be here in the middle of this storm?"

The man held up his hands in a placating gesture. "No need to assume belligerence." He held forth his recorder. "I am a musician, but not an enemy or a threat. Quite the contrary; I wish to offer my assistance, as limited as it might be."

"Who are you?" Prowzi repeated coldly.

The man sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "Ah, people have such preoccupations with things as trivial as a name. Still, if it will assuage your anxiety, you may call me Gregory."

"What are you doing alone? Here, in this wilderness?" Contayza interjected, shifting the conversation from Romanian to English so that Jimmy and Nathaniel might participate in the questioning. The stranger made the transition effortlessly. "Girl, I am a gypsy, just as you are. What does a gypsy care of the winter or the wilds? I am here because it is where the wind has pushed me."

He laughed at his own witticism. Contayza did not join in, instead staring fixedly at the man, trying and failing to divine his secrets. She found that his mind was a locked vault that would not surrender its contents easily. Still, there was a definitive air of providence to this man's unanticipated appearance. This ' _happening_ ' upon him was more than a random crossing of paths. She further suspected that he had deliberately imposed himself in their way.

Eyes narrowing, he inquired, "You are especially keen, aren't you, little beauty? You have been endowed with a vast wealth of power. As you've correctly deduced, I have not come here by chance."

"You...you know my thoughts," she stammered. He had probed her mind so subtly, so gently, that she had not even been aware of the invasion. "Who are you?"

Gregory did not respond immediately. He pushed himself from his perch on the granite boulder and crossed to his fire. Watching it carefully for a moment, he abruptly thrust his hands into the flames. The others gasped in horror and drew back, some thinking that they had happened upon a lunatic. Gregory nonchalantly held his fist in the fire as though it were a torch.

"What are you doing, man?" Ivan cried, but Gregory silenced him with an intense stare and raised his hand, which burned brilliantly, but did not reek of burning flesh, nor display any hint of damage. He then held the hand out for Contayza to see. The others screeched a warning, scurried behind boulders and raised their weapons. Only Contayza remained as still as stone.

She could not will herself to drag her gaze away from the hypnotic flame as the stranger spoke. "Lifetimes ago, I seduced a girl with this shoddy trick; nothing more than an exercise of will, really. She was a girl younger than you are, but every bit as lovely. Peering into your heart, I see many similarities between the two of you. Can you guess her name?"

Contayza wanted desperately to ignore the answer that leapt to mind, declare that she had no idea or spit a vehement denial. She opened her mouth with the intention of doing precisely that, but her mouth must have betrayed her for she replied, "Cynara Saravic."

"Yes! You are as sharp as a razor." He waved his hand and the flame died out. Tears formed at the corner of Contayza's eyes, running warm and bitter over her cheeks. Bowing her head, she whispered, "I am not like her."

"As she is now, no. You and she are as night is to day. But then, when she first came to me, the two of you were very much alike."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Jimmy demanded angrily. "I think that you should tell us exactly what you want. We're tired and hungry and feeling more than a little irritable."

Gregory met his gaze unflinchingly, obviously indifferent to his threats. "I've come to help you. I have a tale to tell and should you have the patience to listen, you stand to learn something of value...something that will aid you against those who would destroy you. Please, indulge me and be patient."

Speaking somberly and with less art, Gregory began to explain his presence and purpose. "Cynara Saravic was once a girl very much like this lovely woman, though lacking her special gifts. She was an extraordinary child; intelligent and beautiful. Yet, despite all of her advantages, she possessed a restless, turbulent spirit that would afford her no contentment. It frustrated her, turning her bitter and even cruel. She believed herself to be destined for something immense, though she could find no outlet to satiate her passion. It drove her to despise everyone around her, especially her brother and sister, who were so assured and settled in their course. That envy, that blinding hatred poisoned Cynara."

"How could you know this?" Contayza protested.

"I was there," Gregory explained. "It was I who set Cynara on the path that she now travels. I destroyed the petulant child and created the monster."

One of the others laughed nervously, but quickly fell silent when no one joined in. Contayza's face drained of color until she resembled the fresh snow about her. Nath and Jimmy came to her side, both studying the minstrel gypsy intently. "You are confused and that is understandable. Cynara Saravic was once human; a troubled, capricious girl who could find no joy in the life she leading. Unwittingly, she reached out for a deeper meaning. I was sent in answer to her call. I took her life and her soul in return for the unimaginable powers she so desperately craved. Cynara became a demon knight; a minion of the Dark Prince."

"You mean to say that Cynara was once human? That she somehow became a...a demon?" Nath asked, clearly dubious.

"Exactly. She is a demon and I created her. Now I wish to undo some of the evil that I helped unleash," Gregory confirmed evenly, undaunted by the general tone of skepticism about him.

"Are we supposed to just accept this as gospel?" Jimmy growled. "What can you give us to prove that your story is authentic?"

Simms sardonic reference to the gospel had not been lost upon Gregory, but he appeared unperturbed by Jimmy's belligerent attitude. His expression shifted into an amicable grin, though his eyes reflected the underlying bitterness which echoed through his reply, "If it is concrete proof you require, then you shall be disappointed. I have none to offer and so you will have to take what I tell you in good faith."

Jimmy began a sputtering protest which Contayza cut short. Without looking away from the stranger, she declared, "No, Jimmy. Perhaps Gregory should tell us his story from the beginning."

Jimmy scowled, but Contayza pointedly ignored him. Despite the loathing that she felt for Cynara Saravic, Contayza found herself fascinated by the gypsy's intriguing tale. It suddenly seemed essential that she understand the twists of fate that had forged such a diabolical monster. Yet her desire exceeded simply wishing to know how the Night Queen came to be. It was more than an acute curiosity. Contayza needed to understand Cynara, because, as Gregory had so astutely suggested, there were marked similarities between herself and the girl that Cynara had once been. In each there existed an internal struggle to control and utilize the unfocused yet immense passion that smoldered inside of each woman. As evinced by what had befallen Cynara; untended, that passion could be perverted into something ineffably horrible. ' _Not me! Never me_!' she insisted silently, though her vehemence rang hollow to her own ears.

"To understand what Cynara is, it is first imperative to gain a sense of what she was because hers was an evolutionary process," Gregory began. As the light slowly bled from the winter horizon, bringing cold and darkness, the demon related the story of how Cynara Saravic had been seduced. The seven drew closer to the fire, listening to the unfolding tale with rapt attention. He spoke in an even, passionless voice that seemed totally out of keeping with the dramatic events of which he spoke.

He talked of Cynara as a girl; of her consuming anger and her tempestuous nature. He provided the group with a detailed account of the days leading up to her turning. He spoke candidly of his role in her corruption, never trying to diminish his culpability in her defilement. Contayza could feel the strength of his guilt and torment. She found it difficult to imagine more than a century's worth of regret and shame.

When Gregory came to his graphic description of the ritual of turning, Nath and Jimmy exchanged identical glances of shocked comprehension.

"What you've just described; Jimmy and I have seen it before," Nath exclaimed, nearly consumed by agitation. "In El Zaltaro, we saw a girl sacrificed in exactly that way. The town priest killed her with a ceremonial dagger. They collected her blood and asked that it be blessed. Somehow, the girl came back to life, only it wasn't the girl. It was Cynara. Through this girl, she attempted to have the townspeople kill us."

Gregory absorbed this thoughtfully, but offered no comment. Then Jimmy seized upon another significant piece of information. "Nath, do you remember what the angel said about the ritual."

Nath considered this for a moment and then shook his head.

"He told us precisely what Gregory has told us, only in a more circumspect way," Jimmy insisted. It was impossible to tell whether he was growing more enthusiastic or more agitated. "You had asked the angel how Cynara could be killed and he had replied, "The way in which she was created is also the means by which she may be undone.". Now Gregory has told us that she was created by a ritual dagger."

Turning to the minstrel, Jimmy's eyes stormed like summer fire. "I'm right, aren't I? It's the dagger that created her and it's the dagger that will destroy her. I'm right, goddamn it!"

Gregory nodded, the ghost of a smile touching both his eyes and his lips. "It is well that you deduced the truth on your own."

"Then we can kill the bitch. She can really die," he cried, intoxicated with the knowledge that Cynara could indeed be killed. His joy was so profound that he feared he might begin to sob. "So there is a way. This is not just a blind rush to certain death."

Before elation could become to deeply rooted, Gregory reminded him of the sobering implications of what he had just disclosed. "It's absolutely imperative that you understand all of what I've just related. Yes, Cynara can die, but only on the blade of her ritual dagger. Without that specific dagger, a human is powerless against her."

"But I hurt her," Contayza interjected. "I just might have killed her." She then gave Gregory a brief account of the things that had transpired when she had confronted Cynara for the first time. Gregory rubbed the flat of his palm across his face, pondering the implications of Contayza's story. He glanced at Nathaniel with an expression of pity normally reserved for the terminally ill. Nath met the gaze with no discernable sign of emotion.

"I don't doubt that you hurt Cynara. After all, we demons are not entirely immune to pain. I urge you not to be misled; even a woman of your exceptional power cannot kill Cynara. Only the dagger can achieve that."

"Why is this dagger so special?" Contayza inquired.

"It is fashioned on the forges of Hell and sanctified by Satan. It is a symbolic tool, true, but it is also indestructible. It invests the demon with its power and it may just as easily take it away."

The questions came in a steady flow then, borne on a tide of hope, however slight. Jimmy finally asked, "So there is a separate dagger for each turning?"

"Yes," Gregory confirmed somberly.

"And what happens to the dagger once the ritual is complete?"

"It is presented to the demon and it is their decision as to how to best conceal it. Some choose to keep it with them, while others find a place to hide it. Their choice sheds a great deal of light upon their personality."

"Can you tell us what Cynara might have done with hers?"

Gregory shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid that I cannot."

The spark of hope guttered with this. There was a protracted silence as the three listened to the forlorn wail of the wind. Tired of being stationary and desperately needing to be away from all of this talk of demons and darkness, Ivan bid the other three Romanians to help him search for the night's supply of fire wood.

In an oddly subdued voice, as though posing a question that she had no right to ask, Contayza inquired, "What did you do with your dagger?"

Gregory studied her for several seconds and then he stooped down and retrieved his packsack. Reaching in, he withdrew a bundle of rough material, wrapped tightly by a single lash of weathered leather. This, he handed to Contayza without comment. She laid it in her lap, undid the lash and pulled aside the fabric, surprised by the crudeness and simplicity of Gregory's dagger. It was poorly fashioned and plain. Two strips of polished quartz had been set into the haft. These ornamental strips had long since lost their luster. Even the blade appeared pitted and dull.

Tentatively, Contayza ran a finger along the edge before picking the dagger up in both hands. The instant that her fingers laced around the haft, her body began to tingle and then to shiver. She emitted a soft cry of surprise. Then, before she could pull herself back into the present reality, she fell into a vortex of time which dragged her, kicking and screaming, through centuries of living. As had been the case with the Elizabeth Simpson pendant, Contayza relinquished her own identity and for a brief time became Gregory. She experienced a flow of sensations in reverse of how Gregory had actually lived them; in essence, actually living his life in reverse. In doing so, Contayza gained a more intimate grasp of his power...a puissance so vast that it made her own seem insignificant by contrast.

As she rocketed through time, fast approaching the day of his own turning, her nerves began to tingle and then to blaze like klaxons gone mad. Peering through the tunnel of time, Contayza was afforded a glimpse of a vast field of perpetual darkness, the center of which pulsed and frothed like an open mouth. The effect was at once sensual and terrifying. Heat blasted her and she discerned the proximity of some unfathomable, limitless power. ' _Oh no. Please, no_!'

Contayza felt certain that she must be screaming, though she could hear no sound. The thing was close now. Of course, she now realized what it was. The blackness was not a vast emptiness. It was very much occupied, very much alive. Like a black hole swallowing energy and light, this anomaly consumed goodness and purity like some indescribably foul leech.

She realized that she was gazing upon the mud, the clay, the very soil of evil. The heat which she felt was the breath of Satan; rank and putrid. She attempted to stop, fought frantically to do so, but could not.

The thing was opening its mouth now, stretching its jaws wide in a repulsive gesture of hungry invitation.

' _God, please help me. I don't want to...please_!' she entreated silently. This thing was going to have her...it was...

And then she was being drawn back, wrenched away from the vile entity. She re entered her own identity to find Gregory tearing the dagger out of her locked fingers. She collapsed to the snow, coughing and panting like a spent dog. Jimmy and Nath crowded about her, assisting her to her feet. Gregory knelt before her, scrutinizing her carefully. When he spoke, his voice was shrill and anxious, "Girl, you must learn to distance yourself from the things that you see. I've underestimated the extent of your power."

She gazed directly into his eyes. Both were aware of how perilously close to disaster she had come. In a cracked voice, tremulous with raw emotion, she vowed, "We're going to find the dagger and kill her."

Her voice was so fierce and uncompromising, like iron and cold stone, that even Gregory could not help but smile.

2

When the others had returned with the fire wood, conversation turned away from Cynara and Satanic Ritual. Gregory held center stage for the most part, speaking of his travels and the things that he had experienced in his solitary trek through nearly every country in the world.

From his sack, he produced several varieties of dried fruits and strips of smoked meats, which he distributed to the Romanians, who ate with relish. A flask of brandy roused a unanimous cheer of delight. Listening to Gregory speak, enjoying his food and drink, it was surprisingly easy to forget what manner of creature he was. That he could be cut from the same cloth as Cynara Saravic seemed almost inconceivable.

Hesitantly, Contayza ventured, "Gregory, I've listened to you speak and I'm thoroughly puzzled. How did you become what you claim to be? You don't seem even remotely evil. If anything, you are the absolute opposite of any common image of a demon."

As was his idiom, Gregory shrugged and smiled, "It is difficult for a man to defy his nature. When I lived as a man, I was consumed by a thirst for knowledge that could not be satiated. I was manipulative and cunning, which allowed me access to many things. I was driven by the desire to experience everything and went to limits foul and fair to do so. I sought answers to mysteries that have tantalized men such as me since the dawn of time."

He laughed scornfully then, as if in contempt of his own folly. "I have emerged with the certitude that some questions are better left unanswered. I was not motivated by avarice. I had no desire to wield great personal power. I have an immutable lust to see and understand the vast engine that drives this universe. In time, my obsession led me into the arms of darkness. They wished my powers of persuasion in return for the knowledge I so desperately coveted."

He lapsed into a dreary silence, reflecting upon the errant twists which had led him into temptation. He had defied his own nature, Contayza saw. Guilt and sorrow over his culpability had driven Gregory to rebel against what he had become. This went a long way toward explaining why he was here. Something else occurred to her then. "Being a demon, could you help us to kill her without the dagger?"

His brow furrowed and his expression became grim. "If only I could. Demons are much like people. Both species possess powers of varying strength. Mine is the power of glamour. This is to say, enchantment and deception. I have other abilities, but they are ineffective against Cynara. There are very few creatures who could hope to vanquish Cynara in a direct confrontation. Cynara's arsenal is replete with every conceivable type of power. No, I could be of no help."

"How could you know that?" Jimmy demanded. "If you really want to see Cynara destroyed, why won't you help us?"

"I have confronted her," Gregory replied softly. Undoing the top button of his coat, Gregory pushed back the lapels to reveal a livid purple scar which snaked from the tip of one ear, across his throat, to the other. The others each shared the same horrified fascination that he had been able to survive such a horrendous wound."

"I watched Cynara through the first seventy years of her life. As I did, I became appalled by the horror that I had helped create. It was this revulsion that led me to renounce my allegiance to the darkness, if only to myself. While Europe was embroiled in the first Great War, I attempted to kill her. The attempt was a wretched failure. I was no match for her in terms of power and savagery. The only thing that spared me from death was her arrogance. She inflicted this upon me and then abandoned me to death. She underestimated my will to survive."

"You could try again. As a group, we would have a much better chance of surviving," Jimmy insisted.

"No, if Cynara is to be destroyed, it will not be by me. This is nothing more than personal speculation, but I suspect that, in addition to the dagger, the one who slays Cynara will be possessed of an inviolable spiritual purity. It will guard this person like a shield. I have fallen into dissolution and my only redemption may be found at the point of my own dagger. I pray that I may someday muster the courage to reclaim my soul."

Fatalism hung about Gregory like a mist. Contayza understood that his coming to them was meant to serve as his final act of contrition. She experienced a pang of pity for the lost creature; one so profound that it caused her to feel sick at heart.

"So we have to find that damned dagger and be canonized for Sainthood if we're to have any chance to kill her," Jimmy growled in disgust, still unable to jettison his suspicion of the demon.

"Yes," Gregory replied simply.

Simms snorted angrily and slammed his fist down upon his thigh. Contayza felt a sudden flash of irritation with the American. His anger was pointless and misdirected. Still, Gregory was the creature responsible for Cynara's creation and perhaps he was to be held accountable for her reign of bloodshed.

That was true, but Contayza found that she did not harbor even a mild resentment against him. Incredibly, what she felt toward Gregory was a grudging sort of gratitude. By her own estimate, Contayza realized they were lost, more completely than any of them could ever realize, but he had appeared to give them something to cling to, however tenuous. "Why did you come to us, Gregory? I mean, us specifically?"

"I believe that what I've told you could assist you in some way. If it doesn't help you against her, then it may prevent you from throwing your lives away in a futile attempt to kill what cannot be killed by human hands. Regardless of what you decide, I can take some comfort in knowing that I've done one good thing in the process of undoing Cynara Saravic."

In the fire, a pine knot exploded with a sharp pop, startling the lot. When their collective hearts had settled back into a normal rhythm, the intensity had ebbed and the odd moment was gone. Gregory clapped his hands and stood up, gazing about indifferently as if this assembly held no further interest for him. His expression had grown indecipherable and hooded.

"I've said what I came to say and now I must go. There is one final thing that I must attend to." His eyes fell longingly upon his own dagger. Contayza grasped what he intended to do and desperately wished that she could find the words to dissuade him. As fervently as she wished for this, she found that the words simply would not come. His destruction was predestined, another casualty in a long and bitter war. More than anything that had happened up to this point, Contayza found the notion of his self destruction unbearably painful.

Gregory pulled his collar tight and stowed his recorder in an interior pocket of his jacket, but made no move to pick up his packsack. "There's a small amount of food in there. It isn't much, but it will help."

This said, he began to walk away, but paused before passing into the trees. Without turning, he declared, "You've come to a juncture, a fork in the road, if you will. Perhaps there is only one path that you can truly follow. If you are determined to face Cynara, take the time to seek out the dagger. The lemming is an impulsive creature who allows group instinct to lure him to his death. Humans have been endowed with the gift of reason so that they might avoid following the fate of the lemming. Do not allow the insistent itch of retribution to compel you to confront Cynara without the only means to achieve her end. Without the dagger, your efforts will prove every bit as futile as the mindless charge of the lemmings."

Without a word of goodbye, he disappeared into the forest, leaving the seven alone once again.

Chapter Forty One

1

The hours settled into a monotonous pattern; the snow fell incessantly, the wind whined without surcease and the hours crawled by as though the passage of time had been slowed by the cold. The seemingly lifeless body of Elizabeth Simpson lay slumped against a majestic pine, where it had been for the past three hours. She was completely naked and so her flesh, exposed to the teeth of the wind, had turned a deathly shade of blue. Her protective circle of wolves had grown increasingly restive as time passed, watching her for any indication of life. It was impossible to say just how they perceived the thing laying against the pine and yet they gave their loyalty to the creature without hesitation. Their period of nervousness gradually passed and they grew more tranquil. Several of the larger wolves piled against the unmoving body as though to insulate it against the wind. The others fanned out, forming a protective perimeter about the dormant night creature.

They waited, sensing that she would eventually return to them. The snow fell indifferently and more time passed.

2

She had not anticipated that the journey to the prisoner's cell would take so long. Furthermore, she was alarmed to discover that, despite the number of years that the prisoner had languished within her, she had never come to understand how she was contained or precisely where she dwelt. Perhaps fear had muted curiosity. Elizabeth had no way of being certain and in truth, it no longer mattered. Fear was a luxury that she could no longer afford. She had to resolve the question of her identity and deal with Nathaniel before Cynara learned of her intervention the previous night.

She turned inward, allowing her physical body to idle while she sought out the other. Though she was not clothed, she had no fear of abandoning her body to the elements. She was as immune to their onslaught as she was to most other things; pain, hunger, joy and love. She was far too pragmatic to be touched by the sterility of this.

As sterile as her existence proved to be, it was still her own and she was intent upon preserving it.

As she tracked the prisoner, Elizabeth considered what she knew about the actual process of the turning. By all accounts, the prisoner was an anomaly; an occurrence which should have been virtually impossible. The turning was much more complex than a mere spiritual metamorphosis or an invasion and corruption of the soul. It also constituted a radical physical transition that almost eliminated all of the genetic information contained within the DNA and RNA strands, those little strips of predestination, replacing them with formless, shifting genetic putty which had no rigid structure. This putty could be manipulated at the whim of the demon, allowing it to alter its form in whatever fashion it chose. This genetic putty also allowed these creatures to block out pain, disease and of course, aging. Essentially, this provided the demon with the ability to change its structure, adapting to external and environmental alternations no matter how drastic or inimical.

Elizabeth sensed some of this instinctively, reasoning that something had given way at the moment of her ' _Turning_ ', allowing some fragment of the old Elizabeth to survive. Amazingly, this fragment of personality was able to exert a strong influence over the physical body at key moments as evinced by her failure to kill Simpson when the opportunity had presented itself. Until this fragment had been eradicated, the demon lived in constant fear of being dispossessed.

Gathering herself for an unprecedented confrontation, Elizabeth hurtled through the vast machinery of the body; through tissue and bone and along abandoned alleyways, where lifeblood had once flowed. It did not particularly surprise her to find that the defiant remnant was located in the tissue of the heart.

As she progressed, Elizabeth grew ever smaller, until the body lost the impression of being a solid unit. She marveled at the paradox of size, for as things became infinitesimally smaller, the concept of distance between these microscopic points became impossibly vast. Seen from this perspective, the atoms became whirling galaxies in the universe which was the body.

There! She saw it, glowing like a burning ember. An ugly, malignant red. Pulsing alone like a sullen sun. She paused, gripped by a nervous mixture of anxiety and apprehension. A single atom had escaped the change, thus preserving the old Elizabeth in tact. Fetching a deep breath, the demon hurled herself into the enemy stronghold.

3

There came a stretching, a resistance and then a piercing as the invisible barrier broke. The interloper could hear it reseal itself with a snap. For one terror filled moment, she was assailed by the awful possibility that she might be unable to find egress. She could envision the body lying in the snow, undying yet eternally comatose.

The fear quickly evaporated as the physical gave way to the mystical. The atoms and the cellular structure vanished, replaced by a macabre wasteland that was blanketed in a milky, luminous fog. The interloper was relieved to find her magnificent body fully restored. The solidity of her own flesh refurbished a measure of her confidence. For the first time in her existence, she felt whole and untainted. She sensed that this was how she would feel once the old Elizabeth had been totally erased. The notion prompted her to smile.

Just then, an inhuman howl cut through the fog with the sharpness of a scalpel, rippling the interloper's flesh with a series of shudders. She detected a scuttling movement off to the left, sly and oh so quick. As she turned to confront the sound, it came again, though this time from behind her. The interloper's eyes widened at the apparent misdirection, but then concluded that this could be the result of distortion caused by the fog. There followed a shrill, ear splitting cry that pierced her like a lance. The interloper managed only a half turn before a vague shape slammed into her from out of the fog. The assailant came down on top of her interloper, but their momentum carried the attacker up and over, allowing the demon to scramble to her feet. Disconcerted by the sudden attack, she planted herself for another mad assault, not certain what had become of her assailant.

The thing bellowed in mad fury and frustration, rose up and trundled forward. The interloper threw herself to the left, avoiding the frenzied charge by the narrowest of margins. As the thing shot by, the demon thrust out its foot, sending the other crashing to the gray dirt for a second time. Dust puffed up in dull, lifeless plumes as the assailant landed with a grunt, followed by an indignant curse. The demon danced lithely back, attempting to distance her from the snarling thing that was now rising to its feet. It turned to face her on hands and knees, salivating and snarling like a rabid dog.

The interloper gasped, recognizing the abject savage to be a filthy reflection of her own angelic countenance. The astounded demon came face to face with its own baleful host.

The demon recoiled, shocked by the wretched condition of the prisoner. It was dirty and foul smelling. Blond hair, caked with dirt, hung limply in her sallow face. Her clothes were filthy tatters like the cerements of the grave. Saliva streaked the dirt on her face and the dark smudges around her eyes gave the impression of some horrible voodoo mask that had been animated by black magic. Despite her appearance, or perhaps because of it, the prisoner possessed a primitive vitality that spoke of a soul that would not die easily.

The interloper smiled, poised to fend off another charge. The woman's lunatic eyes tracked her movements, as it hissed like a serpent.

' _She's gone mad_ ,' the demon thought, suspecting that twenty years of exile had driven her into the arms of lunacy. Yet there was a hard, coherent gleam in those blue eyes that refuted this initial impression. Then the host spoke for the first time, furious and outraged, "How dare you come here?"

Spittle flew from her mouth as she spoke, a thick rope of saliva languidly dripping to the dirt. The interloper was frozen, both repulsed and fascinated. The host raved like a banshee. "I'll kill you! Kill you! KIIILLLL YOOOOUUU!"

She sprang from her crouch like a striking panther, catching the stricken demon before she could evade the charge. With hands locked about the interloper's throat, the host drove its enemy to the ground and set about choking her. Frantic, the demon attempted to escape, astounded by the other's incredible strength. The volley of blows fell upon the host with no obvious impact. The hands held fast like coiled springs, dirty nails digging into the bronze flesh like hot needles. Unable to extricate herself from the death grip, the interloper turned inward, conjuring up another form. Instantaneously, her flesh liquefied, flowing through the baffled host's fingers as though it were mercury. A golden eagle took form, flapped its wings and wheeled into the safety of the air. Incredulity momentarily quelled the host's rage. She watched the eagle sail through the billowing fog with gaping wonder.

The bird flew in tight circles as the host climbed to her feet and tracked it with blazing eyes. Landing, the interloper transmogrified into its original form. The two regarded each other across the fog obscured wastes.

"You will not kill my son! I will not allow it." The prisoner delivered this vow in an entirely lucid voice, the babbling savage having evidently retreated into the background for the time being. "I would destroy both of us before I would permit that."

"You're a prisoner. Your threat carries no weight," the demon retorted flatly.

The host smiled wickedly. In another lifetime, when she had been the sole inhabitant of her own body and mind, she'd been naive and insecure. Twenty years trapped inside the purgatorial depths, watching helplessly while an alien presence compelled her to commit unspeakable acts of evil, had endowed her with a sense of animal cunning. Now Elizabeth could shred through deception the way a scythe might mow down stands of hay. Again, that knowing smile surfaced. "If that is so, why are you here?"

The interloper could produce no plausible retort to that. Coming here had proven to be a grave mistake the demon now realized. It only served to demonstrate just how vulnerable she was. This weakness would only encourage the host to lash out at the interloper identity with renewed vigor. Gambling, she offered, "If you should kill me, you will die. Then Cynara will kill your son. I am the only one who can prevent this."

There followed a protracted, tense silence as the host pondered this. Indecision and uncertainty clouded her dirty brow. With mounting excitement, the interloper continued, knowing that it was crucial that she not surrender her advantage. The only thing that this woman desired more than revenge was to see her son alive. "Perhaps you think you're strong enough to cast me out, and indeed you may be right but if you're wrong, the consequences could be disastrous, not only for us, but for your beloved son. Your misguided rage could reduce this body to an empty shell; a mindless zombie. Then your son would be left to fall under Cynara's hand. Do you really believe that there's any chance he would find mercy there?"

She let this final thought hang between them, sure that it would have the calculated impact on the host. If so, it was not unthinkable that she might be able to retrieve something of this nightmarish situation. If she could not destroy the prisoner, perhaps the son could be utilized as leverage.

"You would protect my son?" the prisoner demanded dubiously.

"Yes." The word snapped, hard and unequivocal, from the interloper's tongue.

"Why?" The question was a form of challenge that could only be met with the truth.

"To preserve myself," the interloper responded candidly. "There's a possibility, however remote, that you might be able to make good on your threat. I wouldn't jeopardize my existence by betraying you," she concluded evenly.

The prisoner frowned uncertainly. Upon logical consideration, she saw that there was little alternative but to trust the abomination in this matter. This vile incarnation was the only thing standing between her son and certain death, or worse. "What do you want in return?"

Again the interloper suppressed her urge to smile, knowing that she had emerged the victor, if only for the present time. "A promise that you will not interfere with my actions until all of this has been resolved. In return, I will protect your son and perhaps even allow you some access to him. I will go to the full length of my formidable power to keep him safe from Cynara's wrath."

The prisoner fetched a deep sigh and a current of empathy passed between them. The interloper gained some grasp of the love and passion that the other woman possessed, not only for her son, but for life itself. It explained, in part, how she had escaped annihilation at the moment of turning. By stark and poignant contrast, it demonstrated how barren and meaningless the interloper's life truly was.

Suddenly, the prisoner's expression hardened, becoming all iron and granite. "Very well, I will agree not to interfere for the time being. Be warned; however, that should my son come to any harm, either by your hand or Cynara's, I will destroy the both of us."

Something in the low, unwavering tone of the prisoner's voice caused the interloper to flinch. The host read her fear and began to laugh in derision. "Come, let's seal our covenant with a kiss, like sisters."

The interloper blanched and commenced to back away from the prisoner as the other lapsed into gales of hysterical laughter. The sound bore into the interloper's brain, fraught with lunacy and malice. No longer able to suffer the sight of her wretched reflection, the demon spun and fled into the thickening fog. A parting taunt bit at her heels as she fled. "Should you see Cynara, give her my cold regards. Tell her that we shall be seeing each other soon. I'll bring her the kiss of the spider."

Try as she might, the interloper could not outrun the shrewish laughter that pursued her like a hungry shadow.

4

After an interminable length of time, awareness gradually filtered back to Elizabeth. She was both surprised and chagrined to find that night had fallen in the time that she'd been absent. In that time, the course of events might have been horribly and irreversibly set. She pushed herself to her feet, brushing away the blanket of snow that had covered her during her dream state. The wolves jostled for her attention, but she was too lost in thought to notice; too absorbed in trying to detect the other's malignant presence. There was nothing, not even the slightest stirring.

The first tremor hit her then; a nervous reaction that caused her muscles to spasm wildly as though she had fallen upon an electrified fence. The demon sank back to the ground, clutching her knees to her chest, and settled her head forward, waiting for the trembling to subside. Part of her mind was aware of just how precariously close to ruin she had come. The prisoner was strong and growing stronger. The demon bitterly cursed Cynara then. Why had she not killed the child all of those years ago? The son had become a well sustaining source of strength for the prisoner. The merciless environment and the isolation of the cage should have extinguished her long ago, but the consuming desire to see her son live had sustained her and might continue to do so indefinitely.

"Damn it Cynara, look at what your machinations have brought upon us!" Elizabeth roared. Another possibility occurred to her in that exclamation of anguish. What if Cynara had known of this all along? What if she had anticipated that the old Elizabeth would someday emerge from the sterile, mechanical thing that she had become? Suddenly the question of six months before assumed darker connotations. "Can you kill your son?"

Elizabeth recalled not having answered that question then, though she had been certain that she could do so without compunction or hesitation. What she had learned today gave the Dark Lady's question an entirely new complexion. Perhaps the question had been intended, not for the demon, but for the remnant that dwelled within her.

It was not inconceivable that Cynara had contrived this as a test for the demon or as a way to revive the qualities that the turning had leeched from the old Elizabeth. Was Cynara capable of such an act of self indulgence? Was she so absolutely wicked? Would she go to such elaborate and protracted lengths, risking everything in the process, only to test Elizabeth's fealty or prompt some transformation in her character? The answer to all of these questions was a strident and unequivocal yes. Cynara was a creature of pure decadence, who ultimately could never resist her own desires.

Elizabeth was assailed by a hatred for Cynara which was so black that it threatened to ignite her into flames. Could it be true? Could Cynara have willingly done this to her?

As rage subsided, she was fully able to appreciate the enormity of her predicament. She could not kill the prisoner's son because the prisoner would not permit it and as long as he lived, Elizabeth lacked the power to kill the wretched spore. She was entrapped in a closed and vicious circle from which she could not escape without help. Only Cynara could extricate her from the jaws of this particular dilemma. If she killed Nathaniel, perhaps the prisoner would parish in a sea of grief. Yet if Cynara had engineered this, she would be horribly alone, with no place in this or any other world. Even she could not survive in the face of such pervasive hollowness.

There was only one path that she could follow in the face of such desolation.

Wearily, she again pushed herself upright. She would find the Simpson boy and deliver him to Cynara. She would apprise Cynara of the things that had been happening to her and gauge the Dark Lady's reaction carefully. If Cynara proved ignorant of the prisoner's existence, Elizabeth would implore her to kill Nathaniel and help her to confront her tormentor. Should, however, Cynara prove responsible for the anguish that she had suffered, Elizabeth would extract a heavy payment for her misery. She would finish what she had begun in Bucharest. Then she would kill Nathaniel and face whatever consequences that action might precipitate. Even death was preferable to enduring an eternity of emptiness.

She shifted then, changing shapes effortlessly in assuming the form of the wolf. She issued a series of sharp yelps and the pack formed around her, setting out to the east. She carried one thought with her as though it were a talisman; no matter what followed, she would solve the question of her identity.

This mansion was too small for two tenants and she had no intention of being evicted.

Chapter Forty Two

1

The snow persisted through the night as the seven slept fitfully, plagued by dark nightmares in sleep and dreadful uncertainty while staring up at the brooding heavens. They awoke to a dull gray dawn, grateful to be free of their nocturnal torments, each feeling bone weary and out of sorts. They had slept in the shadows of the granite boulders, using pine branches as substitutes for blankets, but still the chill had surmounted their meager defenses, working its way deep into their muscles and bones. The group faced the day shackled by both stiffness and hunger. These would come to be their constant companions as they made their trek toward the dominion of the witch: hunger, snow, cold and exhaustion. Above all of these, flew death, hovering over them like the shadow of an immense carrion bird.

Despite the hunger and lingering exhaustion, Ivan was anxious to set out at once, exhorting the others to hurry in an impatient, irritable voice. Gregory had left Ivan feeling decidedly unimportant as if he had become a mere bit player in a dark drama which he neither understood nor wished to be part of. Confronted by such creatures as Gregory, or even more imposing ones such as Cynara, Ivan felt inept and helpless. It was much akin to being thrust into a deadly game where he had no comprehension of the rules and only a shadowy concept of the objectives. Ivan Prowzi was a hard man whose roots were planted firmly in the world of light. His philosophy made no allowance for the things that he had seen in the last three days. He was not as afraid for his life as he was for his sanity.

His immediate and most practical concern, however, was that the clouds were thinning and their period of grace would soon be over. With the dawning of the sun would come the intense cold and the inevitable aerial search. Ivan unconsciously ran a finger around the inside of his collar as though he could feel an invisible noose inexorably tightening about his neck.

Thus he barked and cajoled, pushing the group to move when he was no less weary than any of the others. "Dammit, let's go, or would you rather stay here and prepare a picnic for Petru's troopers?"

The six grumbled, but eventually they roused themselves and set out on the day's march.

Of the seven, perhaps Jimmy Simms felt the happiest about actually moving. The sense of making progress allowed him to overlook his aches and pains (his ribs thrummed constantly, pulsing like a light from a dull bulb), and the deep rumble in his neglected stomach. He refused to allow his mind to stray to the grim finality of Gregory's message, instead passing his time by observing his six companions. He studied each, searching for some sign of impending collapse. Ivan appeared dour and wore a vaguely disgusted expression. The other three Romanians sported identical expressions of dread and urgency as though they desperately wanted to be somewhere, but feared what they might find once they reached their destinations.

Nathaniel carried himself almost gingerly, like a man who is driving a car which is nearly out of gas and is reluctant to press the accelerator. Not for the first time, he wondered just how much further Nath would be able to push himself and what would happen when his inevitable moment of collapse finally arrived.

Savagely, he forced the thought from his mind. As in the case of Gregory's message, Jimmy lacked the strength to contemplate something so unbearably grim. Instead, he glanced over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of Contayza. As was the case more and more often now, the very sight of the diminutive beauty set his pulse to race and the tide of his anxieties to recede. She seemed too lovely to have been born into such a bleak land of repression and depravity. There were angry, dark circles ringing her eyes, but the tenacious manner in which she endured this ordeal only added a certain nobility to her beauty.

She did not glance up at Simms, but kept trundling along in her dogged fashion. Her limpid eyes were distant and uncharacteristically vacant. He dropped back beside her and inquired "Is anybody home?"

Her face twitched and she jerked her gaze to meet his, fixing him with a questioning stare. "I'm sorry?"

"You seem so far away. What were you thinking about just then?"

She shrugged her shoulders absently, giving him the impression that he had intruded upon something more complex and important than an ordinary daydream. "I was just thinking about Gregory and the things that he said. There was an air of inexpressible sadness about the man. It hurt my heart. He knows what he has wrought and wants badly to undo it."

"He should, the son of a bitch, after this misery he's caused. I don't think he could do enough good or suffer enough to wipe his slate clean," Jimmy retorted bitterly.

Contayza's face twisted into a knot of ire and pain. When she spoke, her voice was reproachful and sullen, "It's easy to think that way, to label him a monster who is no better than Cynara. It's a simple matter for people to pass judgment, but what he did last night took a monumental act of courage. Could either of us defy our own nature so willingly?" she demanded with a puzzling intensity that left Simms feeling as though he had just blundered into a mine field. Not waiting for an answer, she lowered her head and quickened her pace, leaving him to stare after her in dumbstruck consternation. He did not entirely understand how or why he had offended her, but she had left little doubt that he had.

For the rest of the day the seven trudged along, enduring the bitter cold and grinding hunger stoically. Each took their turn breaking through the ever deepening snow, but as the day wore on, those turns grew shorter and shorter in duration. The relief of the land began to change as well. The thick stands of trees still dominated everything, but now the ground rolled and swelled more abruptly as they moved higher into the foothills. The temperature had dropped perceptibly, picking meanly at the edges of their snowsuits and driving tiny silver needles into exposed flesh.

Ivan could be heard to curse the changing elements, swearing profusely under his breath, which blew out in thick white plumes.

Sometime in the late afternoon he called a halt to the march. Apparently, a tree lined depression in the hill struck him as an ideal place to make camp for the night. Jimmy moved up beside him, peering into the bowl in the rock. "How far do you think we came today?"

"Twenty kilometers, maybe. It's difficult to tell in this kind of country. Distances become distorted in mountainous terrain."

"Twenty kilometers, that's good though, isn't it?" Jimmy ventured uncertainly, having no real notion whether it was good or not. Ivan frowned sourly. "It's adequate, but you and I both know that we've got a long way to go and we're not going to get any stronger. While we're being honest, I might as well mention that the terrain is getting rougher and the weather is likely to get colder. A good deal colder."

Ivan allowed him to digest that wonderfully optimistic forecast, and then went about organizing two hunting parties. ' _Great, another cheery optimist_ ,' Jimmy thought as he watched the other man go about the task.

The group's weaponry had been reduced to five rifles, so Ivan divided the men into one group of three and one group of two. Jimmy was conscripted into Ivan's party and the group moved into the forest in search of a rabbit to supplement their cache of dried beef strips.

Only Contayza and Nath remained alone in the hollow. They sat at opposite ends of the depression like passengers waiting in a bus terminal; strangers going home to their own separate lives. They sat engrossed in their own thoughts as though unaware of the other's presence. Then Contayza shifted her gaze to the little man, shivering at the sight of his unhealthy pallor and his dull, listless eyes. She realized that she was rather frightened of this stranger with his scar and his placid blue eyes that were at once sage, yet fey. His soul seemed to be in a state of suspension and she found that she could not divine his thoughts. Unlike Jimmy, who was an open book to her, she could discern nothing about Nathaniel Simpson.

' _You frighten me, Nathaniel Simpson_ ,' she admitted to herself and shivered again, not fully grasping the cause of this apprehension. That confusion did nothing to attenuate the grip of her trepidation.

Forcibly, she pushed her thoughts away from his strangeness and back to the subject of Gregory. She regretted her outburst of this morning, but there were aspects of Gregory's character that Simms could not fathom. His conception of good and evil was simply too clearly defined to accommodate the pressures and temptations that had seduced Gregory. She, on the contrary, understood them quite well. She had experienced the conflicting pull within her often enough to know precisely what Gregory was talking about. Oh yes, she had been tempted by the urgings of her restless nature. Contayza was not without her vanity and the allure of her power played on that vanity, tempting her to surrender to its promise, as water will gradually wear down stone.

Once, while attending university in London, she had nearly succumbed to the dark side of her disposition, the aspect of which lay coiled beneath the surface of her personality like a cobra. She had been the frequent target of racial slanders from one particularly pompous English ass, whose ire she had incurred by rejecting his advances. Evidently, the rejection was such a blow to his ego that he tried to humiliate her in vindication.

On one occasion, she had heard him trumpet, "Hide your jewelry people. The gypsy has arrived," as she entered the lecture hall. This acidic remark was met with a burst of derisive laughter. Infuriated, she had come within a breath of turning her telekinetic powers upon him. Had she not let something – some small fragment of puissance - slip through as sudden and stinging as a crack of a whip?

It had gotten away from her then. While the others had laughed he had trembled and his eyes widened for a moment, first in surprise and then in terror. She had managed to bite off her anger, but he had taken great pains never to offend her again. Ah, but how she had wanted to do it, to make him writhe in agony for every shriek of laughter she had ever suffered.

The blackness had consumed her in that moment, but she had managed to quell it. Yet, she realized that, in another time and circumstance, she could be capable of something monstrous. The memory was vivid and warm, still resonating with the dark urgings of the ugly side of her nature. It was this ugliness that often drew dangerous close to the surface whenever she became angry or emotionally over-wrought.

The mechanics of the ' _Turning_ ' troubled her deeply, forcing her to evaluate her own preconceptions of good and evil. She had always accepted the notion that demons were creatures of pure evil; things whose existence was eternal and whose origins were murky. These were the belligerent spirits that had always been here, leading even the pre-biblical men into acts of unspeakable evil. Gregory had disabused her of that notion. Demons, such as Cynara Saravic, were created through a horrible metamorphosis. They were selected because they had demonstrated some evil talent or displayed a propensity for foulness and corruption. Ultimately, they had been seduced by dark desires and pervasive lusts. Contayza suspected that these were present in everyone to varying degrees. This was the aspect of Gregory's tale that disturbed her the most; the possibility that a tiny dark flower could be planted in the cleft of one's soul; a carefully nurtured night bloom that grew like a rank weed. Most terrifying of all had been Gregory's remark that she and Cynara had once shared many things in common.

Could it be that Cynara had become the vile miscreant that she was, not because of an inherent blackness, but because of a simple lack of direction in her formative years? Was everyone susceptible to the same corruption? Was she?

Despair, voracious and mean, worked its tiny fangs into her heart as she recalled how close she had come to torturing Jimmy Simms and killing Nathaniel Simpson on that first night. Was it such a simple matter for a human being to surrender their civility, becoming sensate monsters if they felt that the ends justified the means? Would everyone forsake their sense of nobility if they felt the situation demanded it? She had, and Jimmy Simms had when he had turned the machine gun upon the unarmed population of El Zaltaro. He had been justified, but what scar had the action left upon his soul?

It suddenly occurred to her that Nathaniel had not compromised himself when presented with similar temptations. He wallowed in despair, believing that Cynara had enticed him into surrendering his soul when he had supposedly allowed the girl to die. Only Contayza knew the truth. There had been no girl. Simply holding the locket had proven as much. She was an illusion that Cynara had conjured to test Nathaniel's righteousness and sow the seeds of dissolution, if only in his mind. Why had she gone to such elaborate lengths to demonstrate that he was somehow flawed? It was a question of some importance and one for which she could produce no plausible answer, though instinct informed her that she was in close proximity to an answer now.

She glanced up at him, as though seeing the American for the first time. He sat at the opposite end of the tiny indentation in the rock, still staring absently at the falling snow. In the violent eruption of blazing light, Contayza came to understand why she had found this man so different, so unsettling. Unlike all of the others, herself included, this ordeal had not driven him to compromise his innocence. He had not been corrupted, nor had he spilt blood or allowed himself to become inure by constant exposure to violence. He was testimony to the fact that a person could resist both seduction and indignities of the world about him. She found herself nearly ecstatic at the realization that a man could wade through the stinking swamp of everyday life and emerge, his moral fiber in tact.

From this blissful revelation there came a strong and renewed sense of purpose. For the first time since the two had come to her, she could clearly see what was required of all of them. The implications and hidden meanings abruptly resolved themselves into a comprehensible pattern, like pieces of a long elusive puzzle. She recognized her own role in this grim fairy tale as well as those of the others. More heartening still was the certitude that she was capable of fulfilling her obligation. Elation lifted her spirits, brushing aside the cold, hunger and weariness that had beleaguered her through most of the day.

Despite the colossal risks involved, she was deliriously happy. Trying to control her impatience, she closed her eyes and waited for the others to return.

2

The heady aroma of slow roasting rabbit, turning on a makeshift spit over a large fire, was well near maddening to the hungry refugees; rousing mouths to water and stomachs to rumble in anticipation. The seven were voracious, consuming the rabbit like jackals at a fallen antelope. Unlike the bland beef strips, the hares were ripe with juice and thus more pleasing to the palate.

The group was too absorbed in the act of eating to exchange much in the way of conversation, but when the last morsel of rabbit had vanished between greedy lips, Contayza rose ostentatiously to her feet and proclaimed, "I have an idea."

She had done this so unexpectedly and with such vehemence that the entire group was startled into immediate attention. She regarded them with those lovely amber eyes, made wild and mysterious by the dancing flames of the fire.

"An idea?" Jimmy echoed dumbly as though intoxicated by the pleasure of having a full stomach.

"It came to me while you were out hunting. I believe that I understand precisely what we have to do, each of us, if we are to have a genuine chance at destroying Cynara," she declared confidently.

"Gregory was absolutely right," she continued. "Our only chance of defeating Cynara lies in locating her dagger."

"Have you ever considered the possibility that he was imposed in our path as a diversion; another of Cynara's tricks. We could end up running all over Northern Romania in a wild goose chase," Jimmy countered sharply.

"Yes, I've considered the possibility and no, this is not one of Cynara's deceptions."

"How can you be so damned certain?" Jimmy demanded irascibly.

"I just am," Contayza responded quietly, eyes settling upon his face with a challenging glare as if daring him to argue. He held her gaze for a moment and then averted his eyes. "All right. Tell us about this idea of yours."

She drew a quavering breath, hoping to organize her thoughts into concise and logical arguments. It was imperative that she make them believe her...convince them that the risk she proposed taking was justified, despite its enormity. So often an argument that seemed perfectly logical in the confines of one's own mind made the transition to spoken word sounding like ludicrous horseshit. She couldn't afford to let that happen now.

Slowly she began to speak, "All day I've been searching my mind for an explanation as to why Gregory would tell us about the dagger and its significance. His appearance was too fortuitous to be mere chance. Was it a sign of providence or another of Cynara's diversions? I examined the question from both perspectives and found that I was still ambivalent. When the five of you went out to hunt the rabbits and left me here with Nathaniel, several things occurred to me. Firstly; I was looking at everything from the wrong perspective. We all are guilty of that particular offence. It was something like looking at one of those three dimensional puzzles and being unable to see a certain picture because you were standing too close to see the pattern. Then, as you started to pull back, the entire picture resolves itself, leaving you thinking that you must be blind or stupid for not having seen it."

She searched their eyes to see if they were catching the train of her thoughts. To her frustration, she saw only a polite, noncommittal expression upon each face. She cursed herself for being so clumsy, so inarticulate. "Gregory was telling the truth. I held his knife in my hand and felt the inherent power. The force behind it was huge, malefic and very real. I considered Gregory all through the day, feeling pity for him and struggling to understand the things that he said. Cynara was a product; a demon created by a ritual. That knife is the symbolic embodiment of Satan's power and this was what Gregory was attempting to convey. It is the thing that grants the demon its power and it is the only thing that can take it away. That makes such perfect sense that I don't see how any of us can do anything but accept it."

"Very well, Contayza, suppose that we do accept it at face value; that knowledge does nothing to make our position any seem any more optimistic. If anything, it makes it worse," Nath reminded the gypsy.

"That's where you're wrong," Contayza contradicted excitedly. "Gregory told us that the knife cannot be destroyed. I again believe that he was telling the truth. True, it could be concealed anywhere in this world, but my instinct insists that Cynara would elect to keep it near her home. I think that I know how to locate it," she finished, allowing the final thought to dangle like a carrot, knowing that the most difficult part was coming next.

The questions erupted in a barrage and she smiled, raising her hands for silence. "I should have recognized it at once but I was too engrossed in trying to understand the mysterious Gregory to see it. His handing me the dagger was the key. Every object holds the residue of the person who possesses it. This is especially true if that thing is a personal possession, such as a piece of jewelry or any other keepsake. The dagger showed me that the residue can be the sum of the owner's entire existence; everything that he has ever done or witnessed as well as the thoughts and emotions that these events inspired. If you are gifted with the ability, it is possible to unlock all of these things and play them back like some sort of psychic movie. "Jimmy, you should be able to associate with some of what I'm trying to explain."

He glanced at her speculatively. There was a tiny hint of dawning comprehension in his eyes. ' _I think he's beginning to understand_ ,' she thought jubilantly.

"Simply put," she pressed on "by holding a personal possession, it is an easy matter for me to discover everything there is to know about that person and not only about the things which they have done, but the emotions and motivations that lay behind those actions."

"So what you're telling me is that by holding, say a ring of mine, you can learn everything about me. Even my own thoughts," Jimmy advanced, displaying some of the animation that had gripped Contayza. "You can do this without having to be in physical contact with me or actually entering my mind?"

"Precisely," Contayza replied. Then Jimmy frowned. "But we don't have anything that belongs to Cynara."

"That isn't necessarily true," she corrected softly, stealing a furtive glimpse at Nathaniel, who appeared to be listening to all of this with only a vague interest. Jimmy discerned her subtle glance and exploded.

"No, Contayza! No goddamned way! I know what you're thinking and you can bloody well forget it," he bellowed, furious that she could even entertain such an idea. She raised her palms in a gesture of appeasement.

"That is not what I was proposing at all. Even if I was heartless enough to attempt to get to Cynara that way, it is likely that she has erected some type of barrier to keep me out, or perhaps set a trap to destroy me," Contayza retorted, trying to sound indignant, but missing the mark by a good margin.

"Then what are you proposing?" he asked, now visibly confused.

Contayza turned to Nathaniel again. "Your mother's pendant, may I have it please?"

While the others looked on, now totally baffled, Nath unzipped his snow suit and withdrew the jade pendant. Leaning forward, he solemnly dropped it into Contayza's hand. She held it aloft for the others to see. "The witch has touched this. She took it from Nathaniel's mother over twenty years ago. She used it to lure him into the sewers of Brasov. When I held it back in the clearing, I was deluged by the events and emotions that touched Elizabeth's life. Essentially, I became Elizabeth Simpson for a short period of time. I have nothing upon which to base this supposition, but I suspect that this warehouse of history may even extend to the people who profoundly influence the owner's life. It is possible that these images may have their own history, their own depth. If Cynara has held this in her possession for over twenty years, then it is conceivable that it may have also absorbed her essence."

"And you believe that you can search through all of this residue, as you call it, and find out how Cynara has disposed of her dagger," Nath concluded reflectively. Contayza realized that Simpson was possibly the most incisive of the lot and it did not particularly surprise her to discover that he was the first to fully grasp just what it was she was proposing.

"Yes, I do. It may be slim, but it's the only chance that I can see. A personality as strong and compelling as Cynara's is bound to impress a distinct type of residue upon anything that she touches."

Now Ivan spoke for the first time. "But couldn't this prove dangerous. Yesterday, when you held that man's dagger, something happened to you. He wrenched it from your hands as though he was afraid for you. Afraid of what was happening to you."

' _Damn it_!' Tayza spat to herself. She had hoped that no one would recognize the inherent risks in such an experiment. She, herself, had been trying mightily to ignore them.

"I don't think that there is any real danger in it. The worst that can happen is that I'll turn out to be wrong," she lied. Jimmy seemed on the verge of saying something and she shot him an unspoken warning.

' _Just keep your mouth shut, Jimmy_ ,' she blared wordlessly. The thought rumbled about his mind, making him wince and fall silent.

"And if you can't find it?" Nath asked, his sleepy voice disguising the gravity of the question.

"I'll find it," she declared flatly as the alternative was unthinkable.

After a moment's silence Ivan shrugged. "What do we have to lose?"

Contayza grimaced internally, knowing precisely what the stakes were; recalling just how close to the abyss she had come the night before. Yet she wore a clown's grin, careful to keep her fears well concealed. Nath agreed and after a tense moment, even Jimmy signified his tacit approval with a reluctant nod.

Drawing a shaky sigh of relief, Contayza went on, "There is little point in waiting, so I'd like to try now."

Her need for haste was at least partially motivated by her desire to begin while her sense of purpose and courage were still strong.

"What should we do?" Ivan inquired, uncomfortable with all things mystical.

"Nothing, just wait and watch. There is much more to this than I've told you, but this is my part alone," she finished cryptically. On an after thought, she added, "Perhaps you should move away."

The six men obediently rose and moved out of the circle of light and warmth cast by the flames. She watched them go thoughtfully. Catching a sense of Jimmy's anxious concern, she silently conveyed, "I'll be fine."

The sentiment caressed his mind like a lover's touch, making him smile in spite of his misgivings. She returned his smile and then her gaze shifted back to the pendant, dismissing the others from her thoughts. Holding it up to the light of the fire, she concentrated upon the teardrop of jade as though it were the very center of the universe.

Gradually, her cognizance of the world around her dwindled, narrowing until the bit of gold bound stone and the fire beyond were the only things that existed for her. At once, the surface of the pendant lost its solidity, beckoning like a shimmering pool on an oppressively hot afternoon. Her ears were filled with a sharp tearing sound as her soul was ripped unceremoniously from its moorings, channeled through her fingertips and into the strange wilderness beyond.

Chapter Forty Three

1

As the group watched worriedly, Contayza's eyes rolled up in their sockets and she lay over on her side, her left arm falling down in a wide arc as the right came to rest across her breast. The fingers of her right hand clutched at the tiny pendant as though it might be a tenuous life line to the tangible world. She lay silent and unmoving, like a sleeping angel. Jimmy and Nath exchanged knowing glances, while the others peered about with carbon copy expressions of dread and wonder. Not daring to draw too near to the dormant gypsy, the six grouped at the opposite side of the clearing, hoping against hope that Contayza would work a miracle.

2

There was a compelling sensation of being plucked out of the physical body and propelled into another dimension where reality was defined in terms of fleeting images and spectral mists that rapidly dissolved and reformed to disclose another chapter in Elizabeth Simpson's life. Contayza grasped some of this process as she entered Simpson's universe. These were really the echoes of another person's life. The reality of her own independent being was diminished and replaced by a foreign consciousness. As had been the case the first time, she experienced the events that shaped Elizabeth Simpson's life prior to her fatal encounter with Cynara. She suffered the burgeoning confusion of emotions as she passed the nebulous figure of the man named David Stillman and the bitter disillusionment that had accompanied her marriage to a man named Dan.

Her husband. Nath's father.

Through all of these incidents, she gained an appreciation of just what the other woman had been - something innocent and gracious; scarred, but not jaded or cynical. She had suffered her ill fortune with the nobility and dogged determination to prevail. Contayza enjoyed the texture of the other woman's soul as it glided over her own, which seemed crude and abrasive by comparison. This was a woman who had been easy to admire. Easy to love.

Unlike the first time, the excursion into the psyche of Elizabeth Simpson was colored with the hue of impending ruination. Dark clouds hovered on the edges of her life, like waiting vultures salivating in anticipation of her final fall into darkness. Once down, they would pick apart the meat of her innocence like flesh from a rotting corpse. Part of her mind wanted to shriek a cry of warning, but realized how futile this would be. The past was indelibly written and she had no power to alter it.

And then the dark specter of Cynara Saravic (Simonovic, she had called herself this time) loomed like a killer's moon on the horizon, calling to Elizabeth like a bitter sweet melody.

Upon seeing the witch through Elizabeth's naive eyes, Contayza glimpsed some of the Dark Lady's smooth and erudite glamour. Cynara had beguiled Elizabeth with her seductive charm and worldly allure. Saravic had carefully couched her intentions, expertly tempting the blonde with the promise of growth and fulfillment; something Simpson was desperate for in her own innocent fashion. Contayza gained an insight into the mechanics of seduction and temptation. It had been a simple matter really, like leading an unsuspecting sheep down a corridor and into the cold steel death of the slaughterhouse. The simplicity of Elizabeth's defilement sickened Contayza.

Through a titanic act of will, she pushed the tragedy of Elizabeth's dissolution from her mind. And then it was there, just as she had theorized it would be.

The gate!

A portal to another, darker world, winking brilliantly like a piece of obsidian; polished to a high gloss and cut into the oblong shape of a coffin.

The image struck her as blackly appropriate. Entering Cynara's soul would surely be like falling into a coffin and from there, being conveyed into some unspeakable oblivion. Though she was assailed by terror, Contayza veered off without hesitation and plunged through the gateway.

Unlike the prevalent psychic aura that had surrounded her trek through Elizabeth's life, which had felt cool and comforting, entering Cynara's soul was like suddenly being submerged in a warm, syrupy liquid. Contayza experienced the actual physical sensation of resistance as she moved along, yet this liquid seemed to enhance her movement in some odd way that she could not comprehend. As she drifted, this liquid served to focus the things that she beheld, prolonging them and sharpening them until they became painfully intense.

As the six men stared fixedly at the still form of Contayza Prowzi, she suddenly emitted a sharp gasp, though this exclamation held more wonder than alarm.

If Contayza's spirit would have been capable of anything more than silent observation, she might have believed that she had stumbled upon the lost city of Atlantis deep in the shadowy cleft of Cynara's heart. Lazily, she drifted along a glassy avenue, lined on each side by what could be best described as immense marble mausoleums. They stood like gigantic chronological edifices to death and horror. Contayza witnessed all manner of mutilations and murder; fragments of gruesome butchery played out in sickening Technicolor. In one room, she watched a child being ripped to shreds in a foot of fetid water by a gruesome reptilian monstrosity. In another, she gazed on as a cassocked figure set a shackled boy to flames while zealously chanting meaningless satanic gibberish. There were many more; a seemingly endless variation of senseless and vapid violence.

Contayza witnessed all of this with a heightened perception that would have driven the average person into raving madness. Such abominations would have appalled the coldest of hearts. She wanted to scream. She was certain of that. She wanted to raise her voice against the mindless atrocities that flicked across the range of her vision. Oddly enough, she found that she could do nothing other than watch with a dark fascination while Cynara weaved her intricate web of dissolution and destruction.

Spellbound, Prowzi gazed on as Cynara made slow passionate love to a man who seemed vaguely familiar. At the moment of his climax, the witch drove her two hooked talons deep into his bulging eyes and ripped the orbs from their bloody sockets. As blood sprayed from the hideous hollows, Cynara laughed in counterpoint to the man's exclamation of agony.

She could feel that she (Cynara) was regressing further back in time as the demon's wicked sorcery took her to every corner of the world. She felt the tingle of some insatiable yearning blossoming in the pit of her heart and guts like a blind hunger. There was indeed a point to all of this madness; a definite purpose to Cynara's global campaign of terror. As Contayza lived the witch's life in reverse, she began to feel that Cynara had embarked upon a diabolical quest, searching for the thing that would fill the dark void that never gave her peace. Contayza intuited all of these things but she could not discern the source and nature of that need, though something whispered that the motivations were quite obvious. Her faculties of thought seemed to have been dulled as though she had taken some mind numbing hallucinogenic, while her vital senses were enhanced to incredible new heights.

Contayza came upon the point where need became action as Cynara wandered the dim darkness of turn of the century Europe, alone and surprisingly empty. She witnessed the Dark Lady lash out viciously in an effort to quell the need that she, herself, could not define. Cynara took life as though murder was the key to some tremendous inner tranquility that had stubbornly eluded her.

' _No, that's not quite right_ ,' Contayza amended distantly.

The water through which she sped now felt soothing and languid like a delicately scented pool. It gave all of this blood shed a dreamy, incidental quality. Contayza no longer felt repulsed by the carnage. After all, this was Cynara, the huntress, the Night Queen. Could a creature so regal, so exquisite be bound by the superficial morality of mere mortals? Contayza found herself viewing the victims as faceless sheep and not living, breathing human beings with individual identities. Did Cynara not take life with the reverence of the consummate predator? The Dark Lady bestowed a measure of nobility upon her wretched victims merely by selecting them to serve her blood lust.

Beyond the walls of this necropolis, the faint whirl of a vast, invisible machine could be heard as it sprang to life. The powerful reverberation spoke of something of unimaginable size and strength as it labored endlessly in a distant, dark chamber.

"You are feeling and hearing the life force of my soul," a booming voice informed her. Only, what she heard was not ' _my soul_ ', but ' _our soul_ '. The voice was throaty, yet melodious; a siren's voice if ever Contayza had heard one.

She grew ever closer to the source, to the day of Turning. She drank in the view of a much younger land; verdant, untamed and somehow raw. Desiccating corpses hung, rotating, from trees like morbid ornaments. Scavenger birds dined casually upon the tender morsels, while the villagers tried fruitlessly to ignore the horror. Even this contemptuous display of indifference to humanity did not horrify Contayza. The bodies had been suspended there with the purpose of instilling terror into the hearts of the villagers. It was necessary for these were a cut throat lot with no sense of loyalty or gratitude. There was an intrinsic rightness to these measures, a cruel and unavoidable necessity.

Her senses were restored to her then. She could feel, though not see, her own body as she coursed through the dark waters. The sensation was warm, soothing and at once exhilarating. The restoration of her faculties allowed her to experience the world about her more sharply. Still, Contayza was suffused by the certainty that she and the Dark Lady had somehow merged and that this had become her world; her dark and richly textured history.

She found that this notion did not displease her.

In the rigid hollow of rock, Contayza's eyes began to shift under their lids as if she were peering into another dimension. A smile bloomed upon her lips as hard and humorless as the grin of a shark. The six men exchanged concerned, uneasy glances. Something was definitely happening.

The tiny thread of reality that connected Contayza's body to her floating spirit grew frighteningly thin as she plunged ever deeper into Cynara's polluted soul. In the lighted chamber of her mind warning klaxons began to blare stridently, but their cries were filtered through to her spirit as nothing more than irritating buzzing. The flow of the dark waters eventually blocked them out completely.

But the power! Dark Father, the power was incredible. She could sense it now. It flowed into every crevice of her spirit body, making her tremble and sing with a pleasure that was so pronounced as to be excruciating. It caused her to twist and squirm with delight.

It was so close now. The dagger of her deliverance was looming upon the horizon like the key to eternity that it was. The edge was sharp and oh so lethal, yet nonetheless compelling.

"Now, Contayza! You must look now!" that buzzing voice screeched with frantic insistence. She willfully ignored it.

Every fiber of her being was at once ignited with an ineffable lust. All of this would be hers. Pure and unadulterated power to do with as she wished. Every indulgence, every whim could be fulfilled. Cynara (Contayza) shivered in the throes of bitter sweet ecstasy as a metallic ring cut through the air and a decapitated head hit the ground with a muffled thud. Alasha! Sweet Alasha. Too proud Alasha.

Contayza was struck by a stellar flash of pain, brief but intense. There and gone. Contayza did not understand the source of that pain, but found that her ignorance did not matter.

"I am in you and you are in me," came the lilting voice, so huge that it seemed to fill the entire world causing the earth to shudder in awe. Contayza realized that this ringing pronouncement was true. The warm, sweet liquid that flowed over her body could only be the life blood of the Dark Lady. Abruptly, that lust reasserted itself; that desire to fuse herself to the other and couple like eternal wantons. It came to her fevered mind that this coupling would herald the birth of a new power and that puissance would be hers to wield at her slightest whim. Willingly, she opened herself to it; seemingly spreading from horizon to blood spattered horizon. The scent of decay and death reached her nostrils as jasmine and lavender.

A dark shape abruptly took form above her, penetrating her in a torrent of heat and hardness. She arched her back in response to the caressing touch that was kneading the flesh of her full breasts and the steaming tongue that was turning her nipples into tight knots of sensory pleasure. She gave everything back with equal ardor, digging her nails into the invisible flesh and locking her thighs around invisible hips. Gazing up into the brown eyes that floated above her, Contayza could see nothing other than the vast expanse of brown and the whirling amber flecks that reminded her of the summer sun.

The succubus began to thrust, its strokes imperative and delicious. It moved inside of her like poetry, striving to elicit the response that would sever the life line and recreate Contayza Prowzi as an ignoble parody of what she had once been.

The muscles of her neck seemed to have turned to jelly and her head lolled to the left. She peered through one of the doors to see a peasant woman kneeling upon a cold stone floor that glistened damply in the dull light. Her cheeks also glistened with tears of fear and misery. Sweeping into view like the reaper himself, clad in a floor length robe of crushed black velvet, Cynara seized the woman's head in her hands and jerked it savagely, first left and then right. There came two resounding cracks in rapid succession and then Cynara released the body, allowing it to slide to the floor. She stood with her back to Contayza, but when she pivoted about, Contayza found that she was no longer gazing at the beautiful countenance of the Night Queen. Instead, she saw her own face alive with the dark ecstasy of freshly-committed murder.

Through sorcery, or perhaps her own iniquitous desires, she had become the Dark Lady, had recreated Cynara in her own image. She had killed the peasant woman without a hint of remorse.

This revelation did not appall Contayza. In fact, the visceral thrill of taking life pushed her ever closer to submission.

"For the power of the ages to be yours, you need only say yes," the spectral voice informed her.

Ah and how she wanted to utter that single word of affirmation. One word and immortality could be hers. She could shrug off the cloying mantle of civility and obligations and become a creature whose only obligation would be to herself. Contayza, what little was left of her, could feel the word rising up in her throat, trembling wildly upon her pleasure twisted lips. The prospect made it impossible to reason...to think, while such magic was being worked upon her. She inclined her head and opened her mouth to utter the word of her damnation.

3

As Contayza's fateful encounter with the spirit of her enemy reached its climax, her physical body spasmed with what was unmistakably carnal delight. Six pair of eyes watched as one while her left hand came up and began to draw down the zipper of her snow suit. In the charged silence, the grating of metal upon metal was as resounding as thunder. Once the zipper reached her waist, Contayza slipped her left hand into the folds of the suit. Beneath, she wore only a thermal body stocking of white translucent material. The seeking fingers glided over the large breasts, delicately caressing each nipple in turn.

Jimmy struggled to suppress a cry of anguish when Contayza arched her back and began to undulate. The cadence of her moaning seemed to rise and then drop off, rise and then drop off as though she were responding to a lover's rhythmic penetration. Slowly, the hand traveled over the flat expanse of her belly to the confluence of her passion. Unable to bear any more, Jimmy turned away; despising himself for the dark sparks of arousal that Contayza's erotic exhibition had evoked.

"What in God's name is happening to her?" Ivan demanded. There was a wavering, hysterical edge to his voice that bordered upon outright panic. He crossed over to where Jimmy stood and took hold of the American's shoulders, shaking him vigorously. "I asked you what the hell is wrong with her?"

Contayza continued to writhe and moan softly. The other three Romanians were caught between horrified fascination and embarrassment. Jimmy regarded Ivan dully. The Romanian could discern the tears glistening in the other man's eyes. Those tears spoke more eloquently than Jimmy ever could. Ivan did not believe it when Jimmy responded, "I...I don't know."

"Cynara has gotten to her somehow," Nath interjected softly. Jimmy swiveled to face his half brother, despising Simpson for putting his worst fears into words, as though to speak it made it all the more real. Ivan released Simms and scrambled over to the smaller American. "No! Not Contayza! Never."

As Jimmy traced his movements, he noticed that a glacial calmness had stolen back into the Romanian's eyes, though his face had contorted into a mask of torment. He appeared as he had just seconds before he had shooting his comrade back in Petru's killing box.

Ivan snapped up his rifle and shot the bolt. Jimmy heard the bullet slide into the chamber as though hearing the final beat of his heart, amplified to deafening levels by disbelief and terror.

' _Holy fuck, he actually means to shoot her_!' he realized. Despite that terrible certainty, he found that he could not move, could not intervene. He stood paralyzed as though he had gazed upon Medusa and turned to feeling stone; unable to move but still acutely aware.

Whimpering now, Ivan raised the rifle to his cheek, aiming for the center of his sister's left breast. His finger slid into the trigger housing and he steadied himself to fire. "May whatever God there is forgive me. There is another bullet for me when this is done."

Ivan Prowzi pulled the trigger and the report of the rifle filled the winter air like thundering judgment.

4

Even as she inclined her head, Contayza could feel the succubus increase the frenetic pounding of its lovemaking, spurred on by the prospect of its impending triumph. She marveled at the intensity of the heat which their coupling generated, wondering if it might not ignite and consume them at their moment of release.

They were rocketing toward the Turning, propelled faster by the increasing rhythm of their intercourse. In a lucid moment, Contayza suspected that her surrender would probably coincide with the fall of the dagger, recreating her exactly as Cynara. Her body jerked and quivered as the specter breathed, hot and sweet, against her throat.

"Give yourself to me. Speak the word and accept the gift of power," The succubus implored, punctuating each word with a swift and exquisite thrust. Cynara's moment of capitulation spread itself across the horizon as if it were an unfurled banner. She saw Gregory, younger and more viscerally alive, raise the knife and scream some unheard invocation to his dark god. His expression was as wild as the stormy night around him. The succubus was bleating inarticulate shrieks of pleasure in her ear.

The dagger reached the zenith of its arc and paused for the tiniest fraction of a second. ' _I'm about to learn what it's like to be truly alive_ ,' Contayza thought ecstatically.

And then she saw his eyes.

Resigned, glacial blue, they locked onto hers, fusing with her in a moment of perfect empathy. In those eyes, she gleaned an immeasurable sadness and something that could be either reproach or disappointment. He spoke the words that pierced her heart. "Looking into your soul, I see many similarities between the two of you. You are the same."

An instant before, the idea had filled her with limitless bliss and drooling anticipation. Coming from his lips, it cut into her heart as swiftly and incisively as any dagger ever could.

She felt the welling cry of negation rising in her throat, coming at her from an unfathomable distance, gaining force and speed as it went. "Noooooo!"

It vaporized the succubus, leaving her feeling cold and obscenely dirty; like rape. In a frenzied voice, it cried, "Then go back and die, whore!"

On the horizon, the dagger fell home with a shrill whistle, but she was already moving away from it. The illusory scents and veneers had all worn off and she could smell the bitter, malodorous stench of death suffocating her. She was buried alive in the rancid black mud of Cynara's soul. She had to find an egress or she would go stark, raving mad. The panorama of death sickened her as she retreated back to the safety of her own mind. She wanted to close her eyes, to shut down her mind and senses, but she had come with a purpose and would endure until that purpose had been served.

It was there, no more than a glimmer in a gallery of macabre light. Still, it etched itself deep into the clay of her frazzled memory and she would not forget.

Headlong now, Contayza made a desperate surge for home.

5

Nath watched impassively as insanity seized control of the moment in the hollow. Jimmy was paralyzed by terror and despair. Ivan had lost his reason in the face of his sister's possible corruption. Nath watched all of this with the detachment of one who is viewing a Gothic melodrama on television.

He remained stationary until the moment that Ivan raised the gun and prepared to fire. Then he reacted.

Sailing over Jimmy in a sprawling lunge, Nath brought his right forearm up in a sweeping motion which deflected the barrel toward the heavens. The bullet sped upward as though in protest to an indifferent God. The recoil laid open Ivan's cheek and jerked the rifle out of his hands. He sank to the snow with blood flowing from between his laced fingers. Nath rolled clumsily, came to his feet and barked, "Idiot, can you not think at all?"

His gaze shifted to Jimmy who was staring back at him with an expression of profound relief.

"There is a much simpler way," Nath muttered, striding over to Contayza. Bending down across the body of the sprawled beauty, praying that he had not misinterpreted Gregory's action of the previous night, Nath clutched the pendant and attempted to pull it free of Contayza's grasp.

There was a flash of incandescent blue light, blinding in the night sky, and Nath found himself being thrown backward with the smell of his seared flesh strong in his nostrils. He collided with the wall of the depression, punching the air from his lungs and sending him face first into the snow. Only then did he feel the full effect of the pain in his hand. It blared like a siren, making him feel sick and giddy.

Contayza still had not relented her grip on the jade pendant. She cried out, but Jimmy could not determine if her cry had been inspired by fear or denial. The three others were slowly backing away from the carnage, looking as though they might take to their heels at any second. They would readily go to war with an iron fisted tyrant, but they had no heart to fight a rampant demon.

Jimmy gaped about in dazed wonder. Nath groaned and struggled to regain his feet. Ivan still clutched his wounded cheek, looking very much like a shrapnel victim. Contayza's wild thrashing had ceased. She lay perfectly still and for one terrifying moment, Jimmy felt certain that she had died, but as he ventured closer, her eyes flew open like broken shades. They stretched impossibly wide, held that way for an interminable moment, and then she began to cry. She did nothing as restrained as simple weeping or a muted shedding of tears. She began to sob, to wail as though her tears were a venomous toxin that would kill her if they were not expelled.

Hands groping wildly at the air, Contayza gasped as if she were suffocating. Jimmy rushed over to where she writhed and held her in his arms, rocking her as though she were a small child. He felt her body tremble violently and understood that what she was feeling was not pain but terror. Then his own tears began to fall, but they were tears of relief. He drew her tighter and whispered into the mantle of her hair. "You're all right. You're safe now. I won't let anyone hurt you. I promise."

It was entirely likely that he would be unable to keep that particular promise, but he was determined to try, regardless of the price.

Chapter Forty Four

It was a long time before Contayza regained enough of her composure to coherently relate the things that had befallen her during her excursion into the blackness. Her thoughts were confused and muddled, defying her efforts to put them into words. Above this confusion was a pervasive tension that gnawed at her; a terror so elemental that it stuck in her throat and raked at her heart and lungs, making it difficult to breathe and virtually impossible to think.

' _I was so close to absolute corruption_ ,' she told herself over and over again. ' _I allowed myself to be violated, to be raped. Oh Holy Mother, I opened my soul like a common whore and let her plunder it_.' She scourged herself with the imagery of her willing defilement. She had wanted to succumb to the temptation. Even her vanity could not deny that. Gregory had been proven truthful in his assertion; she was like Cynara. In some wicked, lightless chamber of her own heart, she aspired to emulate the Dark lady, longing to revel in decadence and darkness, to wallow in it like an intoxicated swine.

In the unflattering light of revelation, Contayza now regarded herself as despicable and base. She wondered wretchedly if there was any power that could wash away these stains. She found it bitterly laughable that she had once believed she would be the one to confront and kill the demon. Cynara would effortlessly brush aside the draperies of self delusion and false morality to expose the true Contayza. Then she would have the gypsy; body, mind, heart and soul.

She recalled something that Jimmy had angrily predicted on the first night. "I'll bet that you have a lot of romantic, schoolgirl notions about Cynara. She'll tear your head off and drink your blood as though it were wine."

How painfully true that observation had proven itself to be. She did not tell them all of this, of course, but the essence of it came through nonetheless. Her eyes were no longer defiant, but now humble and haunted.

Whore! Gypsy slut! Her own mind heaped this derision upon her in a steady stream, each reproof stinging like the lash of a whip. The constant flow of tears spelled out the extent of her degradation more succinctly than words ever could. Her inner strength had apparently deserted her. She had never cried before another living soul, not even as a little girl. Contayza had always locked her sorrow away, compartmentalizing and thus controlling it. Now the tears ran like rivers over her cheeks, hot in the frigid night air. She found herself powerless to halt their fall. Was there a certain measure of redemption in those tears? She desperately wanted to believe that there was.

Silently, Nath and Jimmy listened to her speak. Hot shame emanated from Prowzi in a palpable wave. Her grief was inconsolable and though both men wished to try, each realized that she would have to come to terms with her ordeal in her own time and on her own terms.

Staring fixedly into the fire, she inquired, "What happened to your hand, Nathaniel? The cut on Ivan's cheek, how did he get that?"

The two men glanced at each other, a silent agreement passing between the pair. Neither would ever tell Contayza of what Ivan had come so close to doing. Nathaniel spun the lie for the both of them. "I tried to pull the pendant from your hand, but some kind of electrical charge stopped me. It singed the skin on my hand and bounced me into Ivan like a rubber ball. He fell backwards and cut his face in the fall."

She regarded him sharply for a moment, perhaps intuiting the lie, but then averted her eyes and remarked quietly, "I'm sorry, Nathaniel. It seems that I've quite a talent for hurting those around me."

Nath waved his hand dismissively and gave her a crooked, tired grin. "I've been hurt a lot worse. This is just a scratch and in any event, what happened wasn't your fault. What matters is that you're safe. You've been scarred, but all scars fade with time."

She smiled. It was a subdued version of the old lustrous flash, but it was a smile all the same. ' _He is wrong for once_ ,' she thought. Some wounds are mortal and worse still, some leave an indelible mark on your very soul. Still, Tayza derived a good deal of comfort from having the two Americans nearby. They could not completely banish the pain, but they at least made it bearable.

Then Jimmy posed the question upon which their fate was hinged, "Contayza, did you see it? Did you find the place where Cynara has hidden her dagger?"

There was one cold consolation in all of this that made her depredation bearable. She had been on the brink of understanding everything before she had taken hold of the pendant; the things that must be done and the role that each would play in doing them. Yet, there had been an obtuse, dreamy quality to many of these things. Her trial had resolved all of this confusion, dispelling all of the aberrations while bringing the task at hand into perfect focus with a terrifying clarity.

"In the final seconds, before I returned to myself and immediately before Cynara left me, I caught a glimpse of something. It was a, a cave, I think...or more precisely, the mouth of a cave. There was a man on a horse guarding the entrance to the cave. I can't be positive that this was what he was doing, but his sword was drawn and his posture suggested that he would stop whoever attempted to enter."

"Who was he?" Jimmy interrupted, though he was uncertain why he had felt compelled to ask that particular question. Contayza shook her head. "I don't know. He was quite handsome. Very proper and very tall. He carried himself like an aristocrat or a knight. Maybe it doesn't matter who he was. The symbolism may be too obscure to grasp for the time being."

She reflected on this for several seconds and then corrected herself. "It probably does matter, but I still have no idea who he was. The darkness beyond the mouth of the cave was solid and deep. Realistically, I should never have been able to look into it, but the astral world gives its travelers a heightened acuity, I guess. I saw a dagger spinning madly, hovering in the air at least six feet off of the cave floor. It was an exquisitely crafted weapon, not anything like the crude thing that Gregory had shown us. Its haft was encrusted with Rubies and emeralds. They cast alternating waves of red and green over the cave walls as the dagger spun. I saw all of this in the blink of an eye, but it was all so incredibly clear despite how quickly it passed."

The recollection appeared to have absorbed Contayza. Her eyes stared into the middle distance, wide and vacuous, as she watched it all played out on the screen of her memory. The two allowed her to ponder for a second longer and then Nath prodded gently, "Contayza, do you have any way of knowing where the cave is located?"

She glanced up at him and for an unsettling moment, he had the notion that she was really seeing someone else. "In the hills near Chevru, just as I suspected. She has hidden it there and set the man on the horse to guard it. She feels secure in the knowledge that he protects the dagger, that he is invincible, but there is something that she has not anticipated."

"Is there any way to be more specific? How close to Chevru? Can you be more specific?" Jimmy's questions came in an excited barrage. They could find the knife. It was entirely possible that they could find the damned knife. In his mind, he could already picture himself working the dagger slowly into her heart, prolonging her death for the sheer pleasure of hearing her scream. He shivered as Contayza whisked her presence through his mind. She shook her head almost apologetically. "The hills around Chevru are laced with caves and hollows. It is close to Chevru, but beyond that I can't tell you anything else."

"Jimmy, there is something else you must understand. There is a fundamental truth couched in the things that have happened to you and Nath, thus far. Gregory hinted at as much and I almost caught a glint of it, but my vanity...my arrogance prevented me from grasping his message. You were right about me, Jimmy Simms; I am petulant and vain. Stupid in my arrogance."

Jimmy was shaking his head doggedly, but she overrode his protest. "No, there's no need to deny any of this now. My experience tonight was an affirmation of everything you've said. In painful and humiliating terms, I've discovered exactly what I am and what I could well become, given the right circumstances."

"Christ, Contayza, Cynara is the best at what she does. She is a temptress, a beguiler. She's seduced and corrupted so many people that we couldn't even make a good guess at the number. What will be gained by beating yourself over the head with what happened tonight? She almost beat you again, but in the end she didn't. You were stronger than she was."

Contayza bent forward and gently touched his wrist. He found that he could not meet the firm, yet kind eyes. "Jimmy, I did not beat Cynara. The thing that I confronted was only a dim echo of what she truly is. Still, I managed to escape by only the slimmest of margins. When the truth falls down upon you as hard as it did tonight, you would be a fool to ignore it. I've come to recognize my essential nature, though the realization has killed a part of what I am. There's a part of me that craves the darkness...that wishes to succumb to absolute decadence. Gregory said as much and he was right. I cannot even give myself the false luxury of believing that it was eternal life that I desired. At least that would be remarkably human. I wanted to take life and to wield immeasurable power and to satisfy my every black lust, irrespective of the consequences. There is a tiny part of me that's like a cancer. It is dormant now, but it may be roused at any moment. Cynara would see this and know how to exploit it. I lack the strength to vanquish her because some malefic part of my soul longs to be what she is. Perhaps with the mere wave of a hand, she could turn me against everything I hold sacred; my family, you and Nathaniel."

Jimmy was weeping now. He tried to speak, but his choking tears strangled the denial in his throat. He hung his head and put his hand to his face. Contayza crossed over to the American and enfolding him in her arms, cradled his face against her neck. She felt a sudden spark of sympathy for him, but only a very tiny one. She supposed that it was difficult to feel any sympathy for another's grief when you had lost the capacity to feel for your own. Nath regarded the pair with his usual inscrutable expression. She favored him with a tentative smile. He nodded as though he knew precisely what she intended to say next and was conveying his tacit approval.

"Jimmy, I cannot kill Cynara. My role in this was to locate the dagger, but mine will not be the hand to wield it. I'm not worthy...and neither are you."

He pulled back from her abruptly, studying her face through tear blurred eyes. She appeared cold and distant; almost cruel in her certainty.

"What do you mean?" The words escaped his lips as a wounded sigh.

"What I'm about to tell you is only speculation. If you ask me for irrefutable proof, I won't be able to provide any. There is a common thread that has woven its way through the fabric of your lives over the past twenty years. It may seem invisible, but it is still there. It has connected all of this and formed it into an esoteric pattern. Think of it as an invisible current of fate flowing to form a particular pattern in history. Though it may seem ridiculous and grandiose, I believe that it is the thread of destiny. We are too close, too involved in the workings to visualize what the pattern may eventually become, but if we are perceptive enough, we may be able to gather clues." Contayza glanced at Jimmy. Clouds of confusion obscured his expression. ' _Dear Jimmy, you are a plodder_ ,' she thought, though not unkindly. Nath was regarding her with an expression of intense speculation. ' _He sees, and if he doesn't, he will soon_ ,' she realized jubilantly.

Jimmy raised his right hand and absently massaged the hollow of his right temple. He didn't understand any of what she was saying and perhaps he didn't particularly want to. "Contayza, I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. Forget the analogies. I'm too tired and too damned scared to think so hard. You said I wasn't worthy and I want to know what you meant."

Contayza sighed wearily and then offered the man an affectionate smile. "Everything that has happened to Nathaniel and yourself has had a purpose; a specific role in some grand design. Cynara was the first one to conceive the plan, to sow the first thread, if you will. Some vague instinct tells me that she may have lost control of the weave."

"Why would you say that, Contayza? She's certainly got us between the proverbial rock and hard place." Nath seemed to have posed the question not so much to contradict her as to force her to elaborate. His pallid face had grown animated and expectant.

"I'll answer that question with a question of my own. Why do you think Cynara hasn't chosen to simply appear and kill the three of us? Why did she not do so at any time during the past twenty years?"

"She couldn't kill us. She tried several times, actually. We've already told you that," Jimmy replied irritably.

Contayza shook her head vehemently. Speaking patiently, as though to a small and inattentive child, she explained, "No Jimmy, you've missed the salient point to everything that has befallen you. Cynara has never really attempted to kill you or me for that matter. She's always tried to kill you through an agent. Cynara has never made a direct attempt against us."

Contayza watched and waited as a spark dawned in Jimmy's eyes. Now, Contayza thought gladly, now he sees. Nath was gazing at her with a ghost of a smile playing upon is lips as though he had discovered something rare and precious. Contayza forged ahead. "Nath told of his trial in the sewers of Brasov. Cynara had come to you then, just as she had once come to you as a boy. She made no effort to kill you, only tempt and humiliate you. Wouldn't you agree, Nathaniel?"

Nath reflected on the nightmare. His mind had gone to elaborate lengths to block it out, to lock it away in an inaccessible part of his mind. Now, the ugly incident felt as though it was something that had happened in another lifetime, another world. God, has it only been six days, he asked himself in disbelief. He dredged the milky depths of his subconscious, forcing his mind to conjure forth the horror. It came to him agonizing bit by agonizing bit. The cloying smell of excrement and urine. The torrent of emotions; sometimes terror and sometimes expectation. He saw her face; a work of art granted life. He vividly recalled the haunting smile and the mocking eyes. She humiliated him, but had she ever appeared close to killing him? "No, she had no intention of killing me. I even attacked her. She hurt me, but no more than that."

"Do you think that she could've killed you, had she desired to do so?"

"Yes," Nath responded without hesitation.

"Okay, I still don't understand. She could've killed him, but she didn't so what's your point?" Jimmy demanded, either out of frustration with his own inability to comprehend or exasperation with Contayza's circumspect approach to making her point.

"She could have killed us all, but she deliberately chose not to. She is operating with a specific script. In El Zaltaro, she wished to have Jimmy burned at the stake. She would have succeeded, had Nath not proved so...inventive. He thwarted her scheme. She made no accommodation for his love and his willingness to sacrifice himself. Don't you see, Cynara has no understanding of human nature? She is totally baffled by the higher emotions, such as love and sacrifice. Those emotions are wild cards in the deck and she has no control over when the will turn up or how they'll influence play. I now think there are more wild cards in the deck than she could ever imagine."

"Take Gregory for example, how could she ever have anticipated him coming to us? He's a demon, just like her. She believes that she's killed him and he's now provided us with the means to destroy her; a secret that she thought to be completely secure. There are other things; the angel in the cell and your rescue and subsequent alliance with us. All of it suggests a situation that has spiraled beyond her control. Still, there is the question of why she does not appear and kill us face to face. She inadvertently provided us with the answer in Bucharest. Why test Nathaniel? Why go to such complex lengths to humiliate him if her only intention is to kill him? The answer is obvious; she does not intend to kill him before she's corrupted him. There in lies the key to all of this. It is why both you and I, Jimmy, are unworthy of the dagger. We have lost our innocence exactly as she presumed we would. You killed scores of unarmed people in El Zaltaro. You did it to save your own life, but it is impossible to retain innocence in the face of murder, justified or otherwise."

She paused for a moment, if only to draw a breath. It would have been impossible for her to adequately describe what she was feeling at that moment. The emotions were formless, but so very powerful. They watched her expectantly, like acolytes before a great master. "I'm unworthy, not because of my actions, but because of the darkness in my heart. Cynara has placed obstacles in our path not so much to kill us as to defile our innocence. With Jimmy and me, she has succeeded. If we were to go to her as we are, she would destroy us with great ease...or perhaps worse. Even if we were able to find the dagger, I am almost certain that it would prove worthless in our hands."

"Then we really are lost," Nath remarked, his face a portrait of dejection.

"No, we are not lost, dammit! Have you not been listening to a word I've said?" she flared at him, startling the others. Nath glanced up, nonplussed by her outburst. Her cheeks had gone scarlet and her eyes had regained some of their old passion. She was breathtakingly beautiful in her intensity. "You are the one who must find the dagger and end the demon's reign of terror. It has always been you, no matter what you've encountered. No matter how sly the temptation or how alluring the offer of seduction, you have steadfastly refused to surrender your innocence."

Nathaniel's face crumpled. Miserably wounded and choked with anguish, he whispered, "Contayza, how can you be capable of such cruelty. I told you everything about Brasov. What could possibly move you to taunt me with this?"

A sharp stab of guilt lanced her heart then. She had never imparted the things that she had felt after she had held the child's locket. Only now, after everything had made itself clear to her, did she gain some perception of the torment to which he'd been subjected. By holding her tongue that night, she had unwittingly protracted that torment. "Nathaniel, you are the one who must find the dagger and slay the demon," she reiterated tonelessly. "If you have learned anything from your experiences in the pursuit of this monster it is surely that Cynara is a master of allegory. Her actions all have hidden meaning, so obscure that it is possible that even she does not fully comprehend their significance. When I took your mother's locket into my hands, the touch unleashed a tide of emotions that came close to overwhelming me. Imagine living a lifetime compressed into the space of mere minutes. It is a small miracle that such journeys don't leave the traveler insane, their senses in smoldering ruin."

She scurried to him so quickly that he actually flinched back from her. Mindless of his alarm, Contayza took his face in her hands and forced his gaze to meet hers. "Nathaniel, when I held the girl's locket in my hands, I felt nothing. There was no aura, only a void."

He stared back at her, dubious, if not openly mistrusting. "I don't know what you mean?"

Adamantly, almost harshly as though speaking to someone who was being deliberately obtuse, Contayza elaborated, "There was no girl, Nathaniel."

Surprisingly, Simpson's reaction was one of sputtering outrage. "There was. I saw her. Read the naked fear in her eyes. I heard her scream when that thing took her."

There were tears being born in the corners of his eyes, but they were powerless to deter the steel will in Contayza's expression or soften her grip upon his face. She had to make him understand, irrespective of how painfully that comprehension might be obtained. "It was an illusion. An elaborate deception. When I opened the locket, I saw a picture of myself as a child. There was no girl that night, Nathaniel...only another prop in Cynara's dark drama."

"But why? Why would she go to such lengths to deceive me?"

"It would delight me to think that she did it because she was desperate, though that might be wishful thinking. Essentially, Cynara does not wish to simply kill us. If it were only a matter of that, we would have been dead long ago. I've gained a new insight into the workings of her mind. Death is never enough for Cynara. She would consider our deaths a mere stalemate. Her ego is too large to be mollified by such an outcome. She wants total capitulation. She wants to destroy our bodies and defile our souls; to humiliate us until our self contempt kills us like poison. She has done that with Jimmy, though he may not be aware of it and she has definitely succeeded in doing it with me. Only you have proven immune to her. You have suffered and persevered and it has endowed you with a mantle of invulnerability. In my mind, the ruse in Brasov was a desperate gambit. She very nearly succeeded in convincing you that your soul had been violated. It has not been compromised because there was no girl, only an optical illusion. You wear that locket around your neck as a symbol of impurity, but it has no efficacy."

"Still, symbolic or real, I let her do it. I let her sacrifice the symbol to the monster in the name of my desire. I did it because I believed that I could gain some insight into what had become of my mother."

Again the pronouncement was delivered in the same dispassionate voice and her eyes were as cold as silver. "Your mother is dead and you're still here. You are dying and you are still here. If the rest of us were dead and the scar gone from your chest, you would crawl to Cynara with the last of your strength, carrying the dagger between your teeth. You would endure any depredation, any abject misery, but you would never relent until one of you had died. When you have stripped away every personal motivation, all that remains is integrity and righteousness."

It was true. He would do that and he understood this implicitly. Even if his mind stubbornly refused to accept this truth, his actions were truth enough. He posed the question that trembled upon his lips, "Why did you not tell me this the first night? Did you not see how I was suffering?"

She released his face and stood up. She shrugged her shoulders in a desultory gesture of apology and smile. It was not her characteristic radiant smile. This was the deadly steel within the threshing machine. "Like I said earlier, part of me is just an evil hearted bitch."

Both Jimmy and Nath gawked at her. With some satisfaction, she saw acceptance blazing in both faces. Then, for the first time that night, she said something that was completely untrue; though none of them had any inkling of it at the time. "If you wish one final piece of evidence, ask why Cynara couldn't kill you after she had killed Petru's soldiers."

She turned and walked away without awaiting a reply. It had been a rhetorical question that served to hammer her point home. The contentment she was presently feeling was both immeasurable and indescribable. She had never felt more certain, more assured, in her entire life. This experience, despite its inherent terror, had endowed her with wisdom, however fleeting, and the means to put that wisdom to use. Her role in this dark drama was almost done, or so she thought then, but she could pride herself in having performed it magnificently.

Contayza Prowzi would experience another moment of bliss, much like this one, before the hellish ordeal was over. Yet, never in the life which remained to her, would she be revisited by the almost clairvoyant conviction that she knew what path to follow and what would be required of her along the way. God, in his dubious omniscience, grants precious few of these moments.

The snow had stopped finally and the night sky was hard and cold. A million stars twinkled like jewels on a bed of black velvet. Contayza wondered if one of these stars held a wish for her. Her gaze fastened upon the brightest. She closed her eyes and silently mouthed her plea. Then she turned and went back to the others.

The moon rose, blazing golden light over the frozen expanse of snow. The empty light somehow emphasized the bitter cold that had replaced the falling snow. The group sat together and talked, conversing deep into the heart of the night. Huddled around the fire, they discussed and debated the courses of action to be taken or avoided.

Contayza said little, only occasionally taking her eyes from the perpetual dance of the fire. Finally, she cleared her throat for silence and declared, "There is one final thing that must be done. We must divide into groups and go our separate ways."

The other six reacted with predictable outrage. She ignored their protest. "While we travel as a group, there is always the risk that we will be ambushed as we were before. If we die, Cynara may never be brought to the end that she deserves. We may be the only humans on earth who know of the ritual of the Turning and the power of their daggers. That knowledge must be recorded and preserved, even at the expense of destroying Saravic."

"There are three things that must be done. Ivan and one of the others must find their way back to the home province and warn the families of the government's threat. Both Jimmy and I must go to Chevru. Together, we will record what we have learned of Cynara, her true nature and the power of the dark ritual. Along with Rebecca's journal, we must ensure that our knowledge finds its way into the hands of those with the courage and resources to act upon it. We must be there to help Nathaniel if he should manage to find the dagger. Nathaniel, your task takes precedence over the others. You must search until you have found the dagger and then you must strike against Cynara. The demon cannot be allowed to survive this. Our lives and the lives of our families would be small sacrifice for Cynara's death."

Her declaration provoked a frenzy of protests. She met each of these with the same implacable logic with which she had confronted Nath and Jimmy. Under the determined weight of her relentless rhetoric, the group at last agreed to split, pledging to reunite in Hungary when the nightmare finally ended. Two of the Romanians agreed to help Nathaniel in his search for the dagger. They would guide him through the hills and mountains surrounding Chevru and protect him as best they could. When he found the dagger, they would be released from their obligation and would be free to go back to their families. Nath would then come to Chevru and rejoin Jimmy and Contayza. Together, the trio would confront Cynara. The odds that they would find the dagger and then kill Saravic were prohibitive, but they decided to accept them anyway, seeing little other alternative.

Near noon the next day, the seven came together for the final time. The five Romanians exchanged hugs and emotional farewells. Ivan vowed that he would do everything he could to keep the family safe from Petru and his henchmen.

Jimmy and Nath stood together, slightly apart from the others, feeling awkward and inexplicably sad. They had been linked by a nightmare that had lasted for over twenty years. Each had come to regard the other as a brother during that time, bonded by both love and loss. Each man groped to find the proper words to express what they were feeling, but none seemed adequate to convey the regret and bitterness that hovered over both. Each could only stare silently at the ground, embarrassed and sick at heart. Contayza moved to join them, mercifully breaking the moment. "Nathaniel, Samuel and Misha will be going with you. Samuel speaks a bit of English, enough to get by anyway. They are good men. Reliable men."

Nath smiled warmly, but did not respond. How he had come to love this dynamic little beauty. For all of her flaws and impulsiveness, she was immeasurably precious. Though he doubted that she could see it, Nath had watched her grow from a child into a woman in the course of a few days. He suspected that she would continue to grow, to become extraordinary, before this ordeal reached its uncertain conclusion. He prayed that she would be the one to walk away from all of this. No matter what should befall the rest of them, he hoped for that one small triumph. She came forward and throwing her arms about his neck, kissed his cheek and held him tight. Then she pushed him to arms length and smiled. Nath was delighted to see that it was the old smile; vibrant and full of irrepressible optimism.

"Good luck, Nathaniel Simpson. You carry all of our hopes with you." Abruptly, she turned away and said to Jimmy, "It is late. We have to go."

The two men eyed each other for an interminable moment and then embraced. Nath finally broke the hug, suppressing the tears and emotion. He could see the wetness in Jimmy's eyes and knew that the other man was waging the same battle. Neither had been prepared for this moment. They had always expected to fight at each other's side and die that way should fate will it. Nath cleared his throat and declared, "Do you remember how we ran from Cynara that night, all of those years ago?"

Jimmy nodded. "We were just kids, Nath."

"Yes, only kids," Nath mused thoughtfully. "We're going back now. Things have come full circle, just as they were meant to."

Jimmy didn't reply. Instead, he glanced at Contayza, who stood waiting with the others. Nath followed his gaze and remarked, "She is a rare and beautiful woman, Jimmy. Take good care of her."

"I will, Nath. I can promise that much."

Nath smiled contentedly and took Jimmy's hand. Shaking it, he spoke the final words that would ever pass between them. "It's going to be all right. No matter what happens to you or me, it's going to be all right."

Jimmy nodded briefly, not trusting himself to speak. Without saying another word, Nath turned and began to walk northward in his shuffling stilted way. The two Romanians quickly moved to join him. He was nearly overwhelmed by a sense of loss so profound that it made him want to scream. Contayza appeared beside Jimmy and silently guided him over to the others. The four resumed their trek to the east. Jimmy fell to the back of the line, making no attempt to wipe away the warm tears that coursed down his cheeks.

It occurred to him that he had not even said goodbye.

Chapter Forty Five

1

She found it amazing how empty, how utterly devoid of life the palatial mansion had become. She had returned here earlier that afternoon, intending to await the next move by both her puppets and her enemies. This had been her sanctuary, her requiem, but when she had first stepped through the double oak doors of the main entrance, heels ringing hollowly upon the cold marble floor, Cynara suddenly felt as though the house had become alien terrain. She wandered aimlessly through the parlors and the library, ran her fingers longingly over the satin sheets and the cool brass posts of her bed. She had quickly retreated from that particular room, finding the sensation of emptiness especially pronounced there.

Now the night had fallen and the mansion had come alive with uneasy shadows and odd, restive shifting sounds. Her mounting agitation bemused her. Of course, Elizabeth's continued absence had a great deal to do with that (oh Elizabeth, where are you?), but there was much more to her angst than her absent lover. She, herself, had begun to change. Slowly, so as almost to be imperceptible at first and then with increasing frequency, Cynara had started to experience uncharacteristic emotions and reflections as though viewing the world through strange new eyes. She was shocked to find that her ferocity was inspired more by device than anger. The old gypsy had glimpsed some of this in her eyes. He had not been afraid of her as he should have been; wary but not fearful. Even when he had been delivered into Petru's hands and thus certain death, he had continued to regard her with a disdainful smirk. While infuriating, his contempt was also unsettling.

With these subtle changes had come the nagging uncertainty and this was perhaps the most insufferable change of all. Cynara had no experience in dealing with incessant doubt. Through her long life, she had approached everything with supreme confidence. Surely, she was infallible still? The three pathetic mortals who dared to call themselves her enemies, what hope could they possibly have? Even Elizabeth must inevitably return to her. The need was engrained into Simpson's soul. But when she returned, what transformations would she have undergone? This was a question that plagued Cynara constantly. The notion summoned recollections of Petru's account of Nathaniel's escape. Three of his five pursuers had been killed. What the two survivors insisted they had seen was a werewolf.

A werewolf? Elizabeth! She had intervened to save her son. Did that automatically mean she was an enemy now?

' _Is she with them this very moment plotting my death_?' It wasn't inconceivable, Cynara realized miserably. Even if it were not the case, she was convinced that the woman would return irrevocably altered and less dependent upon her master. If she wished to leave, what could Cynara possibly do to stop her? When she attempted to visualize that moment, her heart was ripped by a fundamental grief that was nearly paralyzing. Loneliness had been her constant companion for nearly a hundred years while she had searched the world for Elizabeth. Would she be able to endure a return to such emptiness? After long moments of self-scrutiny, she found that she did not know.

She drifted into the music room, with its rich woods and elegant furnishings. Sitting before the keyboard of the piano, Cynara idly ran her fingers over the ivory keys. Elizabeth had always been able to play with such grace and deft precision. Cynara straightened herself. As a night creature, she had been endowed with a flawless memory. She could see an intricate process once and later be able to duplicate it perfectly. She had watched Elizabeth often enough and could clearly picture the mesmerizing dance of her fingers along the keyboard. Conjuring that dance again, Cynara began to play. She selected a feathery, delicate Debussy and began.

The timing was perfect and the execution impeccable, but the music sounded flat and bereft of vitality. Grimacing, she labored to reconcile the music with the echo in her mind. A moment longer and she realized that it was futile. She forged ahead, finally striking a discordant, grating note, and then stopped.

"The ability to create all things artistic is directly proportionate to the artist's love and understanding of life. Without that essential appreciation, what would art be but a funeral dirge, a tribute to death," Elizabeth had said this once. Cynara recalled having been angry with the couched criticism, but now she saw the truth of it. Though it had remained unspoken, Elizabeth was subtly stating her belief that Cynara had nothing other than a talent for destruction. Without forethought, Cynara raised both of her hands, curled them into fists and brought them smashing down onto the keyboard. The ebony and ivory keys flew in all directions as the force of the blow tore off the front of the piano. Cynara stood with clenched fists, breathing heavily, and feeling shaken and weakened by her fit of anger.

"Cynara, will you never learn to control your temper?" came a voice from behind her.

"Elizabeth?" She had come back. Cynara felt an intoxicating rush of delight and relief, but when she turned around, her delight evaporated. It was not Elizabeth who stood watching her with a sly hint of mockery playing at the corner of her full lips.

"Alexandria! How dare you come here uninvited?" Cynara demanded, advancing on the red haired beauty who had once been a pharaoh's concubine. Cynara glared menacingly at the intruder, but Alexandria displayed no sign of fear or deference as she had always done in the past.

"Would you strike me, Cynara?" Would you raise your hand to our Father's chosen emissary?" Alexandria challenged. Cynara came to a halt, dropping her fists to her side. This was not the same sheepish, docile woman whom Cynara had always intimidated. She had become a stronger, more formidable demon. Warily, Saravic demanded, "What do you mean, ' _our Father's chosen emissary_ '?"

The smile hardened even further. Cynara shook with the desire to lash out at the beautiful face. She dug her nails into her thighs to suppress the urge. Mutual enmity lay, ugly and naked, between the pair. With great effort, Cynara restrained her anger. Much had changed in the Father's hierarchy if this creature had attained such a lofty position. Suddenly, Cynara found herself facing an extremely delicate situation. Uncoiling, she asked, "What is your message?"

Alexandria shrugged, evidently disappointed of Cynara's choice at restraint. "Await then. He will come to you."

The messenger knelt and Cynara did the same. They knelt on an oriental rug, no more than ten feet apart. Alexandria closed her eyes and inclined her head. With a parting of her lips, a thick red mist rolled out of her mouth, unfurling to the entire length of the library. Cynara felt the old wonder, that soaring rapture come to embrace her as the form of the Father materialized on the face of the mist. As always, he was resplendent in his fineries, but now Cynara found him to be somehow antiquated. ' _Do we serve no further purpose_?' Cynara wondered.

His gaze fell upon her hard and incisive, but not entirely without affection. At last, he said, "My beloved Cynara."

"Father," she replied simply, bowing her head in a gesture of fealty.

"You are lovely as always. The angel's hand has even reversed your disfigurement." His knowledge was alarming, his tone inscrutable.

Cynara said nothing, now apprehensive about his sudden coming. He continued to stare at her pensively for several moments, then he said, "It has been some time since we had occasion to see each other...since you've favored me with the pleasure of your company. Have you found your independence pleasing?"

Cynara shuddered then. He knew everything; her state of mind, the situation with Elizabeth. All of it. His appearance assumed terrifying ramifications. He saw her discomfort and favored her with a decidedly sad smile. "I suspect that it has not been entirely pleasing my child. Such promise. Such potential for greatness. It hurts me to see that it has come to this; cowering in this relic of a house while your enemies converge upon you. Fearful and insecure. Indecisive and timid. What has become of you? What twist has led you to this wretched state?"

She could not meet his eyes. Her own shame sickened her, while his disappointment was insufferable. The Father shook his head regretfully. "I am to blame for much of this. There are times when I am much too indulgent with my favored children. You were so devoted, so zealous in the execution of my will; it became easy to lose sight of the fact that you are a mere fledgling. I was errant to give you so much latitude and allow you the freedom to pursue your own ends without the benefit of my guidance. Even I, Cynara, am prone to the occasional error in judgment. You have suffered as a consequence."

Cynara looked at the shifting countenance pleadingly. "No, Father. Things are not as grim as all of that. I am still as I have always been. I..."

"Silence, child," the Father commanded, though not unkindly. "I have allowed you to exercise your own will and it has led you to the brink of catastrophe. Not just for yourself, but for all of my children. I find it distasteful that you would deceive yourself, but it is unthinkable that you would attempt to deceive me. You have left me with no alternative but to intervene and rectify your misdeeds."

She began to tremble then. He appeared just as he had prior to the moment when he had disfigured her. It was everything that she could do to stop herself from bolting. "What have I done to anger you so, Father?"

"You have forsaken your purpose. You have allowed your own self interest and petty obsession to blind you to the course for which you were created. I spare you punishment only because I am partially culpable for your demise. From this moment forth, you shall rejoin the ranks of your brothers and sisters. You shall rededicate yourself to my service."

"What will you have me do?" she asked eagerly, grateful that this might be the extent of his reprisal.

His voice was cold steel...intractable. "You will destroy these people who threaten you. They are on the brink of uncovering a terrifying power and you have placed them there. You will destroy them regardless of the cost to yourself. Is this clear?"

"Yes."

"And then there is the matter of the abomination," he began.

"The abomination?" Cynara echoed dumbly, having no notion of what he might be referring to.

"The thing that you have created to satiate your own mindless lust."

"El...Elizabeth?" she stammered incredulously.

"This abominable creature could be the ruin of my carefully laid plans. You are too infatuated with her to grasp the consequences of what you have wrought. She has no loyalty. She belongs to no one. Her heart is mercenary and inscrutable. She is wicked and insufferable. More than this, she is powerful, powerful beyond your imagination."

"No, Elizabeth is mine. She answers to me. She heeds my command and does my bidding," Cynara insisted. ' _Elizabeth! He means to do something to Elizabeth_.' her frenzied mind realized.

"Cynara, has time made you as obtuse as this? The woman cares nothing for you. She has tolerated your direction and nothing more. You have fallen under her enchantment like a star-struck child. Do you deny that she nearly destroyed you in Bucharest? Do you deny that you were helpless to stop her? Her allegiance is to no one but herself. She cannot be allowed to exist as she is."

"What would you have me do?" Cynara asked miserably; her words made flat and thin by monstrous grief.

"She will come to you, though her heart is hidden in shadow. You must face her and convince her to submit to another ritual of rebirth. She must be initiated into my service."

Cynara shook her head. "But how can such a thing be done? She was born to me. What can change that?"

"There is a way. Alexandria is schooled in all of the ways of the Turning. She will instruct you." His adamant tone made it clear that he would brook no argument. "It will be for you to show her the wisdom of submitting to my will. When she has been turned, she will be committed into the hands of those who can properly indoctrinate her."

"Do you mean to take her from me then?" Cynara demanded, horrified.

"For her sake as well as yours, yes." He didn't fail to notice how her face had slackened and her eyes had gone vacant. "Ah Cynara, I do not do this as a punishment. It has become a necessary action. Perhaps, in the course of time, the two of you will come together again."

"How long will you keep us apart?" Cynara's voice was tremulous and wounded. ' _He means to take her from me. He means to separate me from Elizabeth_.' The grim thought circled itself in her mind like a pack of restless hounds. A part of her simply refused to accept what she was hearing. To live, knowing that Elizabeth was in the keeping of others was beyond intolerable. The Father had replied to her question, though she had heard only his final words, yet even those were more than she wished to hear. "When both of you have matured and have come to understand where your loyalties and obligations lie. Perhaps a century or two."

She groaned in response, low in her throat and escalating to a wail of despair. An even greater terror seized her then. "What if she will not submit to this? Elizabeth is fiercely independent. It will not be an easy matter to persuade her to lay down that freedom."

"Then she will have to be destroyed. Destario is readily available for such tasks." The words were uttered softly and were all the more compelling in their mildness.

Cynara could find no phrase to give voice to her outrage or suffering. Could a demon be beleaguered by nightmares? Surely this was nothing more than a particularly vivid nightmare. "That will not be necessary," she heard herself reply. "I will bring her to you. I will convince her of the need to submit to your will. When this is done, what of me?"

"There are quarters of the world where the battle between my children and the sycophants of the sheep God rage to a boil. We are in jeopardy of losing those battles. Our long time allies - poverty, famine and disease - are no longer enough. These situations require the personal attention of a woman of your talent; someone who can inspire superstitious dread and subservience. There is no one more suited to this task than you. These battles will enable you to regain your perspective and the rightful place in my order."

She could not meet his gaze, this man who would take everything that she had, banishing her to a minion's service amongst the refuse of the world. She had never despised anyone or anything as much as she loathed him at this moment. She made no effort to conceal her hatred.

"Ah Cynara, there is hope for you yet," he laughed, divining her thoughts. "A century stretches out before you as though it were an eternity, when it is but the blink of an eye. I will forgive you this moment of misguided anger," He offered in the manner of one making some great magnanimous gesture. "Alexandria will remain here to guide you through the mechanics of the ritual. You will adhere to her instruction in this matter."

A flicker of revulsion rippled across Cynara's face before she could conceal it. He saw it, perceived its cause and responded assiduously, "Cynara, I know of this irrational enmity that you harbor toward Alexandria. It is born of jealousy and contempt. Understand this; she has become precious to me in her devotion and carries my absolute authority in this matter. Should you harm her in any way, be assured that I will extract a heavy price for her suffering. Do you understand, Cynara?"

"Yes."

"Then our discourse is at an end. Attend to your business and bring this travesty to a rapid conclusion. Above all else, dispose of the abomination." As if in response to some unheard signal, Alexandria inhaled sharply, drawing the red mist deep into her lungs. Cynara remained in the kneeling position, lacking the strength to hoist herself to her feet. Alexandria watched her closely, still sporting her infuriating half smile. Now, in addition to the maddening expression, Cynara could discern a new, more provocative emotion reflected on the lovely face; pity. Her desire to smash that face was as strong as an addict's craving for his fix.

She contented herself with rising and turning away. The Father's choice of an emissary had not been lost upon her. Finally, Alexandria rose to her feet and spoke. "Ah, poor Cynara has been rebuked. It would appear that your days of playing the spoiled brat have come to an abrupt end."

Cynara wheeled about, her face coloring crimson with fury. Unable to retaliate physically, she was forced to resort to vitriol, something which she had always found to be a poor substitute. "You hateful bitch. You despicable whore!"

The words degenerated into an inarticulate snarl to which Alexandria smiled all the more radiantly. "Do you have any concept of how old I am?"

"Who gives a fuck," Cynara muttered indifferently.

"I have lived for over sixty Centuries. I have seen you before, Cynara Saravic, in one incarnation or an other. You always blaze the brightest, garner the most attention, but invariably perish in the flames of your own evil. The road which you travel to power is one of mindless violence. You leave behind too many corpses and too many memories. There are other paths to power. They are slower, but less conspicuous and require the virtue of patience."

"Yes, you've ridden your cunt to power," Cynara retorted, mimicking Alexandria's sweet, thoughtful voice.

Alexandria ignored her barb, pursuing her own thoughts. "For many centuries, I was content to remain in the shadows of our kingdom, but when I witnessed the atrocity that you so gleefully engineered in Semelar, I became determined to stop you. You threaten all of us. You glean the truth Cynara, but you lack both the courage and the humility to admit it to yourself. I have come to bring that truth home to you in painful and explicit terms. I am going to be your teacher, infant."

"There is nothing that you can show me?" Cynara snapped. On top of all that she had suffered, this was the final humiliation.

"We will see," Alexandria declared lightly, and catching hold of Cynara's wrist, led the startled demon upstairs to her bed.

2

Smoldering, Cynara stood next to the large brass bed. Alexandria seemed to hover in the center of the room, regarding the Dark Lady with her luminous green eyes sparkling like emeralds. She wore a simple white gown, fashioned in the style of a frock. A thin belt composed of interwoven gold threads looped around her tiny waist. This she undid and let fall to the carpet.

"What are you doing?" Cynara demanded truculently, but a hint of disquiet had crept into her voice. The white gown billowed outward. It was indeed a frock with side splits that ran from shoulder to hem.

"I am going to show you the strength of my road. I am going to humiliate you, break you and then rebuild you. I am going to open your eyes and then your soul." the voice was caressing, like soft velvet being drawn over flesh.

"You are mad," Cynara insisted without conviction. The tremor in her voice was more pronounced now. She could not draw her eyes from the vague outline of the other woman's body.

Three gold clips held the gown at the left shoulder. With her right hand, Alexandria swept them clear and the gown parted, sliding from her body soundlessly. Cynara inhaled sharply. There, revealed in all of its nubile glory, was the body that had brought a pharaoh to his knees in admiration. Reaching behind her head, Alexandria removed the onyx clip and shook her long red hair free. It billowed over her shoulders like an impressionists' crown. Indeed, Cynara realized that she was witnessing the end result of over six thousand years' worth of refinements. Against all reason, passion took her then, temporarily occluding the night's horror.

"Do you still wish to fight me, Cynara, or will you be a compliant student and accept what I can give you?" Alexandria inquired teasingly. Cynara replied with the pass of a hand, shedding all garments without contact. Alexandria smiled and came to her. Cynara was three inches taller, but suddenly felt unaccountably small. It was impossible not to be captivated by such formidable beauty, such elegance of form. And to think of the artistry that lay behind this beauty. Even a demon could not help but succumb to such temptation.

With a grin, Cynara fell into Alexandria's arms. Smiling, the Egyptian pushed her charge onto what would become the bed of her learning.

3

For Cynara, the intervening days between Alexandria's arrival and the final confrontation with her enemies, flew by in a hypnotic blur. There was bedding of course, endless hours of it in which Alexandria doled out limitless amounts of pain and pleasure in equal proportion. Her invention for inflicting both knew no bounds. Cynara was pushed to the heights of ecstasy and to the nadir of degradation; from one extreme to the other and back again in one bewildering rush.

In the hours spent out of the bedroom, Alexandria would harangue Cynara with an endless stream of philosophy, personal observation and history. Cynara fought grimly to block out the sound of the other's voice, but found the deluge inescapable.

There seemed to be a definite purpose to the endless litany and the bittersweet revelries of the bedroom. Even when she was being perversely cruel, Alexandria appeared to function with some arcane purpose in mind, displaying no visible signs of anger or malice. Denied physical violence, Cynara found that she was powerless to resist Alexandria's onslaught. As time passed, she no longer wished to resist even if she had been able to do so. Alexandria's motivations and objectives came to mean little. Only the stimulation, be it pain or pleasure, truly mattered.

As time wore on, Cynara became cognizant of the subtle changes that had overcome her perspective, especially regarding her self appointed mentor. She despised Alexandria with every fiber of her being. She had little doubt of this and yet she was forced to concede that she had developed a grudging respect for the other's wisdom and timeless beauty.

On the night before the final battle began, Alexandria divulged her motivation for volunteering to be the Dark Lady's mentor; a revelation more startling than Cynara would ever have imagined. They lay together in the fifteenth century king sized bed, Cynara tenderly kissing the others erect nipples, while stroking Alexandria's upturned breasts. She did this more in the style of a hungry baby than a lustful lover. Like the other nights preceding this one, there had been the standard display of dominance and cruelty. Alexandria had raked her long nails along the flesh of Cynara's thighs and over the tight swell of her buttocks, leaving livid red marks in their wake. She had bit into the firm flesh of Cynara's left breast until the Dark Lady had arched her back and moaned loudly, half from pain and half from pleasure. At one point, the smaller woman had even straddled Cynara's chest, and gripping her throat in a vice like left hand, had repeatedly slapped Cynara's face while droning the name of the accursed Jew. After she had ceased the fall of blows, Cynara's face had felt doughy and swollen. Alexandria had demanded, "Do you really believe that you can continue to express your contempt and disdain for everything around you by constantly destroying it and not have that contempt reflect back upon you?"

She had driven Cynara mercilessly and as she had promised, she had broken part of the younger demon's spirit. Again and again, she had pushed the demon to the point of retaliation, daring Cynara to strike back at her, only to relent and pleasure the Dark Lady with some unimaginable new trick. The roller coaster of abuse and gratification had forced Cynara into seeing new dimensions of her own personality.

Cynara had become addicted to Alexandria's whims and caprices, just as the Egyptian had known she would. Now, as Cynara ardently kissed and suckled one magnificent breast, the ancient one revealed her purpose, "Do you have any notion why I have subjected you to this reign of torment, Cynara?"

Cynara reluctantly lifted her lips from the nipple. Her eyes were glazed with a mindless pleasure. She shook her head distantly. Alexandria prompted her with another question, "Do you have the sense that your enemies are closer now?"

Cynara did feel this, though only in a vague, disconnected sort of a way. Alexandria's spell had dulled her perception to everything but physical touch. The Egyptian stroked Cynara's brow and dipped her head back to the waiting breast. "I prefer you much better now that you have been tamed. On the surface, what you have learned, both in this bed and in this house, is a lesson in humility and restraint. If you have listened at all, you will have glimpsed a greater, intrinsic truth. I came to change you, Cynara; to teach you to live in this world. Long ago, I came to realize that evil and hatred cannot sustain themselves. When we come to see how pointless and hollow our existence is, creatures of our ilk simply fade away. When the hatred and resentment burn as intensely as yours does, the life is shorter and the ending more violent and traumatic. When you kill without restraint and lash out with indiscriminate abandon, you effectively secure your own destruction."

"Yet, even these are not the greatest of your evils, my child. Your worst offence is that you have divorced yourself from humanity, tried to live outside of it. You have the opportunity to survive to see the end of this world and the rise of whatever civilization is to follow, but you must heed my teachings if you are to do so. You must learn to love humanity and all things human. Lust for blood and death will not sustain you indefinitely. They are simply not enough! In time, they will grow mundane, boring. If you do not give yourself to the world, you will turn to stone and perish from indifference." Again Alexandria lifted the Dark Lady's chin. Her tone was maternal, her eyes radiant with compassion. Other than Elizabeth, she was the most beautiful being that Cynara had ever beheld.

"I have charted civilization's development from a lunatic rabble that showed their disregard for human life by burying the living with the affluent dead, to a present world in which individual life is held in greater esteem than in any other time in history. This is the age of enlightenment, child. I grew to secretly love these people, constantly striving as they do to improve their lives and the world about them. I applauded their efforts and delighted in every new development and technological advancement. Of course there were horrors and even greater evils with the aging of technology, but these things pale in comparison to the progress that the world has made as a whole. I survived with the world because I elected to grow with it and become part of it. Do you grasp any of this, Cynara?"

Cynara stared into the mesmerizing green eyes thoughtfully. Did she understand the message that Alexandria was attempting to convey? Only a few months ago, she would have scoffed and said no, but recent developments had given her pause to consider. Elizabeth had opened a flood gate of alien emotions and now this splendid creature had appeared to wedge it open. "Yes, I see."

Alexandria smiled warmly and brushed her lips across Cynara's cheek. "You must learn to do the same. I have set you on the proper road, but you must do the rest. Our time in the world has passed. The world will no longer tolerate the voracious killer. They will resort to any means to destroy us and they will succeed. We must relent and fall back into the darkness and hope that our time will come again."

"Are you suggesting that we're doomed?" Cynara demanded sharply. What Alexandria was proposing bordered upon sacrilege.

"Not to extinction. There will always be evil and there will always be those who lust for dark magic, but the light has come to hold court and may well grow in magnitude for centuries to come. Part of what I attempted to impart to you in this bed is that pleasure will always overcome pain and that light will always supplant darkness. Your desire to strike at me was terrifying, but the promise of pleasure, as well as your love for Elizabeth, defeated that desire. If you are to survive, you must exercise restraint. I am heartened by the knowledge that you have made a start."

"Do I truly love Elizabeth? Am I really capable of such a thing?" Cynara asked, posing the question in genuine confusion.

Alexandria smiled again. "You know the answer to that as well as I do."

Cynara's eyes widened at the birth of a stunning revelation and the explosion of an entire universe of new emotions as they evolved before her mind's eye. "What do you wish of me, Alexandria?"

"I require only that you open your eyes and see the world. Follow Elizabeth's example and become part of it. What do I wish, you ask? I wish to become the mentor that you never had; to guide you through a restructuring of your temperament. If you agree to do this, I will protect Elizabeth."

"You will find a way to keep her with me?" Cynara started, at once hopeful and eager.

"Even I cannot do that, Cynara. The Dark Father fears your concubine. He sees in her the undoing of his order. Given her growing power, such a thing is not beyond the realm of possibility. She will be ' _Turned_ ' or she will be destroyed."

Cynara's face crumpled into lines of dismay. Alexandria quickly spoke to assuage her dismay. "He would have her remade to be a savage killer with the help of his most murderous minions, but if I have not over estimated my influence with him, perhaps he can be dissuaded. I will ask that she be consigned to my keeping. I will guide her in the ways and glories of my road. In time, the two of you will be reunited. Her transition will be smoother and less rigorous than yours may prove to be."

Cynara frowned. All of these constant allusions to Elizabeth's power and her ability to adapt to the ways of the world puzzled her and prickled her ego. Upon a moment's consideration, however, she found Alexandria's observation to be correct. Elizabeth had indeed manifested powers well beyond much older demons. Elizabeth's essential humanity was confirmed by her love of the piano and her passion for old movies. Cynara would sit and watch the pictures of the television, finding them trite and contrived, but Elizabeth would watch movie after movie, totally engrossed. Cynara had found her lover's obsession strange, but had never given voice to her opinion. "What will you have me do in return?"

"Only this; kill your enemies. Do not toy with them, but dispatch with them quickly and cleanly. This process cannot be aborted, nor should it be prolonged. When this is done, lay your machinations and ambitions to rest. Accept your exile to the dark lands, as you must, but do only what is necessary. Spread light where you can, but never again kill for the sheer rapture of the act. Above all else, Cynara, observe. Watch these humans and what they do. Try to grasp the higher virtues which give them redemption. When your exile is served, come back to me. I will reward you with a treasure beyond your imagining."

"What are you, Alexandria?" Cynara begged to know, enthralled by the enigmatic creature, which was called a demon, but professed to love humanity.

"I am what you might call a revolutionary."

Cynara's surprised reaction caused the Egyptian to laugh heartily. Cynara could feel the dismal pall lift from her shoulders.

"May I please you, mother?" she offered eagerly. Alexandria's laughter subsided. Gently pushing Cynara onto her back, she replied, "No, my child. Now it is my turn to please you."

In that moment, Cynara Saravic came within touching distance of true humanity.

Chapter Forty Six

1

The first part of Nath's search for the ceremonial dagger was as uneventful as it was tedious and enervating. The three men crossed through the province of Harghita, then west through Mures and finally north into Bistrita Nasaud. None of the three were aware that they had passed within three kilometers of the Trooper force as it moved east to intercept the others.

The group progressed as rapidly and stolidly as their over taxed bodies would allow, spurred on by the certainty that a new trap awaited them with every turn. It would have surprised them to know that their passage went almost wholly undetected. Intuitively, they came to the conclusion that no great alarm had been raised for their capture. As they moved through the province of Bistrita, they rested by seeking refuge in outbuildings and sheds, some of which had running water and heat. Bit by bit, that pervasive sense of impending doom began to lift. The three even managed to pilfer small stores of food without being detected.

Ten kilometers to the north of the provincial capital, emboldened by a new confidence, the three decided to chance following the State highway north. Within the hour, they had been picked up by a State carrier truck. The driver, a gregarious man by nature, talked endlessly while the three only listened, confining their remarks to a terse yes or no at the appropriate moments. If he found it odd that the three men would be traveling on foot in the dead of December, heading into the barren mountainous regions (which just happened to be near the Hungarian border), he gave no voice to his suspicion.

He drove them to within nine kilometers of Chevru, where he let them off and wished them well in whatever it was that they were about to do. The three entered the woods, breathing heavy sighs of relief, agreeing that they would never take such a foolish risk again. Still, they were silently thankful for the respite from the miles of heavy trudging.

That feeling of relief quickly evaporated. Large winter storm clouds lumbered in over the mountains, promising raw winds and heavy snows. The temperature there was considerably colder than it had been further to the south. If another heavy storm should strike, the three would be in a far more precarious position than they had been during the first blizzard.

Their feeling of concern ran deeper than unease over blizzards and ugly weather. Something in the atmosphere of this place touched their hearts with icy fingers that had very little to do with storms and arctic winds. No, what chilled them was not the inimical weather, but the sinister ambience of the place, which increased with every step closer to Cynara's ancestral birth place. It prickled their nerves with its whispered promise of death or worse for those who came here. The air was alive with invisible specters and the echoes of uneasy memories, both of which refused to be ignored. Chevru was a place of death. It had long been and something in the wind intimated that it would be again.

All three knew that they had crossed an unseen border and had entered Cynara's domain.

For those with understanding, only bad emotions could exist here - anxiety, hopelessness and despair - as if the spirit of the witch had worked itself into every pore, every crack and crevice of the very land itself. This earth had been blighted, though not in the physical sense. This land was brimming with a dark virility. It was the soul of the place which had been tainted and when the wind was high, the stench of death and horror would find every nostril and penetrate every heart.

The three men exchanged mirrored glances, recognizing their unease in each others eyes. They had been fortunate thus far, but in this place, good fortune was a fool's desire.

2

After they had completed the task of reassembling their rifles, the three entered the woods on the west side of the Highway, slightly to the west and south of Chevru. Though there was no way to determine its exact location, the Baron's original estate had been located some eight kilometers northwest of Chevru. After much debate, Contayza had insisted that they proceed with the assumption that Cynara had concealed the dagger within a few kilometers of her estate. No other conclusion would have been practical, though it was entirely possible that the dagger could be hidden anywhere on this earth. Or perhaps even some other world. If he was in a particularly morbid frame of mind, Nath would even allow himself to considerate that the cave was an elaborate deception. If Cynara was thorough, could she not have foreseen any possibility? He could not dwell too long on such dismal possibilities without feeling lethargic and resigned to defeat, so he bit down on them savagely, cutting them off. The cave did exist. The dagger had been concealed within the cave. The cave was located somewhere within the immediate environs of Chevru. That was that.

This optimistic outlook did little to brighten Nath's mood or alleviate his sense of burden. Samuel had told him the hills around Chevru were riddled with caves and tunnels. It would take time to explore the extensive labyrinths. Even with an eternity of time, it would be well near impossible to search all of the caves. Their immediate obstacle was the snow. Winter drifting would have covered the entrances to the majority of the caves. Nath could picture himself, old and decrepit, still blundering around the mountains of Chevru, half blind or mad as a hatter, still searching for the elusive dagger. The notion was comical, even mildly romantic, yet it weighed upon Nath like the black mountains surrounding him.

After going a short distance, they decided that it would be advisable to rest and begin the search afresh the next day. Nath marveled at how well these men functioned in the woods. In a matter of minutes, a lean-to had been constructed before him, beckoning invitingly. He crawled into it and slept dreamlessly. Feeling totally exhausted and somewhat secure, the Romanians did not bother with a guard vigil.

All were sleeping like children, when the shadow fell upon the shelters. Something took a tentative step into the entrance and sniffed at the air. It remained that way for several seconds and then, apparently having satisfied itself that it had found what it was looking for, withdrew and led the others away.

3

During the final hours before dawn, a high wind arose from the north, driving sheets of snow before it like herders. When the three awoke, all signs of the coming of the previous night's visitors had been obliterated by the drifting snow. Though the day was blustery, it was not prohibitively cold and so the three set out at once. Not knowing the area, Nath deferred to the Romanians' judgment as to how the search should be conducted. They would sweep the hills for an area of about one kilometer in width. They would follow this path until they had drawn parallel to Chevru and then they would sweep back, only this time they would follow a corridor one kilometer to the west of the first. Each man was prepared for a prolonged and probably fruitless search.

Thus they set out and by three o'clock that afternoon, Nath and the others had explored fifteen caves and tunnels set into the hills around them. The caves had all been empty. Nath had expected no more. During one point in their explorations, it occurred to him that he should ask Samuel if there were any bears in the area. As for the search itself, Nath dictated the method by which they would be carried out; he would enter and search the caves while the two Romanians waited outside. They would enter only if he specifically called for them to do so. If he did not return, they would wait for an agreed upon period and assuming the worst, make their break for Hungary.

As the light began to bleed from the dull sky in the late afternoon, the three agreed to break off the search and seek shelter for the night. They had just crested a heavily treed rise and were about to descend into a corridor between two rock faces, when a faint rustle came to Nath's ears. Perhaps it was only paranoia, but to his mind the sound had been deliberately furtive. The shadows of the corridor suddenly took on a forbidding vitality, resembling a stone throat readying to swallow them whole. The rock faces were at least twenty feet high and lined with thick belts of conifers. To circumvent the passage would take time and the three were bone weary from the day's search.

"Christ, you're being foolish," Nath scolded himself, but his eyes never left the thick, brooding shadows of the stone throat. Sensing the American's hesitation, Samuel inquired in broken English, "What's wrong, Nath?"

Nath gazed openly at Samuel. The Romanian's face was drawn in the dim light. His eyes were dull and listless. Traipsing through the waist deep snow had taken a toll on all of them. Nath grasped the extent of the sacrifice these men had made for a cause of which they were not a part. He should spare them the burden of his penny dreadful fears. He shook his head and mustered a grin. "Nothing's wrong. Just catching my breath."

Samuel nodded, then turned and led the way into the decline. The two men followed, with Nath bringing up the rear. With each successive step, his sense of having made a mortal error intensified. It was dark in the passage. Nath could barely discern the outline of the man in front of him.

There came a light, willowy voice from above him, followed by a shower of snow. He gazed up to see two disembodied eyes floating in the darkness. Something was watching the trio's progress from atop the rock wall. Nath screamed a warning. The two men jerked back to face him and the entire passage came alive in an eruption of sound and movement.

"What is it, Nath? What did you see?" Samuel demanded in a voice poised on the jagged outskirts of control.

"Something up on the ridge. I can't make it out, but it's something bad I think."

As if in affirmation of this assessment, a shadowy form sailed out of the darkness, hitting Misha full in the back and propelling him into the rock wall. The Romanian grunted and went down with the snarling shadow still mounted upon his back.

"Wolves!" Samuel shrieked and frantically pulled the rifle from his shoulder. Raising it above his head, he swung the butt down on the beast's exposed neck. It whined and scampered out of range before Samuel could deliver a second blow. Nath wheeled about, hoping that they could escape the way that they had entered the stone corridor. The close quarters in the rock throat gave the beasts a definite advantage. The wall of advancing beasts explicitly declared that there would be no escape in that direction. There were at least a half dozen silhouettes moving down the incline. Nath unslung his rifle and clicked off the safety. Not bothering to aim, he fired into the middle of the pack. There was a loud howl of pain which signaled a general withdrawal of the beasts to the top of the incline.

Nath held his fire and glanced over his shoulder. Behind him, Misha had regained his feet, but was bleeding copiously, unable to maintain his balance without the support of the rock wall. At the end of the rock corridor, groups of wolves had gathered to block the exits. They made no move forward, evidently content to await their quarry's next move. Nath risked a quick glance at the ridge top. The orange eyes were riveted squarely upon him. He could now discern the shape of an incredibly large wolf, automatically recalling the thing that had nearly killed him the night of the ambush. Inexplicably, the creature had not delivered the death blow, but now it had evidently returned with the intention of finishing the job.

"Cynara, she's here, Samuel!" Nath admonished. As though she had heard Nath's warning, the wolf snarled and swiveled its massive snout toward the dazed Misha. It spat out a jet of pure argent flame that bathed the terrified Romanian from head to toe before he could even blink an eye. Both Nath and Samuel's cries of negation were lost in Misha's harrowing cries of agony. Those screams were cut mercifully short as the flames consumed him like a strip of phosphorus. His flesh entirely consumed, the Romanian's skeleton simply folded to the snow.

The smell of burning human flesh drove the wolves into a frenzy. So incited, they attacked from both directions. Numbed by horror and still struggling to subdue his rising gorge, Nath was much too slow to react. The wolves were within three paces and the barrel of his rifle was still pointed uselessly at his feet. Two leapt simultaneously, but when it appeared virtually certain that they would bring him down, the pair sailed by him, instead landing upon Samuel. He fell hard, but managed to roll to his left and scramble back to his feet. More amazing still, he managed to retain the grip on his rifle. Samuel raised the rifle, jammed the muzzle into his chest and fired twice. It twitched and jumped spastically before falling dead in the snow.

The shots broke Nath's paralysis. He fired three times at the converging beasts. The wails of pain brought a satisfied grin to his cracked lips. The grin curdled into a grimace when he realized that still more of the beasts were entering the stone throat. On impulse, he raised the rifle toward the beast above him and fired blindly. He knew that bullets could not kill Cynara, but there was an undeniable pleasure in firing at her all the same. The wolf snarled furiously, but drew back from the edge.

"Nath, cover my back. We'll fight our way down to the other end. We have to get out of these close quarters," Samuel urged. Nodding, Nath turned to face the others, while Samuel retrieved Misha's rifle. ' _There are too many_ ,' Nath saw at once. ' _We'll never be able to fight our way out. After all of this, we're going to die in here_ ,' he thought grimly. He resolved to go down with a small measure of dignity. Back to back, the two men moved down the incline, firing as they went. Beast after beast fell, but they refused to relent, coming forward in a slavering, inexorable wall.

About thirty feet from the exit to the passage, Nath heard the empty click of Samuel's rifle and knew that the fight was almost over. In the time it took the Romanian to drop his rifle and bring the other into firing position, four wolves were upon him. He fell with a shout that was part fury and part terror. The beasts tore at him with an obsessed frenzy. Nath could smell their blood lust as they tore at the fallen Romanian. Nath jammed his rifle into the nearest beast's ear and blew its brains over the rock wall in a steaming spray.

"Get out Nath!" Samuel cried desperately. Nath gazed down at the man and quickly realized that he was dead. The beasts had ripped through his snow suit and were working furiously upon his exposed abdomen, now dragging his steaming entrails into the snow. The man's face was a gore covered mask of hellish agony and his eyes were clouded with an inconceivable pain.

"Go! For Christ sake, Go!" he pleaded, blood bubbling from his lips as he attempted to speak. Despite the certitude that the man was effectively dead, Nath found that he could not abandon Samuel.

The wolves surged forward and decided the issue for him. Nath took aim and shot the lead wolf in the eye, but its trailer reached Samuel and ripped his throat out with a flex of its mighty jaws. Warm blood spattered Nath's dirty snow suit. True rage touched Nath then, possibly for the first time since his hellish ordeal had begun. He fired blindly into the pack, blasting away until he had expended all of the shells in his clip. Screaming, he charged into the remaining wolves, employing the rifle butt as a bludgeon. Fury doubled his strength...tripled it. The sickening crunch of breaking bone resounded through the channel. He cut a swath through the pack like Moses parting the Red Sea.

He sprinted out of the rock corridor and onto an open slope. He turned, expecting the pack to pursue him. Inexplicably, they did not. He then sprinted headlong down the icy decline, crying and laughing at the same time.

He was alone now, lost in a strange land, and in close proximity to raving madness. The first fact had yet to work its dark magic upon him and the second provided him with a sort of perverse comfort.

4

Descending, as light as a feather upon a gentle cushion of air, Elizabeth came to the snow; floating down into the midst of the carnage with no outward display of revulsion. She carried enough of the demon spirit to feel absolutely no remorse for the human wreckage that lay strewn about her. Conversely, the sight of the dead wolves, thirteen in all, did strike a note of sorrow in her heart. They were beautiful, graceful creatures who had served her with unwavering devotion. It was an unfortunate and distasteful side of the situation that had required their sacrifice.

She lifted her hands and turned her palms outward. The survivors came to her, nuzzling her legs and awaiting her next command. "Rest children. You've done well."

As if they had understood clearly, the beasts moved off and settled into the snow. Their unwavering obedience made the loss of their kindred all the more poignant. She abruptly turned and walked out of the corridor, no longer able to suffer the sight of her dead children.

Elizabeth breathed deeply through her nostrils, sniffing the scent of the air. She caught his scent...it was strong on the north wind. In spite of herself, she felt a grudging admiration for the little man. He had fought valiantly, overcoming his fear. In truth, he had no reason to be afraid. She had instructed the creatures to leave him unharmed and they had complied, some paying the penalty of obedience with their lives. Still, he had not known that he was protected and he had been filled with trepidation, but he had still found the fortitude to act. She could not help but be impressed by such a commendable display of bravery.

Nathaniel was a beautifully crafted boy, and despite his small stature, he had been blessed with his mother's innate perseverance. In all, Cynara had chosen a most formidable opponent.

Of course, formidable only went so far. He was as helpless as a lamb when compared to the beast who awaited him. Yet contrary to her certainty that the boy and the other's were surely doomed, Elizabeth's mind brayed a faint, but persistent cry of alarm. She had been perplexed by the group's decision to split. Initially, she suspected that they had done so in the foolish hope of catching Cynara by surprise or possibly avoiding Petru's search squads. Naturally, she had elected to pursue Nath's group. She had no real interest in the others, but her entire future hinged upon what became of this enigmatic man. There was something captivating about the stoic manner in which he endured his tribulations, ever coming forward without a thought of relenting. Did she feel herself attracted to him in complex ways that she did not entirely understand? Yes and the attraction ran deeper than mere curiosity or being the keeper of his mother's body and soul. As Elizabeth was a pragmatist, the dark mystery of her attraction to her avowed enemy struck echoing notes of terror in her heart. More worrisome still was her suspicion that Cynara shared the same baser attraction. Why had she not killed Nathaniel in Brasov as she should have? So many questions and so many ominous implications, whatever the answers the answers to those questions should prove to be.

On top of all of this, there was a new riddle to be solved; what exactly had Nathaniel and his companions been doing before she had sent the wolves against them? She had tracked them through the Transylvanian interior, expecting that they would go directly to Chevru and make some suicidal attempt upon Cynara's life. She had been utterly baffled when they had instead branched off just before the town and had begun rummaging through the caves and tunnels that honey combed the area. Why? Quite obviously they had been searching for something, but what? The answer was so glaringly obvious that it turned the fibers in her iron thighs to rubber. He legs accordioned and she fell to the snow.

"The dagger!" she exclaimed. And on the heels of that, "They know!" There could be no other credible explanation for their search. Somehow they had stumbled upon the truth of the ceremonial dagger and the ritual of the Turning. Blind panic opened its icy fist and clutched her heart, but another thought pre-empted it. These upstarts were so close, closer than they could possibly know. They had come to the conclusion that it must be Nathaniel who should find and use the dagger. The others had broken off to provide a diversion. Elizabeth sat cross legged, naked on the snow. A sudden grin emblazoned her lovely face. If Cynara entertained any notion of reviving the old Elizabeth and reuniting her with this extraordinary man child, this latest revelation would force her to rethink such folly. She rose and beckoned to her children. Ever responsive, they quickly gathered about her. "There is one last thing that I would have you do."

Elizabeth then started off in the direction that Nathaniel had so recently fled. The wolves fell in behind her, rolling and jumping like playful puppies. Elizabeth permitted herself a small chuckle at their antics. The other Elizabeth, the prisoner, had educated her in the mechanics and uses of leverage. The means to her end had been laid out before her like a sumptuous feast. The man child would play his part. She would see to that. Even Cynara would do her bidding in this matter.

The chuckle grew to a full throated, rich laughter.

Chapter Forty Seven

1

Yuro Petru was anxious as his perceived moment of impending triumph grew nearer. The rebels were close now and ignorant of their approaching moment of judgment. His surveillance teams had told him as much. Their infra red equipment, the most sensitive technology available to the communist bloc country, had detected the group's passage. They had been spotted three days earlier and had been discreetly monitored ever since. They had been moving steadily northward, their destination obviously the Gheorghini pass. He had already made the arrangements for the intercept and this time there would be no escape. By tomorrow night, the rebels would be dead and the gypsy bitch would be his complaisant slut (a thought that well near set him to drooling).

He had seen her for only a few seconds that time in the clearing, but that had been sufficient for him to reach the conclusion that she should and would be his. He had planned for this day of triumph down to the minutest detail. The bodies of the rebels had been placed in the cold storage trailer, where they would soon be joined by the others. He would return to Bucharest and parade them like treasure. There was no limit to how high he might be able to ride this crest of success. Of course he had not informed his superior of what had transpired thus far. He had provided them with the sketchiest account of what had been done and nothing of what he intended to do. When the rebels had been disposed of, he would seek out their families and let Gerchnau have his way with them. This done, he would return to the Capital, leading the greatest death caravan that this country had ever seen. He would provide the government with the most effective deterrent to insurrection since time out of mind; an entire generation of rebels, their offspring and families, exterminated like lice.

Ah, the Dark Lady had indeed proven to be a master of ignominy. She had conceived this scheme so brilliantly. The old gypsy was in his keeping and Cynara had instructed Petru exactly how he would best be utilized. It was all so very simple, so very infallible. It was regretful that this Cynara would have to die, but Petru was destined for great things. He could see that clearly now. He would manipulate the bitch into revealing the secret of her power and then he would find a way to destroy her. He was not precisely sure how he would achieve her destruction, but destiny had an uncanny way of resolving such matters. It was not for him to worry about. In this new exalted state, he would answer to no one but himself. His mind had erected barriers which blocked out all memory of the pain and humiliation to which she had subjected him on that first night. If someone were to remind him of this incident, he most likely would have scoffed at them...and then have them shot.

He looked through his trailer door to where the reassuring figure of Jurgen Gerchnau sat, leafing aimlessly through a magazine. The lines of his profile were brutally sharp. The man was an artist, a poet of death. Petru had never met a man with such a lust for murder. If there was a way that Cynara could be killed, he would find it.

Petru sighed happily and then went back to his fantasy of greatness and the contemplation of just how he might plunder the spoils of victory.

2

The object of Petru's admiration did not hold his deliverer in such high regard. Gerchnau was indeed thinking about the Romanian, but his thoughts were by no means complimentary. He stole a quick glance at the other man, who was staring fixedly at the ceiling of his impromptu office, a laughable, dreamy expression plastered upon his stupid face. Gerchnau decided that the man was far down the road to total insanity. The notion of Petru's progressive madness touched the German as uproariously funny.

He flipped through another few pages of the magazine, which was a propagandized overview of current world affairs, then threw the thing aside. There was nothing in the world, with its distractions, fabrications and its stupid obsessions with morality and human rights, which held any genuine interest for the German. At times, he felt totally disconnected from the flow of humanity about him, as though he had come unglued from the fabric of things. Progress and the struggle for enlightenment were mindless pursuits by his estimation. He lived for the rapture of life's dark twin; death. In a way, he supposed that he could be considered as crazy as the man who had freed him from his cell, but such a viewpoint would be dangerously superficial. He had no consuming ambition or megalomania. He did not believe himself to be immortal; a master of what he did, to be certain, but not immortal. He perceived himself to be clear sighted, although single minded. His vision could penetrate elaborate deceptions and facades to the true beating heart beneath the illusions. Perhaps it was because of this ability that he was now feeling so agitated.

Thoughts of the woman churned in Gerchnau's mind. He had examined her over and over in his mind, from every perspective, and had found her as enigmatic as anyone he had ever encountered. Cynara Saravic. The name was decadent and exotic. It rolled off of the tongue like a magical incantation. Could any of Petru's wild claims concerning this Dark Lady be rooted in truth? He'd been cynical when he had first been told of her alleged power and history. He'd interpreted this to be another sign of Petru's mounting madness. When the woman had delivered the old gypsy, all of this changed. Never mind the fact that she was hypnotically beautiful. Gerchnau had learned to insulate himself against such distractions of the flesh. What had struck the German was the light that seemed to emanate from her like a dark and chilling corona. He had never stood in the presence of anything so singularly powerful. It baffled him that ordinary people did not prickle and quake in her presence, so intense was her aura.

Above the mystique, one question persistently demanded an answer: could she be killed? All things could be killed, Gerchnau theorized. He held this to be an inviolable maxim of the natural order. How then? To understand that, it would first be necessary to discover what she was and from what source her power had been derived. He correctly deduced that she was a more accomplished taker of life than he could ever hope to be. There would be a distinct glory, an illustrious acclaim in destroying such a creature.

Did he really want to kill her? He was not really certain, but he knew that he would try, regardless of his reservations. He had made a commitment to Petru; a covenant of death. Mad or otherwise, death was a matter that demanded the utmost honor. He would honor his obligation to Petru because a promise of death was an inviolable bond. To kill the ultimate killer; what greater challenge could a man of his ilk hope for? The mere contemplation of the act caused him to grin.

There were great things to be done. Great changes were afoot in the world. First, however, there was the matter of the pathetic rebels. They would be the appetizer to the main course.

3

Petru, for all of his delusions, had been correct about one thing; the four had failed to notice his reconnaissance planes as they flew their high altitude missions. The trek to the Gheorghini Pass had been a nightmare excursion for the four; a forced march that had left the group bordering on total exhaustion. The cold had bitten down upon them like the spikes of an iron maiden, while the terrain had proven its equal in providing taxing obstacles to surmount. Unlike their comrades, Contayza and the others had not been fortunate enough to happen upon adequate shelter. As if to aggravate their problems, even the game had become scarce.

Several times, the four had been forced to take long, laborious detours to avoid having to scale or descend fifty to eighty foot rock faces. Simply trudging through the deep snow had drained their muscles until their legs trembled wildly from over exertion.

To compensate for the burden of the walk, each dug deep into the meat of their minds, calling upon whatever wellspring of strength that might be hidden there. They talked only when necessary. Only Jimmy and Contayza spoke, but their conversations no longer required the faculty of speech. Contayza had discerned Jimmy's anxiety over being separated from his step brother and did everything she could to assuage his worry. He, in turn, came to realize just how close to utter collapse she was. Her mind and will were cast in iron, but her body was mere flesh and that flesh was fast approaching the end of its tether. He knew, just as surely, that her pride would never allow her to admit to that fact. Instead, she would drag herself forward until she had used up everything her body had to offer. What then? Could he dispassionately watch her sacrificed to the cause? To prevent such an eventuality, he feigned his own exhaustion and sheepishly asked for periods of rest, which Ivan granted sourly.

Contayza would not be fooled by such transparent charades and would scowl at him ruefully whenever he would fall to one knee and ask for time. They would rest for half an hour, him trying to engage her in their special mode of conversation and her staring sullenly at the ground, refusing to even talk to him. Her slightly more energetic stride would make these periods of silence well worth the effort.

Then the food had gotten scarce and Contayza had grown weaker, if not openly gaunt. An angry cold sore had developed in the left corner of her mouth. She had stubbornly refused to complain or succumb to her deteriorating health, but Jimmy knew that she was suffering greatly. How long would it be before the first sign of fever came to redden her brow? It hurt his heart to contemplate such a thing, but he saw that Contayza was no more than a few days away from the end of her endurance. Jimmy peered up at the brooding heavens. ' _Please let something happen soon. Please_!' he prayed.

Less than one hour from the State highway that led through the Gheorghini Pass, his wish would be granted.

4

It was midmorning when one of Petru's spotters caught sight of the approaching targets. He relayed the signal to a second spotter, who then passed the information to the waiting intelligence officer. Petru smiled broadly at the news, closing his eyes for a brief moment to savor his victory. Motioning everyone into their prescribed positions, he tightened his grip on the bait.

5

The land pitched and twisted this close to the pass, as if the maker had blindly flailed away at the earth with his fists in a petulant rage. Negotiating the icy slopes became not only tiresome but hazardous. On occasion, it became necessary for the four to cross slopes that tilted off at wild angles. More often as not, these angles would terminate at sheer drop offs. On the morning of the fateful encounter, Mikal led the way, with Ivan behind him and Jimmy and Contayza bringing up the rear. At this altitude, the trees had thinned considerably, leaving the four exposed to the relentless winds and things far worse and more fearsome.

The sniper had a clear line of sight and the shot was accordingly perfect. The bullet caught Mikal just below the nose, efficiently separating the top half of his head from his body. Dumbfounded, Ivan was sprayed with a backlash of blood and watched incredulously as the still twitching body fell to the snow. For a long moment, nothing moved. The echo of the shot resounded through the surrounding mountains like the crack of a whip in dead air.

Jimmy was the first to react to the shooting. Ducking low, he wrapped Contayza in his arms and literally carried her to a nearby rock knoll. Ivan had dropped flat to the snow, expecting a second shot to claim him with each passing second.

Scanning the rocks and the trees below, Jimmy could see nothing of the sniper. He glanced back along the slope and realized just how vulnerable they were. Meanwhile, Ivan managed to crawl into a stand of trees and lift his rifle into firing position.

Still nothing. The absolute silence was disconcerting. Jimmy pressed the distraught Contayza into the rocks, waiting for the unseen attackers to make their next move.

There was motion in the trees down slope. Suddenly, a solitary figure was pushed into the open. Jimmy caught a brief glimpse of the gloved hand that had propelled the man. Off to his right, Jimmy heard Ivan emit a small, strangled groan. Contayza shrugged free of Jimmy's grip and risked a quick glance at the figure. Jimmy felt her stiffen. The wail of outrage that boiled forth from her lips was a combination of disbelief and horror. It was apparent that she knew the man out there and that he meant a great deal to her. Cursing under his breath, Simms realized that they had blundered into another trap. They had barely managed to escape the first and would probably not be so fortunate this time.

"Contayza, who is that man? Do you know him?" Jimmy whispered. She spared him a quick glance, her lovely eyes alive with panic. "My Grandfather! That bastard has my Grandfather."

In anticipation of her predictable reaction, Jimmy clamped his two hands down upon her shoulders and drew her to him. She fought him furiously and screeched, "God damn you, what the hell do you think you're doing? That's my Grandda down there."

Her voice was hysterical and Simms understood that she was beyond the reach of reason. That bastard, Petru was cunning. ' _He seemed to know just how Contayza would react_ ,' Jimmy thought. Her struggles became frantic, but Jimmy only tightened his grip upon her, refusing to let her go.

Below, Petru had emerged from behind a drift of snow. His face was a portrait of supreme confidence, the expression of a man who thoroughly understood the game and held all of the aces. In his left hand was a machine pistol, which he jammed unceremoniously into Lemuel Prowzi's left ear. "Ah, my friends, it would seem that our paths have crossed yet again. It was rather rude of you to leave the last party so soon. I've taken the liberty of inviting someone, whom I trust will hold your interest a little longer this time around."

Ushering the old man forward with a sharp shove in the small of the back, Petru emerged further from his concealment. "Perhaps you've noticed this little bit of work."

With his free hand, he gestured toward a shallow pit that had been dug into the snow. Its shape left little doubt about its intended purpose. The sight of the impromptu grave caused Contayza to renew her struggle with greater vigor. She writhed and fought beneath Jimmy like an entangled mass of snakes. "Contayza, don't you see that this is exactly how he expects you to react. The second that you step into the clearing, your Grandfather dies. As long as we stay concealed, Petru won't harm him. He'd lose his advantage if he did."

Contayza's eyes had assumed that flinty glaze that Jimmy knew all too well, but she had abandoned her thrashing. Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief and set his mind to the task of finding a way out of what appeared to be a hopeless situation. The old man was as good as dead. It would require divine intervention to prevent that. Petru was speaking again, in his rational, almost affable tone of voice, "I have no real desire to harm this man. His fate is in your hands. I will make your options exceedingly clear. If you come out, he will be sent home and you will be taken back to Bucharest for a fair and impartial trial. Only one person is dead and his will be the body to fill this pit. If you choose to defy me, the old man will die and you can count on joining him shortly. I'll give you exactly thirty seconds to make your choice."

In a theatrical gesture, Petru threw back his sleeve and studied his watch. From the trees, Ivan offered a soft, derisive snort. The slope had once again been submerged in a charged silence.

The instant that the first shot had been fired, Gerchnau had slipped away from the others, intending to outflank the rebels. Petru had assured him that everything would go like clockwork, but the German was determined to take no chances. The last ambush should have been perfect, but it had only partially succeeded.

Gerchnau had to concede that the ploy of using the old man was strategically brilliant. From where he now stood, he could see the three survivors plainly. Absorbed with Petru's ultimatum, they scrambled frantically for a plan. The German smiled, knowing that this diversion would work to his advantage. The man and the woman were huddled together behind a rock outcrop, while a single man was positioned in the trees just down the slope from where he now stood. The single man was a closer and much more accessible target. Moving like a wood spirit, the German made his way to within ten feet of where the other lay. He paused, estimating his chances of covering the open space between the pair before the man could react. They were not overly good. The ground was open and the snow was deep and powdery. He needed a further distraction.

The gods smiled on him then as the woman stood and emerged into the open. The target bellowed a desperate cry of negation. Gerchnau grinned wickedly and unsheathed his knife. In a darting lunge, he closed the distance, cupped his hand about the startled target's mouth and drove his knife up under the pan of his skull. When he saw that it had exited through the throat, he jerked the blade left and then right. A gurgling sound came from Ivan's throat. He spat a glut of blood and then collapsed to the snow. Bright blood pumped from the wound, turning the snow a beautiful strawberry color, so incongruent with the nature of the deed.

So simple, Gerchnau mused. Fixing his sights on the other man, he began to move down the slope. Then insanity took command of the moment.

6

As Contayza lay in the restraining grasp of Jimmy Simms, several things took shape in the turbulent interior of her mind. There were no words to adequately express the outrage presently boiling within her. She had never anticipated that her enemies would prove as craven as to resort to using a defenseless old man as a bargaining chip. This was the man who had shown her exactly what she was and how to carry the immense burden that this revelation imposed upon her. There had been occasions when she had hated both the man and the gift, but she had never been able to sustain the hatred for either. The man had given her what so many people strived their entire lives to find; an intense understanding of their intrinsic selves. Now he was being forced to pay a price for his devotion. There was only one way to vent her anger and outrage, to give it form and life lest it consume her in a blaze of ebony flame.

The power begged her for release. Within her, it pulsed with a rhythm that was almost, but not quite painful. Perhaps exhaustion, combined with the cumulative effects of indignity piled upon indignity, outrage heaped upon outrage, had erased her normal reluctance to employ the power. This time it did more than beg for its moment, it demanded it. She doubted that she would be able to suppress it and found that she didn't want to. Petru had come to dispense death and terror. She would provide him with an eye opening sample of his own medicine.

Jimmy sensed the gathering of some awesome force beneath him. The atavistic side of his nature welcomed it; in fact cheered its release, but the rational part of his mind feared it as black magic. He pressed his lips to her ear and tried to dissuade her. Before the first word could leave his lips, Contayza opened the tiniest of apertures in her mind and allowed a minute measure of the power to slip through. She had intended only to shrug him off, but even the minuscule release had been enough to throw him through the air like a ball. He landed with a grunt nearly fifteen feet from the knoll. Fearing a sniper's bullet, he attempted to rise, but the disorienting sensation of being thrown about by invisible hands had dazzled his nerve endings and he could not make his legs do his bidding. At any rate, he saw that it was too late to intervene. Contayza had stepped out into the open.

The fireworks were about to begin.

7

When Yuro Petru first saw the girl emerge from behind the rock knoll, he fervently believed that he was witnessing the realization of his destiny. More than that even, perhaps the first step in the direction of immortality. This was how it was to be from now on; no obstacle insurmountable, no wish denied. "You chose wisely, girl. Now come down the slope."

He grinned a lizard's grin as the girl took a few shambling steps down the icy decline. The expression upon her face was stony and inscrutable. Petru was a trifle disappointed to find just how bad she looked. It was to be expected, of course. A week of flight in this environment would take a toll on anyone. A little pampering and her beauty would be fully restored. Ah, and then her education could begin.

As he watched, Contayza's lower jaw fell open, giving her a glazed, catatonic expression. This Petru attributed to a painful awakening to reality and simple primitive terror. She now gleaned that she was but a bit player upon his stage. Then the old gypsy uttered a papery chuckle and whispered, "Yes Contayza. Yes!"

8

There were aspects and workings of the power that were hidden even from Contayza. Ostensibly, it was a force that appeared to function independently of her own body and mind. She could exercise a nominal control over it, but once she decided to release it, the force assumed a mind of its own. Over the years, she had come to the conclusion that its limits were defined by her imagination. Her power enable Contayza to transform vision into reality Strong emotions augmented that transformation, lending a powerful and destructive element to the process.

Though there were erroneous aspects to her grasp of her own power, this still served as a functional description of the puissance at her disposal.

When the power was given dominion, Contayza's conscious mind abdicated control of her body. All moral constraints and all sense of remorse vanished. Only the actualization of her vision mattered. The true Contayza had taken refuge in a mental bomb shelter until the firestorm was over. Thus the vacant expression and the slack features that Petru misconstrued as signs of surrender.

9

Jimmy could have described to Petru what was about to befall him. Though his ability was a mere echo of a fragment of Contayza's, he had a slightly better comprehension of what it was and how it worked. He could feel it swelling in the low vibration that was shaking the earth beneath him. He was about to witness a true spectacle, but feared that, once released, it would not bother with such trifling discriminations as friend and foe.

10

In an instant, Petru's reptilian grin soured upon his face. There came an uneasy stirring in the men around him, some of whom began to retreat.

"Not a step further!" he hissed. "What the hell is the matter with you?" Even as he challenged their courage, Petru was assailed by the inkling that something had gone awry with his infallible scheme. He pulled the old gypsy directly in front of him and pushed the gun barrel deeper into the translucent flesh. The gypsy smirked and declared blithely "You're going to die, Petru."

Something bizarre was happening to the air around the girl. It was somehow becoming substantial, almost viscous, rippling and shimmering like air in the depth of summer. Then a low rumble reverberated through the ground beneath Petru's feet, escalating in pitch and volume until it became a squealing whine.

"My God, what's happening?" Petru whimpered with the seeds of panic blooming in his guts like thorny weeds.

Contayza had become indistinct and lumpish as though something were attempting to remold her from the inside out. Then a shape, almost tangible in the early morning sun, leapt from her body. Both Petru and the gypsy caught sight of it a fraction of a second before it struck. The shimmering air around her head enfolded the form. Petru had correctly intuited that, though abstract in nature, the thing which he had briefly glimpsed was infinitely powerful and most definitely hostile. "I'll kill him. Do you hear me, bitch? Call that fucking thing off or I'll kill the old bastard."

The flinty glint in Contayza's eyes did not change one iota. Had Petru understood anything of what was about to befall him, he would have realized that such threats were ineffective. Contayza was beyond hearing, beyond reason. The shimmering air was beginning to move away from Contayza, converging directly upon Petru. The man began to blubber and pull Lemuel away. The gypsy's legs were jittery. Stumbling, he lost his footing and fell backwards. Petru attempted to steady the man and in doing so, inadvertently pulled the trigger. There was a harrowing, muffled report and then Lemuel Prowzi's head evaporated. Petru stared at the ruin of the old man, an expression of profound horror and shock tattooed upon his face. "I...I didn't mean to. It was..."

The descending mass never allowed him time to elaborate just what it was that had transpired. Petru opened his mouth to scream, but the thing was at him and then in him, suffocating the cry in his throat. His body danced and quaked, then went rigid as though gripped by some unholy tetanus.

He could not speak, but his eyes conveyed graphically the horror and agony that had befallen him. Only Petru, locked in the prison of his own body, grasped the mechanics of what the power was doing to him. A vein appeared at the direct center of his forehead, pulsing wildly. Soon others rose in response to the rapidly increasing internal pressure, all pulsing in a syncopated harmony, until Petru's entire face was covered in a repugnant purple mass of twisting lines that resembled a California road map.

As gruesome as this proved to be, it did not end there. Quickly thereafter, his entire body began to swell and then contract, resembling a grotesque parody of a lung.

Jimmy could visualize what was to follow and sickened by the prospect, averted his eyes from the grim spectacle. There was a shockingly loud pop as Petru's body exploded from the inside out. Bloody chunks of muscle, fat, bone, bile and excrement flew in every direction, plastering rock, snow and tree alike. Petru's few remains collapsed into a steaming mound, where once an entire body had stood.

The spectacle of Petru's astounding demise broke the nerve of his followers, signaling a pell-mell retreat to the safety of the vehicles. Contayza's vacant eyes tracked their flight and one by one, the power sought them out and worked its horrible magic upon them. Not satisfied with having eradicated all of the field operatives, it sought out the vehicles and reduced them to rubble as well. A lorry stood poised by the roadside. The invisible beast worked its way into the interior and pushed outward. All four doors simultaneously blew off and the hood leapt into the air, turning over and over like a giant coin. The truck bounced and reared in the way of a Brahma bull and then burst into a blinding ball of flames. All of the other vehicles received similar treatment. Still not content, Contayza's child of vengeance went to work on the land itself, randomly toppling trees and catapulting loose boulders into the air.

Contayza pivoted in place. Everything in her gaze erupted into flames or was ripped from the ground and flung into the air. As Jimmy had feared, her telekinetic powers were running rampant. Helpless, her gaze fell upon him. He felt some huge, shapeless force press down upon him. The thing conformed to the shape and contour of his body, exploring him as though attempting to grasp the essence of what he was. Its grip tightened, becoming unbearable. Abruptly, it moved on, leaving him unharmed. When her gaze had come full circle, the dervish promptly stopped. In its wake, there was only the crackle of the flames, the howl of the wind and Contayza's heavy breathing.

Jimmy lay where he had fallen, afraid to move or speak lest he agitate the beast. She gazed about and then casually strolled over to where he lay. Her gaze met his. Her eyes were lucid but cold and depthless. "They're all dead, Jimmy."

"Yes, you've killed them all," Jimmy replied, misconstruing her reference.

"My family is all dead," she reiterated flatly as if he hadn't spoken. "Grandda. Ivan is dead. I sensed that when I first stepped out."

"No, Contayza," He protested. On top of everything else, this was the one eventuality that he could not accept. "He made it into the trees. We both saw that." She remained silent, only continuing to stare at him with those, strange, dead eyes. He shook his head vehemently and called out, "Ivan! Ivan!"

When Ivan did not respond, he pushed himself to his feet and headed toward the copse of trees where he'd last seen the Romanian. He found Ivan exactly as Gerchnau had left him, knife still embedded deep in the base of his neck. He uttered a strangled gasp and fell to his knees next to the body. He felt numb and washed out. His mind had reached the limit of its capacity to absorb all of the endless bloodshed and death; the constant grief had frozen his heart, turning it to lead in his chest.

He was dimly aware of the footsteps behind him, but lacked the energy to turn around. A soft hand fell upon his shoulder and she spoke. Her voice was soft and consoling as though the loss was his and his alone. "He can't be hurt anymore, Jimmy. There's no point in lingering. There's still a long way to go."

He glanced at her with indignant disbelief. While her tone of voice had seemed oddly normal given the circumstances, her eyes had grown glazed and distant. She had insulated herself from her sorrow, but Jimmy suspected that it would not be long before the insulation wore thin, forcing her to come face to face with the wreckage of her world. Contayza turned away from Ivan's lifeless, staring eyes, heading back down the slope, past the grizzly remains of the man who had overseen the extermination of her family. Jimmy stared after her and then rose and loped after the gypsy queen, knowing that she had become a queen without a court.

11

Contayza forged ahead, eyes staring fixedly at the northern horizon. She said nothing, seemingly oblivious to Jimmy's continuing presence. He trailed behind her for the next three hours, fearing that the power or the overwhelming loss had snapped her reason.

At the bottom of a small ravine, she finally surrendered to the inevitable tide of grief, coming to a sudden, stumbling halt. At first, Jimmy thought that she might have spied more of Petru's henchmen, but then quickly discerned that she was trembling violently. Her entire body quivered beneath the storm of emotions that threatened to overwhelm her fragile defenses. He drew even to her to find that her face had dissolved into lines of grief and immutable despair. Then her eyes shifted to his. The lovely amber was blurred by salty tears, running in rivers over her pallid face.

"Oh Jimmy." She could manage no more and her words degenerated into a series of inarticulate sobs and moans. He opened his arms and she came willingly into them.

He held her until day gave way to night and grief gave way to mercifully dreamless sleep.

Chapter Forty Eight

1

A cavalcade of faces, blue in the typical hue of dream inhabitants, paraded through his mind as he fled blindly through the December night. He ran aimlessly, stumbling, rising, running and falling yet again. The falls, some against nodules of ice and rock, tore holes in his snow suit and inflicted angry bruises on his shins and thighs, but he fled on, oblivious to either fact.

His lungs, legs and heart screamed in unison, begging for surcease, imploring him to realize that this reckless flight was unnecessary. Even the stitch in his side, as pressing and incisive as a knife wound, could not deter him.

He ran, not out of fear, indeed he was far beyond its debilitating grip now, but to escape the maddening procession of faces parading past the reviewing stand of his subconscious. All of the faces were similarly sallow and bluish and each was the morbid construction of his frenzied mind, which seemed to insist upon recalling the face of everyone whom he had ever known. There was no immediate connection between most of the people. They shared only one common element; all were dead. They drifted, ghost-like, through his cerebral chambers, faintly luminescent, faces dead, but eyes alive with a recrimination that was directed squarely upon him.

They were all there; a father whom he had only known through a photograph, Miranda, the girl from El Zaltaro. Jennifer Tillman, the girl who had coerced him to his first dance and subsequent discovery of his true nature. Three years later, she had died in a macabre boating accident. Others, most of whom he would have had difficulty recalling under less morbid circumstances. All dead now. He correctly anticipated who the Parade Marshal would inevitably be and fled before that knowledge.

Both the dreary night and his morbid preoccupation with the death procession robbed him of his alertness. Nath failed to notice the way that the ground was dropping off. As he charged mindlessly forward, his right foot became entangled in the loop of a protruding root. The root served only to trip Nath, doing little to arrest his forward momentum. Arms pin wheeling, he fell onto his belly with his forward inertia sending him rolling down the steep slope.

The impact of his fall served to snap him out of his malaise. He now saw clearly just how desperate his situation had become. Ahead of him, looming ever closer as he slid, was a sheer vertical drop off. The slope terminated in a bluff that fell forty feet into a small stream. Had he not stumbled, he would have simply run out into the open air, his fall applauded by a host of dead faces.

"Let it come then," Nath told himself. If this was to be the end, then he would go without resistance. Perhaps the mind was willing to surrender, but the body had other inclinations toward survival. He caught sight of a rock outcrop and threw out his left arm that hooked around the jagged protrusion of basalt and brought him to a halt only three feet from the edge. He clung to the piece of rock until the trembling finally subsided.

He did not want to die and had never really wanted to die despite the nagging sense of despair that had hounded him since Contayza had revealed the keepsake's grim bit of knowledge. He could have sailed over the edge in a perfect imitation of a lemming, but found that he was incapable of such craven capitulation. Sitting up, he amended that this was not entirely true. He'd succeeded in deceiving himself for years, most of his life, if he was being totally candid. His mother, his precious Elizabeth! He'd squandered his entire life living for the moment when she would return to him or he would find her. He'd not been fully aware of this because he had been a living dichotomy. Intellectually and consciously, he'd convinced himself that his mother was dead. Subconsciously, where a man's true nature and spirit resided beneath the dirty floorboards of reason, he had never accepted her death.

He gazed about and shook his head in bewilderment. He'd taken a lovely woman, one whom he had, in truth, scarcely known, and had elevated her to a mythical plateau, forging her into an idol to be pursued at the expense of everything else in his life. People the world over lived for some elusive moment, fervently praying for the day when they would reach their pinnacle. More often than not, they failed, but in trying they at least gained a self respect of sorts. By contrast, he had only deluded himself, clinging to a foolish, destructive hope like a man clinging to an anchor in an ocean. Though this anchor will pull him down and inevitably drown him, he obstinately refuses to let it go. He had eschewed a normal life to pursue an angelic illusion...to replace the mother he'd never really known with an ideal that could not possibly exist.

His mother was dead. Everyone he had ever known was dead. The Romanians, who had families that they loved and who in turn loved them, were also dead. By some perverse miscarriage of justice he was still alive. Him, a man who had adamantly rejected a normal life to live out a stupid delusion. He cautiously made his way to the edge of the bluff and sat with his feet dangling over the precipice.

The course of his life had ultimately led him to this moment. Sitting on the edge of a secluded bluff, he was an unwelcome alien in a strange and hostile land...alone both in body and spirit. To come face to face with the wretched emptiness and monumental stupidity of his existence was more than his broken heart could endure. Such a simple matter really, a quick push off, a short, tumbling fall and it would be over...an appropriate end to a misspent life. There would be no more reproachful faces and no more life spent in his name. And then it dawned upon him that even this was a delusion. He could not even end his miserable life. Only Cynara could do that.

"You contemptible fuck," he spat, backing away from the precipice. All of the turmoil so that he could reach this moment. All of the lives sacrificed in the hope that he would give that sacrifice meaning and value and he sat here contemplating compounding his worthlessness by his willingness to negate all that they had given. Self loathing assailed him with a force that was sickening in its intensity.

They had given their lives to stop one age old evil and he was considering suicide because he could not endure a few frank insights into his own nature. He was grateful that Contayza and Jimmy were not here to witness just how low he had plunged. Could a man so easily multiply his misdeeds and transgressions until he buried himself beneath a mountain of his own shit? The dagger was his only redemption, the only adequate remuneration for the lives that had been lost in its name. He was alone and hopelessly lost, but his personal tribulations meant nothing. If he was to die, it would be in search of the dagger. He gazed about. He had no idea where he was, but was not particularly disturbed by this. Retrieving his rifle, he made his way back up the slope and set about making a fire.

As he prepared to sleep, Nath summoned the names of the two dead Romanians, Samuel and Misha. He vowed never to forget their names or their faces. He would evoke them whenever he found himself contemplating surrender. He fell asleep with their names echoing in his fevered mind.

2

His resolve was tested sorely in the next several days. He suffered miserably from the bite of the cold as winter tightened its grip on Northern Romania, alternating between periods of heavy snow and biting cold. He conducted his search in a half daze, plagued by exhaustion, and more troubling still, the onset of sickness and fever.

It was in this condition that Nathaniel Simpson finally stumbled upon his redemption.

3

He was very sick now. No pretence or trick of willpower was going to prevent him from realizing that dreary fact.

His forehead radiated heat like an oven. The cadence of his breathing had become raspy and labored. Even his walking had assumed a weird, surrealistic pattern. There were moments when his legs felt as though they had turned to stone, the joints blaring a painful complaint with each step. During other particularly unnerving periods, his legs seemed to become weightless and oddly spectral. He would take a step and it seemed as though the leg would hover in mid air, refusing to come down. Though not especially painful, Nath found this latter state more alarming than the former, which was at least logical, given the ordeal he was suffering through.

He had not eaten in the last twenty eight hours and knew that he would not have been able to shoot straight, even if the opportunity had presented itself. His vision was blurry and he attributed much of what he saw to the ravages of fever. There were vague shapes stirring in the trees and ducking in and out of the rocks around him. When he would attempt to fix them in his faltering sight, they would dissolve like specters before the wind. He found this aspect of his deteriorating condition rather amusing.

"Come out and play," he would call to them blithely. "Really, I'm quite harmless."

Through periods of lucidity and delusion, he kept up his search, though his method became more erratic and less thorough. At times, he would blunder by openings. Other times, he would search a cave, wander around in a looping circle, only to come back to the same cave and search it again, never knowing the difference.

4

Elizabeth watched the boy sink further and further into the debilitating waters of illness. He had risen on this morning out of sheer will alone, his body perilously close to rebelling against his command to move. During the night, she had come out of hiding and had sat next to him. Even if he were to awaken, he would attribute her presence to his sickened mind.

She marveled at his condition. Though unlined, his face conveyed the impression of tremendous age. The thin skin seemed barely able to conceal the skull beneath.

"He should be dead," she observed dispassionately, wondering what strength empowered him to persevere against the fire raging in his blood. She could have let him die. Another day, two at the most and he would have expended whatever was left in him. The inevitable coma would follow and hard on its heels would come death. She would have been free of him and her purpose simply served.

Yet, watching him thrash fitfully in his fever induced sleep, Elizabeth knew that she could not allow him to perish this way. Her reasons were complex and not entirely clear to her. She wanted him to find the dagger, wanted Cynara's smug sense of security to be shattered. The dagger in this man's hand could force Cynara to reveal herself. It was imperative that Elizabeth know Cynara's heart. The combination of man and dagger would serve that need.

Another factor influenced her decision to intervene. The prisoner had begun to stir at the sight of her son's deteriorating condition. She had vowed to help him and knew that it would be prudent to keep that promise. Yet, even this was not the full motivation behind her decision to intervene. Elizabeth could not deny that she felt a grudging admiration for the man, who by all rights should be dead, but seemed able to defy death through willpower alone. She would discreetly lead him to the dagger and then to a reunion with the Dark Lady. Though potentially explosive, it promised to be a most interesting moment.

5

He came awake in a chatter of teeth and a shaking of limbs which seemed intent upon pulling him apart. More terrifying still was the disrythmia of his heart. It would trip hammer at an accelerated rate and then seem to pause for an instant before resuming its runaway beating. He lay there, gazing up at the turbulent sky until the dysrythmia abated. Then slowly, experimentally, he sat up, knowing that today would be the last day. He was running on empty and after today he would be out of time.

His mind grasped at the shreds of a dream that had come to him just prior to waking. His mother had come to him, even more magnificent than he had imagined. She had assured him, in her soothing, melodious voice, that he would be all right, that things would resolve themselves as they had been intended. The last statement had been decidedly ambiguous. As he sat up and steeled himself against the inevitable wave of nausea and dizziness, it occurred to him that this may have been a presentiment of his death.

Pushing himself to his feet, Nath staggered out into the open. On the turn of a thought, he elected to head north. His initial assessment of his reserve had proven liberal. His aching limbs and his swimming vision informed him that he would be lucky to survive until noon. Even if he found the dagger, it would only prove to be a futile, blackly ironic discovery.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered through cracked lips.

He descended a slope to find himself at the head of a long valley. The valley was perhaps two kilometers in length and ended in a sharp bluff, perhaps seventy meters high; a box canyon and the end of the line. He found himself confronted with one final decision; turn away or head into the canyon.

A high sound penetrated the fog of his sickness. It was a shrill whistle, lilting and somehow melancholy. It seemed to originate from somewhere in the canyon. He uttered a laugh. "Pied Piper, Nath. Fall in step to the music." He squinted and saw triple. He placed the flat of his palm upon his fiery forehead. The palm came away hot and wet and still the whistling persisted. Shrugging indifferently, he croaked, "What the hell, it's as good a place to die as any."

With this cheery declaration, Nath strode into the valley.

6

High above him, perched on an overhang, Elizabeth smiled. He had taken the lure without questioning its source. He would find the dagger and possibly even surmount the obstacle that Cynara had prepared. She would wait and watch. His fate was in his own hands.

7

His initial survey of the valley had failed to register its steep incline. He fell several times, the final time believing that he would not be able to regain his feet.

"Fuck it," he muttered thickly, and began to crawl, pulling with his hands and pushing with his wobbly legs. He had come fifty yards into the valley when the whistle abruptly disappeared. He wanted to stop and go back but some deeper instinct admonished him to go forward.

He came the last hundred meters dragging himself and finally stopped. The rock wall was broken by an irregular arch perhaps fifteen feet high at the center. Faint traces of light, first red and then green, washed across the entrance; the elaborate construction of a mind in the last extremity of torment and desperate for a miracle. Miracle or not, Nath conjured up some final source of strength and traversed the last stretch, if only on his knees. Unlike the guiding siren, the light had not disappeared. An inexplicable warmth emanated from the mouth of the cave. Unaware of the tears that had fallen to mingle with the sweat, Nath plunged into the interior.

8

Poised at an unprecedented juncture, a position in time where no human being had previously stood, Nath found the moment to be somewhat of a disappointment. What had he expected? A fanfare of trumpets perhaps, or a chorus of angels to herald this auspicious moment. Instead there was only the glinting glow of the jewels, the sickening pulse of the fever as it worked within him and the low whine that the dagger produced as it spun. Everything was exactly as Contayza had envisioned it, with the notable absence of Cynara's guardian. He had only to reach up and the dagger would be his. This would prove to be the ultimate gesture of futility as he would die with the coveted prize in his fingers; attained at last, but useless nonetheless.

A whisper of movement caught his ear. Furtive and sly, something slid through the shadows directly behind him. He pivoted to meet the sound, but the rapid movement generated a vertigo which made his eyes roll and his head swim. He fought to retain his balance, almost succeeded, and then toppled backward. The fall proved most fortuitous as the swing of the blade most surely would have separated his head from his shoulders. As it was, the blow missed the top of Nathaniel's head by only scant inches.

"So you've returned at last to claim your filthy prize, you fratricidal bitch," Someone rumbled in the darkness. The brooding gloom gave way to a milky light which cast an eerie glow over the cave's interior. Nath lay sprawled beneath the spinning dagger, waiting for his wavering vision to clear. What he saw caused him to blanch with revulsion like waking to find a spider poised causally on your cheek. The cave was rife with niches, ledges and rims. Filling all of these was a ghastly collection of skeletal remains, informing Nath that he had not been the first to find this cave. Obviously, others had inadvertently blundered into it only to become a part of the keeper's hideous collection; a morbid testimony to its invincibility.

Nath focused his attention upon the keeper. What he saw accosted his reason, nearly pushing him over the rim into madness. The thing was a specter to be sure. The figure was tall and lithe, evidently young when its soul had been stripped from its body. The spirit wore light chain mail armor that it had somehow carried into the spirit world. Despite the armor, Nath could make out other skulls, set into the opposite wall, barely concealed through the specter's translucent body. Had he the energy to grab it, he correctly surmised that his hands would have closed on nothing. Only the broadsword, flaked with rust and pitted from numerous contacts with rock and bone, appeared solid. Solid and inarguably lethal.

The thing brandished the sword in both hands, poised to deliver another blow. Inexplicably it did not strike, though Nath lay vulnerable at its feet. It gazed about as though searching for its quarry. The fever had dulled Simpson's perception or the reason for its confusion would have been immediately obvious. Eventually it filtered through the fog of illness, the revelation prompting him to gasp.

The specter had no eyes. Where there should have been eyes, there were only ragged, empty sockets. Contrary to everything that Nath thought he understood regarding the nature of spirits, this specter lacked the faculty of sight.

Nath had committed a nearly fatal error by enunciating his surprise. Hearing the gasp, the thing let the flat edge of the heavy sword fall. It struck Nath on the hip bone like the fall of a mallet. He screeched, but retained enough presence of mind to roll to his right as the second blow quickly followed. The sound of metal on stone reverberated through the chamber like a cannon blast.

"So you've come back, murderess. Come to claim your wicked prize. Your lackeys have all failed and you are bound to meet a similar fate," the thing vowed. There was a long suffering quality to that voice which Nath could fathom no more than he could understand the gist of its ravings. The apparition was speaking another language, but somehow he understood it. He spared no thought to the oddity of this, having grown accustomed to the fantastic.

He lay still and bit his lip to hold back the cry of pain welling up in his throat. The illness and the jagged waves of pain in his leg made it difficult to think. The thing could not see, but it could sense and isolate sound and movement. Quite obviously its incapacitation had not been accidental. Cynara had deliberately intended for her guardian to have no sight. Why? That was the salient question. If he could divine the correct answer, he could possibly survive this lunacy.

He groped for the solution, but the answer defied him. The thing stepped away from him, moving to block the cave's only exit. "You are wise, little sister, but your ploys will prove futile. You cannot escape me. This is to be my moment. If you wish to prolong it, the end will only be all the more pleasing."

'Little sister?' Nath Thought to himself quizzically, puzzled by the apparition's constant use of the female gender. Then the winds of clarity blew through the corridors of his brain, momentarily rolling back the fog. ' _Holy fuck...He thinks that I'm...Could it be_?' Could the woman be so wickedly clever, so artfully insidious? He had to know, had to chance the risk. As loudly as he was able, he cried, "Who am I, spirit?"

The thing came forward, issuing a mirthless chuckle. "Cynara, you were never caught for the want of a ruse. Your game will avail you nothing, this time. You will pay for what you've done to me."

The specter quickly advanced upon the thunderstruck Nath. This thing had been Cynara's brother, he now realized. As incredible as it was, she had inflicted this eternal torment upon her own brother. In a hideous display of cruelty, she had killed her brother and set his spirit to guard the one means by which she could be killed. That anyone could be so nefarious, so cold and unfeeling, was light years beyond his sensibilities. As despicable as it was, Nath also realized that it demonstrated an evil genius. He would guard the dagger fanatically, believing that it would be Cynara who would return to claim it.

The specter had established his position and now surged toward Nath with a vengeance. Nath pressed himself into a rock niche and closed his eyes. The misdirected blow again fell upon stone raising a shower of sparks. Instinctively, he took hold of a skull and pitched it toward the opening, where it struck a rock wall. The creature wheeled about and covered the distance in the blink of an eye. The thing raised its blade, awaiting the next telltale sound, knowing that it had been tricked, it displayed anger for the first time. "Content yourself with games, you vile bitch. In time, you will have to come through this entrance. Then I will have your head and my soul will be free of this purgatory."

The thing stood with its back to the opening, prepared to wait for as long as the situation required; for an eternity if necessary.

The intrinsic truth of this told Nath exactly how hopeless his situation was. It was spirit and he was flesh, dying flesh at that. He would die with only this vindictive ghost to mark his passing.

His entire life seemed to have been structured to this moment. He had been forged and shaped for this crucial confrontation. It galled him to find that he was ill prepared to meet the challenge. ' _Goddamn it_!' he raged to himself. ' _Goddamn it, what am I supposed to do_?'

Contayza, in an uncanny moment of glacial calm and assurance, spoke to him. She spoke eloquently of worthiness and innocence. In her place, came Cynara's cryptic declaration. "You are extraordinary, Nathaniel."

"Why? Why am I extraordinary?" Nath demanded sourly. He was greeted by a chorus of derisive laughter. This was all some complex riddle; a perplexing conundrum to which he was the solution. The answer mocked him, teased him with obscure fragments of resolution. In the fever heated interiors of his brain there followed a torrent of seemingly disconnected images and words. Passivity. Innocence. Nath immolated at the stake in El Zaltaro. The nonexistent girl snatched up in the jaws of the snake. Sacrifice. Indomitable spirit.

It was there, only a heart beat away from clarity. Almost and then gone. He groaned aloud, trying to usher back the images, but they stubbornly refused to heed his call.

It was over then. Let the demon have her moment and let the accursed gods suffer the consequences of having chosen someone so deficient to do their bidding. Crawling from the niche, he dragged his tortured body into the opening, making no attempt to be silent.

The thing reacted instantly, converging upon Nath with broadsword uplifted. Nath came to his knees, offering the sightless phantom his neck. "All right then, you wretched, pathetic son of a bitch, kill me. I have nothing left to give. To hell with the lot of us."

The thing came to a skidding halt, sword wavering hesitantly at the top of its arc. Nath closed his eyes and dipped his head in a gesture of absolute capitulation. Seconds passed and the blade did not fall to grant him merciful oblivion. Frustration leaked out of him with a hiss, like air from a punctured tire. It was the desolate cry of a man who had surpassed the limits of his tolerance and whose torment could only be placated by death. "Don't toy with me. Sweet Mother of Jesus, have I not suffered enough?"

Abruptly, the blade fell harmlessly to the specter's side. It spoke, words fraught with confusion, "Who are you? Declare yourself."

Nathaniel glanced up, vision distorted by tears of rage and frustration. The thing regarded him with its empty sockets. Could it be that this creature was actually prepared to listen? "I'm only a man. My name is Nathaniel Simpson and I have come in search of this dagger."

"Why?" the thing thundered, promising violence in turn for deception.

"The woman, your sister Cynara. I need it to kill her."

Again the interrogative, this time with genuine interest. "Why? What quarrel do you have with Cynara? Choose your words carefully. I'm well schooled in the ways of her treachery. If she has sent you here to retrieve her treasure, I'll detect the lie in your voice."

"Cynara killed my mother," Nath replied flatly, his tone devoid of emotion. There was no discernable bitterness, only a statement of fact that provided no insight into the scar this loss had inflicted on his soul. The specter pondered this for a long moment, face never leaving the fallen man before him. "My sister is a creature of darkness, is she not?"

The question was rhetorical. She had long ago provided him with proof of her wickedness. Nath glimpsed a hint of the man's torment, suspecting that it exceeded his own. ' _How long has he been here_?' Nath wondered.

The specter dropped its sword, apparently relieved to be rid of it. "My name is Peytor Saravic. My sister took my eyes and then my life, leaving me here to languish in this tiny enclave of hell, awaiting the moment of her return. My exile is over. The dagger is yours."

As if on cue, the spinning weapon fell to the floor of the cave. Nath watched it fall, muscles locked, lungs hitched. "All of those men and women who came before you, were they innocent of all but bad fortune?"

"They were her acolytes," Nath lied without hesitation, seeing little point in multiplying this pitiable creature's torment. The thing grinned. "I am free of my sister's torment. My sister exchanged her soul for powers that no human being was meant to possess. If this is the means to her death, then take it with my blessing."

The thing turned toward the entrance and shambled forward. Passing into the morning gray air, Peytor Saravic blew apart before the howling wind.

With effort, Nath drew his eyes from the entrance toward the jewel encrusted dagger. As he crawled listlessly toward it, he was struck by the terrifying certainty that it would vanish the moment he attempted to lay his hands on it. To his relief, it did not.

Taking it in both hands, he clutched the dagger to his chest. It pulsed against his fevered flesh as though fuelled by thrumming electric coils. He held it out at arms length, perhaps expecting a bolt of lightening to cleave the very rock and ordain the dagger to his purpose.

Instead the world before him began to lose solidity and flow together, merging into a uniformly gray mass. He understood that the fever was reasserting its claim upon his failing body. Dreamless darkness beckoned enticingly to him. Clutching the dagger to his chest with bone white knuckles, Nath went gladly into its numbing embrace. As he lay unmoving against the cold rock floor, a euphoric smile spread across his sallow face.

Chapter Forty Nine

1

"For Christ sake, Contayza, you can't be serious?" Jimmy moaned, frustration and dismay blending in equal measure.

She glared back at him, her expression dark with the promise of total inflexibility. The two had found shelter in the cramped opening of a rock wall. Contayza had built the fire while Jimmy had gone out to hunt. For a change, he'd been met with modest success, actually bringing down three rabbits. The roasted meat had been intoxicating.

' _Ah, what I wouldn't give for a coffee to go with this_ ,' Jimmy thought as he popped the last morsel of dark meat into his mouth. It had been four days since the horror of the Gheorghini pass. The two had covered over eighty kilometers of rugged terrain since then, at first spurred on by the fear of pursuit and then simply by the desire to reach Chevru. The day immediately following the battle had been one of mourning for Contayza. She had allowed the grief to have its way with her. There had been a moment when Jimmy feared that it might consume her as he had never seen her so distraught, so openly shaken. Her lovely eyes were puffy and red from incessant crying. Still, there were signs that she would survive this ordeal in tact. She could cry unashamedly and willingly accept the comfort of his embrace.

Her weeping was not a precursor of collapse, but the indication of her ability to come to terms with the enormous loss. In these hours, Jimmy's respect and admiration for the woman were pushed to new heights, providing him with a further insight into the strength of her character. By the second day, she had begun to give clues that the healing process was well under way. Her tears gave way to fond reminiscence. As they pushed ahead, negotiating whatever obstacles they came across, she spoke endlessly of her family. Jimmy listened respectfully, knowing that she was speaking as much for her benefit as his. He came to gain an appreciation of the extent of her loss. Her entire world had revolved around the family unit. He experienced a faint twinge of envy as she described the importance of family to the gypsy. In juxtaposition, his own family life had been a travesty; an unhappy association of indifferent strangers.

There did prove to be one small beneficial aspect to what had happened. The loss and the subsequent struggle to come to grips with that loss had somehow rejuvenated Contayza. Whereas before she had been listless and flagging, now she appeared almost indefatigable, insisting on pushing on from dawn until last light, chiding Jimmy to push on another kilometer when he had long since begun to falter. Her return to form warmed his heart, making the exhausting trek more tolerable, if only slightly.

Then he discovered the motivation which fuelled her new fire. That warmth was washed away in a deluge of anxiety and incredulity.

He gaped at her, the fire in her eyes matching the fire in the circle of stone between them. The eyes held the obstinate, flinty glaze that he had become all too familiar with over the past few weeks. The gaze declared, ' _This is what I want and this is what I shall have_.' Truculently, she remarked "I'm perfectly serious, so there is little need to waste your breath in argument. I can't be dissuaded."

Jimmy shook his head in exasperation. "Contayza, it was you who came up with the concept of roles to be played. You laid out the plan, goddamn it, and we followed it. Now you want to write a new script."

She shrugged her shoulders indifferently. Flustered, Jimmy ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath to steady his temper. There was little point in being diplomatic. Contayza had no appreciation of that particular art and neither did he. "Going to Cynara without the dagger is plain stupidity. You are being stupid, Contayza."

She glowered at him and he knew that he had struck a nerve. Pressing on, he continued, "Back in the clearing you told us that we could not kill Cynara without the ritualistic dagger. You also said that neither of us had the power to resist her, especially you. Nothing has happened to change that, Contayza. We're as susceptible as ever."

"Everything has changed," she exploded, leaping to her feet. "My brother, my Grandda, they're dead. I've got to redeem their deaths, to give them meaning through vengeance."

"How, by committing suicide? That's brilliant. I'm sure that they'd be overjoyed," Jimmy retorted angrily.

"Did you see what I did at the pass? The power has grown astronomically. That was only a fraction of its capability."

"It isn't enough. It's not nearly enough. It's like comparing a firecracker to a Cruise missile. Cynara is impervious to everything but that dagger, can't you get that through your stubborn skull." The grimace upon her face made him immediately regret that final remark. Before he had time to apologize, she launched herself at him. She pounced upon him in a dervish of nails, fists, feet and knees. She had landed several heavy blows before he was able to roll atop her and pinion her arms above her head. He raised himself away from her and attempted to placate her. She, in turn, hissed and snarled and then spit into his face. He ignored the warm spittle as it ran down his cheek.

"I'm sorry. I had no right to say that," he gasped, while struggling to restrain her. She replied by again spitting into his face. Perhaps perverse, some part of him was deliriously happy. This was Contayza encapsulated; the fuck you, all or nothing tempestuous beauty with all the passion of a volcano.

She had gone scarlet, her eyes indeed resembling the pits of a volcano. "If you don't stand with me, then you are my enemy. I'm warning you not to try and stop me."

"Ah, Contayza, does everything have to be black and white with you? Just once, can't you try to compromise? Try to see things from more than one hard line perspective. How can you say what you just said to me? After all that we've been through, how can you say that, hurt me like that?" he demanded wretchedly.

She twisted her head to one side, tears pilling over her sooty lashes. Her voice rose like a wail over turbulent seas, "She's taken everything. Everything that I've ever had is gone, can't you see that? I've got nothing left but this immutable rage."

"You have me," he blurted out, before he could restrain himself. Thus committed, he said the rest. "I need you...I love you. Is that so difficult to see?"

Finally, he had mustered the courage to say it. It lay between them, impossible to ignore. Her crying and thrashing stopped abruptly. He could feel her eyes boring into him and was forced to look away. Releasing her wrists, he rolled off of her and slouched against the rock wall, staring sullenly into the fire. She pushed herself to her elbows, regarding him with an incisive, speculative expression. "Do you know what you just said? Is it true?"

Jimmy dropped his hands from his face and met her gaze unflinchingly, knowing that it was the only sign of sincerity Contayza would accept. "I love you. You're like a precious jewel, full of fire and passion inside. It's like someone has managed to capture a storm and contain its fury inside a human body. I've never believed that anyone could be like you...could have such a voracious appetite for life."

He glanced down at her hands, both embarrassed and unaccustomed to speaking from his heart. Contayza rolled to her knees. Had she not seen this? Was she really so self absorbed? "Jimmy, I...I"

She stammered, finding it difficult to organize her thoughts. He held up his hands, a fey smile settling over his face. "It's all right. I don't expect you to say anything. Maybe I shouldn't have said it, but I'm afraid for you. Afraid of the way that you're feeling. So much has happened. So many people have died ugly, horrible deaths, but if you were to die, it would be the one loss that I could not suffer. Even if Cynara and all the other monsters like her were struck down, I wouldn't care if you weren't there to see it. Please try to understand that."

She began to weep, though not out of anger or frustration. Sorrow supplanted all of these things. She wept over the manner in which life seemed to twist people's hearts so callously, turning their own passions against them like poison. Her accursed anger had made her blind.

"Jimmy, I...I can't help what I am. What's inside of me..." she whispered, hating how feeble her words echoed to her own ears. He nodded his head brusquely. She glanced up at him. Red light chased shadows across his face as the fire flickered, bestowing upon him a distant, pensive expression. He grasped the essence of what she meant. Defying one's nature, going against the pattern that was engrained into the fabric of a person's very soul was the most difficult hill that a one could ever hope to climb. Jimmy Simms had never been an expansive man. Emotions frightened him in some strange, inexplicable way. He'd always avoided confronting his own, leaving them in a twisted jumble. Now, he sifted through the clutter, hoping to find a way to elaborate upon the tempest raging in his mind and heart.

Not looking directly at the gypsy beauty, he began to relate his tale haltingly, in words that were soft and dreamy, colored sepia by the thin strand of melancholy that ran through every syllable. "I wanted to be different once. I did all of the things that were expected of me, that I expected of myself. I found a job that I enjoyed doing and was fortunate enough to be good at. I worked hard and saved my money. I went out with the boys on Friday after work. I was the quintessential working class American male. I guess you find that difficult to grasp, huh?"

He glanced at her expectantly and she could only shrug her shoulders. She did not grasp the essence of what he was trying to convey, but suspected that it was imperative that she make the attempt. He smiled, the spittle still gleaming on his cheek. "I did everything in my life to live up to some stereotype. I wore the obligatory baseball cap and denim shirt. I even had a four wheel drive truck. Last year, I bought a small bungalow less than a mile from where I worked. I tried to build a perfect suburban life for myself."

He frowned in consternation and shifted his gaze into the fire, seeing his superficial life as something shallow and ugly. "I was sitting in my living room, drinking a Bud and listening to the rain one weekend afternoon, when it suddenly occurred to me just how pathetically empty my life was. I had all the ingredients to a good life except the ones that truly mattered; someone to care about, to need and who needed me. A stable person can only deceive themselves for so long. Sooner or later, they're forced to take a hard look at what they really are."

"I've never been especially comfortable around people. The power had something to do with that I suppose. I've always felt different, like I just didn't fit in. Sitting in a new house, full of new furniture, surrounded by all of the bullshit that I tried so hard to sell myself, I found that I was afraid."

"Afraid?" Contayza murmured. "Of what?" she asked, genuinely baffled. The notion of such a sedate existence was beyond her sensibilities; so ideal as to be incomprehensible.

"Afraid of commitment, of working to build a real life only to have it all snatched away. Like what happened to Nath."

"But Jimmy, you also lost your mother and father," Contayza pointed out.

"It's not the same," Jimmy insisted adamantly. "My parents were like cardboard cut-outs. Nath is the only person I've ever really been close to and he's even stranger than I am." He laughed but the laughter was thin and hollow. It prompted thoughts of Nath and where he might be and that laughter dried up in his throat like a decaying corpse. He forced himself to meet Contayza's gaze. "All of my life, I've run away from people because they can be taken away or simply leave if they want. Giving up your heart only to have it broken was something that I couldn't allow myself to risk. I know how foolish and cowardly this must sound, but it was how I lived my life."

He paused. She could almost hear the whir of some internal machinery as he sought the proper words and the requisite courage to give them voice. "In the few weeks that I've been with you, I've come to learn just how goddamned stupid I've been. What I lived was a pale imitation of a real life. You live life the way that I would like to if I had the guts. I don't know if I could, but I know that I want to try and I want you to help me. If you have to go, then I can't stop you, but God forgive me, I just can't be there when you commit suicide. Please understand."

Contayza nodded tightly. "I do, Jimmy. Come to Chevru with me. Wait for me there and when this is over, we'll have this talk again."

She came to him and with the sleeve of her snow suit, wiped the spittle from his cheek, vowing to atone for that vapid spite if time would only provide her with the chance.

2

The next day's trek was completed in an awkward silence. Recalling his confession of the previous night made Jimmy blush with embarrassment. The few words that actually passed between the two were stiff and oddly formal.

All through the late hours of the afternoon, with a pale and hapless sun slanting through the tops of the trees, Contayza's gypsy instinct kept insisting that the pair was being stalked. Several times she would stop and glance about, trying to detect subtle signs of movement; snapping branches or snow falling from trees for no apparent reason. Each time, she would see nothing other than the vast, undisturbed wilderness, blanketed in a virginal, white shroud.

Just before shadow deepened to purple darkness, the pair reached the edge of a small lake and decided to make camp in the trees above the sloping shore line. Again Contayza thought that she had heard the subtle whisper of something gliding over snow, but the shadows around them had thickened to impenetrable and she could see nothing.

"Contayza, I'm going to scavenge the area and see if I can find some firewood," Jimmy announced. He could barely hold her gaze. The sheepish expression, which had become a permanent fixture since the night before, touched her, but she could give nothing to him; not until she had settled old accounts with the demon.

"I'll collect branches and push aside the snow," she replied softly. He nodded, lingered for a moment, and then moved into the trees. She had almost added an admonition to be careful. 'Why do I feel such growing agitation?' she asked herself. The past five days, while exhausting and monotonous, had been entirely uneventful. They were only about four days from Chevru now. It was conceivable that the psychic miasma that hung about Cynara was growing thicker with each step they took. ' _Just the spooks_ ,' she told herself. The gypsy in her warned against such perfunctory conclusions.

As Jimmy passed through the trees and into the darkness, Contayza attempted to assess her feelings for the man. Like everything else in her life, they were complex; an indistinguishable mixture of strong and conflicting emotions. She harbored a strong affection for him at the very least, but she had serious doubts whether her spontaneous fire could blend with his slow burning, reticent nature. And why exactly was she thinking such thoughts with her family butchered and her enemy still alive to gloat over her treachery?

Shaking her head, she began to clear snow for a pit in which to place the night's fire. Abruptly, she gazed up with a start. This time it had not been a trick of her beleaguered imagination. There had been a sound, feather light, but very definitely real. It seemed to have come from the surface of the lake. Collecting her rifle, she walked slowly to the point where the land began to slope off.

The snow there was perhaps three feet deep. Raising her rifle to shoulder level, she scanned the surface of the lake for some sign of shifting shadows or the furtive darting of an approaching silhouette. The night was comparatively bright, affording her a relatively good view of the entire small lake. The crust of snow was unbroken in all directions.

She relaxed, lowered the gun and was about to return to her fire pit, when the snow directly in front of her welled up and then slumped. Her eyes widened as a tumultuous upheaval passed beneath her, carrying her up and over. When she landed, it was in a slide of snow that avalanched down the bank, depositing her onto the lake itself. Contayza landed with her face down and her bottom up. She scrambled to regain her feet in a panicked thrashing of arms and legs. When she had at last managed to stand, she pawed frantically at her snow clotted eyes, nose and ears.

Shock had still not given way to fear and so she did not scream when her eyes found the figure that stood framed in the purple shadows at the top of the bank. Darkness must surely have distorted its body which appeared absurdly lumpish and misshapen.

Before she could respond to its appearance, the thing vanished. ' _Dammit, it was a man_ ,' she scolded herself vehemently. One second it had been there, looking down upon her and the next it was gone, as if the field of snow was a living entity that had simply sucked him up.

She shook her head, feeling vulnerable without her rifle, which had the bad manners to fly one way, while she had flown the other. There followed more movement around her, though now it was not subtle. Off to her left, the snow had started to churn and boil as if the water beneath had become super heated. The thing that had stood on the bank was actually moving under the snow, she realized, now burrowing directly at her with blinding speed. She had no sooner digested this thought than she was struck broadside and again driven beneath the snow in a sprawl of limbs.

Something pulled at her ankle. She tried to scream, but was suffocated by a rush of powdery snow. Fear, jagged and crippling, fell upon her. She could not scream for help, could not see her assailant and was being inexorably dragged into this hellish white sea.

' _Jimmy, Jimmy please help_ ,' she thought, as her unseen tormentor began to drag her toward the center of the lake. The plea, amplified by hysteria, rocketed out of her frenzied mind like a Howitzer shell.

Jimmy rummaged through the nearby trees, attempting to bring his turbulent emotions to heel, trying to decide how best to deal with Contayza when they at last reached Chevru. He was sorely tempted to knock her senseless and lock her away until he could make her see reason. Knowing Contayza, that would probably be a lifelong undertaking. He smiled and shook his head.

He had gathered an armful of branches, which would be serviceable enough to build a decent fire. Deciding to turn back, he found himself thinking of the house that he had left in Seattle. He had given it little thought since leaving, which he supposed was testimony to just how superficial his life had been there. His mind automatically added the needed ingredient in the form of Contayza and he was at once overcome by a profound sense of longing that made his chest contract painfully. Crazy really, but what harm was there in a little indulgence. Add to the picture one...

He was never allowed the opportunity to complete the fantasy family portrait. Contayza's blared plea for help blew away all thought as though they were sticks caught before a hurricane. The impact was tangible, snapping his head back and bringing blood from his nose in a crimson gout of ruptured blood vessels. His reaction was automatic and unthinking. Dropping the branches and ignoring the blood running freely from both nostrils, Jimmy sprinted back to the spot where he had left Contayza.

As he passed through the trees, his heart paused and his breath froze in his lungs.

The clearing was empty! Contayza was gone. ' _Don't lose your head_!' he commanded. Surveying the immediate area, he noticed the disturbed snow near the slope leading down to the lake.

"Contayza!" he bellowed, rushing to the spot where the snow had been ploughed aside. The surface of the lake was twilight blue and deserted. No not quite deserted. There seemed to be some freakish commotion running beneath the mantle of snow. As he watched, a hand broke the surface, swinging down in a wild arc before again vanishing from view.

Without hesitation, Jimmy plunged down the bank and into the middle of the confusion. Not certain of what to do, he stood watching as the snow about him churned and roiled. Then his legs were being pulled from under him, spilling him into the snow. There was a tense, expectant moment and then two figures broke the surface in a whirl of flailing limbs. Contayza scrambled to her feet, gasping for breath. The world swam in and out of focus and time seemed to pause as Contayza tottered on the brink of unconsciousness. She won the battle, though barely.

What she saw next made her wish that the void had taken her. Jimmy pounded I futility at something that could only be an illusion born of the darkest nightmares. Jimmy swung a round house right hand which connected squarely with a ferret snout. The head snapped to one side, but before Simms could follow through, a short, gnarled limb shot up and struck him across the face, laying his cheek open in three jagged slashes. His right cheek was at once obscured by a sheet of blood.

The thing's body was hunched, but its impression of frailty and weakness was deceiving. Clutching fingers, elongated and powerful, about Jimmy's left arm and leg, it hoisted Simms into the air and hurled him up onto the slope. Jimmy landed with a sharp exhalation of air.

After having disposed of the intruder, the monstrosity returned its attention to the paralyzed Contayza. A small moan escaped her cracked, tortured lips and she took an involuntary step backward. The full impact of its hideous countenance struck Contayza like an anvil on a chain.

"What are you?" she demanded of it, trying to dilute her fear with anger.

"Contayza," it offered hesitantly. The voice had been thick and distorted, but still vaguely human. More disturbing still, it held echoes which were faintly familiar. She recognized the voice, but how? The thing took a few looping, grotesque strides forward. The gypsy could not move, could not even find it in her to scream. As hideous as it was, she found herself entranced by the absurd construction of the thing.

The general shape was human, though its spine had a distinct crook which made it impossible for the beast to stand fully erect. Its torso was thin but lumpy; covered with thick tufts of black and reddish fur. The arms had been shortened, terminating in hooked claws that resembled those of tree dwelling animals. Despite the bizarre body structure, Contayza found her gaze transfixed on the horrid face, which was a sorry blending of animal and human features as if God, in a moment of black humor, had conjured this grotesquery.

The long snout held two rows of small, yet extremely sharp teeth. The ears were pointed and lengthened, laying flat to the head, which was similarly formed.

The eyes, blazing blue gray were windows of animal cunning and hatred, yet still held decidedly human aspects.

It advanced step by step upon the unmoving Contayza. Hot needles of fear prickled the length of her spine. She knew those eyes, had seen their adoring, puppy stare often enough. They were the eyes of Pierca Rescu, immolated in a burst of death fire and now resurrected by some malefic act of dark magic.

"No," Contayza whispered, shaking her head in abnegation.

"Contayza?" It inquired a second time. Pity welled up in her soul, washing away both fear and anger. No death, however hideously conceived or prolonged could be worse than this monstrous reincarnation.

"Pierca, oh God, look at what she's done to you," Tayza managed, her eyes misting with tears.

"No, slut. This is what you've done to me, you treacherous whore! I trusted you. I worshipped you and look what it's brought me to. Look at what I've become. This...this." His speech degenerated into a wheezing trill as the animal overcame the man. The light shifted in its eyes as a predatory grin spread around its snout. "You'll pay bitch. You'll die, but first you'll learn just what it's like to live in my world that I've been exiled to."

Contayza raised her hand to her face, still shaking her head absently. Pierca's smile became a low snarl as he darted forward. Before he could reach the stricken gypsy. Jimmy caught the beast in the ribs, driving it sideways into the snow. Simms pounded the thing with a maniacal fury, blindly scoring blows that landed with no effect. The thing caught Jimmy in its grasp, raising him over its head like a stuffed toy, while squeezing him about the ribs like a python.

Jimmy screamed in agony as the pressure bore down upon his injured ribs. The snap was loud and sickening as one succumbed to the vice grip. Simms bellowed in pain, the thing snorted in triumph and Contayza's paralysis broke.

' _It's going to kill him, you miserable cunt! If you don't do something, that monster is going to kill him_ ,' she berated herself, trying to marshal the courage to act. Jimmy's head had rolled forward and his chin sagged to his chest. Face gore smeared and eyes squeezed into slits of pain, Simms appeared nearly dead. Contayza feared that she might already be too late. Gathering herself, she released a shapeless thought, striking Pierca very much like her plea for help had struck Simms. The bolt achieved its desired objective. Pierca released Simms, who fell in a quivering heap. Clamping its hands to its ears, the thing diverted its attention from Jimmy to Contayza.

It growled menacingly, but now there was a flicker of doubt in its eyes, where before there had been only a predator's lust to kill. The thing had retained enough of its former intellect to know just what Contayza was capable of. Its eyes locked upon hers like the clang of sword upon sword.

"This is between you and me, Pierca. Come then, let's put this thing to rest," Contayza proposed softly, calm now that she had resolved herself to act. Pierca had been her blood, but this thing was an abomination and she was obliged to end his torment. Perhaps it was the implacable glint in Contayza's eyes, but Pierca decided that a direct assault would be unwise. It fell back into the snow and submarined away, circling like a shark, waiting for an opening to present itself.

Contayza remained stationary, not bothering to track her adversary's progress. Her brand of warfare did not require sight. Clearing her mind of all other distracting thoughts, she visualized her next strike. The air thrummed with the gathering of forces and the night sky came alive with an eerie reverse snow squall. As though caught in the spin of giant, invisible agitators, sheets of snow were thrown into the air, then scattered by the winds that howled through the trees.

When the furor had subsided, a circle of black ice with a thirty foot radius had been exposed, at the center of which stood Contayza. Now standing vulnerable on the gleaming black sheet, the beast regarded Contayza with an expression of naked wonder. Its eyes were clouded with terror as she pivoted to face it.

"I'm going to take the pain away, Pierca. I'm sorry, so sorry, but it has to be this way," she said gently, though her face was a mask of uncompromising granite. The thing gazed about frantically, gauging its chances of escape, all thoughts of vengeance gone. It stood then, glaring defiantly at the blood relative. With a chilling howl, it charged at Contayza, bent over, legs pumping like pistons, claws poised and tiny fangs bared.

There was none of the super heated hostility with which she had destroyed Petru and his minions. Dispassionately, she squared herself, wanting to bring the horror to a rapid close. Without restraint, she released the full measure of her power. It sheared through the night sky like an invisible cleaver, striking the ice with the ring of a guillotine.

A sub sonic rumble escalated to a massive roar as the ice beneath Pierca's feet broke into a network of thin cracks. The sheer force of the upheaval threw both combatants to the ice as the first of the fissures opened up near Pierca. The surface of the lake slumped briefly and then exploded upwards in a hail of ice shards. The monster screeched as it fell into the inky, black water. Tiny slivers of ice darts rained down upon Contayza, who instinctively rolled onto her stomach, protectively wrapping her arms about her head. When the downpour subsided, she sat up to see the creature break the surface for the first time. Its small forearms pawed madly at the air as if trying to grab an unseen rope. Eyes bulging with terror, it went under for the second time, bobbing back to the surface almost immediately. Its eyes locked upon Contayza's, made wholly human by fright and comprehension of what was about to befall it. All Pierca, it begged, "Please Contayza, help me. Please!"

Tayza made no move toward the water's edge. The thing understood that she would do nothing to help it and as though accepting the inevitable, stopped struggling and sank out of sight.

"Cold mercy. I have helped, Pierca. The only way that I know how," she murmured softly, still staring at the frigid waters which, having swallowed their victim, had grown calm once again. By morning, a thin patina of ice would form. Within a few days, all traces of Pierca Rescu would vanish.

3

Contayza had built and started a fire, after laboriously hauling Jimmy up the slope. Now she cradled his head in her lap as she stared absently into the flames that danced and capered like playful demons. The demons in her own eyes reflected every move like tiny amber mirrors.

Jimmy's face contorted with pain as his injured ribs chastised him for their abuse. Through the thick syrup of his own torment, he could see deep lines of misery etched into Prowzi's face. Cynara had committed the ultimate atrocity. She had turned family against family, blood against blood. Jimmy could scarcely imagine the toll that such a confrontation must have extracted upon a woman to whom family was sacrosanct.

"Contayza," he whispered, the effort making him dizzy. Her gaze shifted slowly to his, but she did not speak.

"Contayza, when we reach Chevru, if you decide to go to Cynara, I'll come with you." She smiled cryptically, stroked his stubbled cheek and returned her gaze to the fire.

Chapter Fifty

1

Nathaniel's first thought was that he had already died, revived in whatever afterlife there proved to be. What dispelled his initial impression was the sensation of cold against his cheek. The rest of his body pulsed with a dull heat. As he opened his eyes, the world about him capered and swam queasily, causing him to shut it out with a snap. Taking stock of himself, he quickly became aware of the two outstanding facts of his condition; the fever had loosened its grip upon him and he was ravenously hungry. His stomach churned with unfulfilled digestive juices, demanding satisfaction.

Cautiously, he opened his eyes, steeling himself against the subsequent wave of nausea that was bound to follow. After a moment, it passed and Nath sat up.

Then he saw the dagger and gave a startled cry, the events of the previous day flooding back to him in a rush. He had actually done it! He'd succeeded in finding the demon's dagger. He snatched it up and ran his fingers along the cutting edge, dimpling the pad of his thumb with its tip. This killing tool, in all its precision and splendor, gave meaning to all of the pain and sacrifice.

Nath stood, but staggered drunkenly. He shuffled to the entrance and then out into the crisp open air, still clutching the dagger possessively in both hands. It was night, though whether the same day or the next, he had no way of knowing. He set about gathering branches for a fire. A half hour later, he was sitting before the tiny blaze, still holding the weapon as though it were a talisman against the malevolent atmosphere of the place. His carbine rested in the cradle of his lap.

Sweat streaked his face and his breathing came in harsh gasps. The exertion of making a fire had all but drained him and the fever was returning with a fury, spurred on by the lack of food. The dagger would avail him nothing against the Dark Lady in his present condition. His only hope, and it was dismally slim, was that he might be able to reach Chevru and give the dagger to Contayza and Jimmy. Contayza had theorized that it would be worthless in their hands, but he prayed that she would be proven wrong. He could feel exhaustion and illness dragging on his eyelids, wanting to pull him back down into the darkness. He resisted, fearing that sleep would be final and permanent.

Something stirred and he looked up to see a large gray wolf padding out of the darkness. It held something in its maw. Nath's heart skidded painfully in his chest, as he lay the dagger aside and raised his rifle. His fever afflicted sight probably precluded the possibility of actually hitting anything, but a shot might scare them away. Before he could fire, the wolf opened its jaws and dropped the rabbit to the snow. It then turned and trotted off in the direction from which it had come.

Mystified, Nath lowered his rifle and stared incredulously at the rabbit. What new trickery was this? It had brought him an offering of food. He sat unmoving as a torrent of confused emotions ran through his fever addled brain. It's some kind of ruse, he concluded, not trusting the meat. Poisoned or enchanted. Still his stomach grumbled and his mouth salivated at the sight of the much needed food. Scrambling around the fire on his hands and knees, Nath retrieved the rabbit. He spit the carcass and set it to roast, trying not to think of the possible consequences of eating the meat. A half hour later, he sat staring straight ahead, chewing mechanically, feeling the meat work upon his flesh. Though his nerves were jangled, he remained motionless, waiting for the witch's devilry to reveal itself.

2

The light was draining from the sky, casting the western horizon in a reddish pink hue that was a photographer's dream. A solitary man sat before a camp fire which he had taken great pains to start. It was not the beauty of the western sky that held his attention. No, his eyes were riveted to the eastern horizon that had already begun to fade to twilight. He could feel the pervasive chill gradually creeping through his white snow suit, caressing his fevered flesh with its icy breath. He leaned closer to the fire attempting to escape its glacial kiss.

Though the temperature was well below zero, he realized that this chill had been induced more by recent events and the prospect of the things to come than the by frigid air around him. He could clearly recall the screams his companions had peeled out before they'd been snatched by the jaws of death. The sound reverberated in his mind incessantly as if some continuous play recorder had been switched on deep in its dark recesses. They had all died and he was still alive. Something, some force had willed it to be so. He had been spared for a reason and he suspected that tonight all things would be revealed. He was alone and if he were being totally candid, he was very afraid. He had an inescapable feeling that he was being watched. The frigid night air was alive with vague menace. Still he was alone, knowing that the other creatures that inhabited the night were not human.

The wind, which had been a whisper, abruptly rose in a howl, startling the man into dropping his metal coffee cup, spilling the boiling liquid into the snow. He staggered to his feet and pivoted, trying to isolate the source of the sound that had come to him on the wings of the wind. There was movement in the trees at the edge of the clearing. He sensed this more than he actually heard or saw it. She was coming and he was alone, these were the two intrinsic truths of his universe. Not quite alone, he remembered, running his fingers over the reassuring shape of the dagger against his thigh. He withdrew the jewel encrusted weapon, brandishing it before him in trembling hands. It occurred to him that this was precisely what the dagger was.

The quality of the howling wind suddenly shifted and with the bullet force of revelation, it came to him that what he was hearing was not the wind at all. Neither was it the cry of a human, but the haunting, forlorn howl of a wolf. Fear coursed through his veins like a thundering freight, spurring his heart to pound painfully in his chest. Through the lattice of branches he could see a countless number of red dots floating in the night air. The sheer number of dots, which he knew to be eyes, terrified him. The horror of the afternoon sprung to his mind with sickening clarity.

Nath drew a raspy breath and thumbed the carbine's safety. This did little to instill confidence in him as a rough count of the pairs of dots in the trees told him that he was vastly outnumbered. The rifle was a lever action Winchester and he lifted it into firing position, preparing himself for the attack. They moved out of the trees slowly, with their heads bent low and their intense eyes fixed squarely upon him. Their breath billowed out around them in white plumes, rising into the night air. Clutching his rifle to his chest, he took an involuntary step towards the fire. The wolves surrounded him but seem disinclined to come any closer. They remained in this position for a long time; the wolves in a rough circle with the man as the circle's center. He could feel his nerves begin to dominate him as hot sweat began to run down his forehead despite the cold temperature. There was a ruffle of branches off to his left and he turned to face the sound. A distinct anxiety rippled through the ranks of the night beasts. They became skitterish; some pacing and prancing, others simply howling. She was coming. He could sense that now. Holding the rifle in one hand, he again drew the dagger. The mark on his chest thrummed like a warning beacon, alerting him to the approaching menace.

Now the wolves began to bay and howl; some running around the perimeter of the clearing in distracted little circles. The very air around him seemed to congeal as the witch approached. There was a sharp crack behind him and he whirled, training his rifle on what he judged to be the source of the sound. At first he saw nothing, but then a tiny flicker of light drew his attention. A small fire had erupted in a small section of underbrush and as he watched it, the flames leapt into the nearby branches, igniting the entire tree before spreading to its neighbors. He viewed the spectacle with a mixture of dread and fascination as the flames traveled in two directions, forming a perfect circle. When the spread of the flames had ceased, the perimeter of the clearing was alive with a wall of flame. Though the fire encircled him the flames did not come together, instead leaving a six foot gap through which the legion of wolves briskly passed. Again, he found himself alone.

The flames had risen to create a crackling wall that was at least ten feet high. The snow on the ground around him had all but melted. The flattened grass beneath appeared pale and dispirited in the silver moonlight. Though the flames melted the snow and heated the night air, he, himself, could feel no warmth, as though some invisible cloak of ice had insulated him from the warmth. Beneath the howl of the wind he could hear a soft voice whisper his name, "Nathaniel."

He pondered an attempt to flee through the gap in the flames, but he correctly deduced that the wolves would probably be stationed there to insure that he would not escape. He was trapped like an animal inside a pen awaiting slaughter. There was nothing he could do but sit helplessly and await the witch's arrival. He could divine her presence the way that one senses a malignant tumor growing deep within the chambers of their own body. He peered through the opening of his corral but could see nothing. No, he had jumped to that conclusion too hastily as in a distant shadow, a nebulous form took shape. A single spark of golden light had ignited and was fanning out, gaining form and substance as it grew. It continued to spread until it had grown to about six feet in width. To Nathaniel it seemed to have assumed the shape of a carpet. This carpet began to elongate, moving directly towards the gap in the fire circle. Nathaniel retreated towards the rear of his enclosure; heart pounding like a drum as he went. The carpet of light moved through the opening, coming to a halt about ten feet from where he stood clutching the dagger in both hands.

The night air had grown pregnant with expectation as if the normally insouciant gods had been drawn to the dark drama which was unfolding beneath them. Nathaniel's agitation increased with every second that Cynara elected not to appear.

"Goddamn you, show yourself!" he cried, no longer able to contain his anxiety. As if in answer to his summons, a figure appeared on the opposite side of the wall. The shadows, combined with the golden glow, made it impossible to identify the figure, though he had little doubt that it was the dreaded Night Queen. The shudders that wracked his body and the icy lump in the pit of his stomach informed him of as much. Then she stepped over the threshold and Nathaniel's jaw unhinged, as his mind screamed a denial of the thing that his eyes kept insisting to be the truth. The dagger slipped from his grasp, forgotten as his whole being focused upon the woman standing imperiously upon the carpet of golden light. She was clad in a white fur wrap, over which her golden hair spilled; the array of loose curls glowing like a corona. His emotions were at war; joy battling fear and denial battling acceptance. His mind sifted through the layers of memory recalling an image from his distant past. That image and the face of the woman before him were identical. Hot, salty tears trickled down his face as he whispered the single word of greeting, "Mother."

3

"Son," she replied, though her voice rang with a subtle note of derision. She glided along the golden carpet of light and into the heart of the fire circle, where she stepped directly into the heart of his campfire, her bare feet impervious to the bite of the flames.

Nath winced, but Elizabeth showed no reaction other than the slight glint of a smile. It was her, more lovely than he had ever imagined. Against all reason, it was her, his mother. He tried to speak, but wonder had robbed him of that faculty. Then apparent comprehension came to him. This was the enchantment that had been contained within the tainted meat. What other possible explanation could there be?

"What's the matter Nathaniel? Do you not have a hug for your own mother?" the specter quipped. Nath shook his head in negation.

"You're not real," he croaked, backing away from her. Despite his certitude that this was illusion, he felt compelled to reach out and touch the angle of her jaw or the exquisite ridge of her cheek bones.

She frowned and shook her head, though her eyes twinkled with malicious delight. "Twenty years apart and this is how you greet me; with doubt and cynicism. Frankly, I'm disappointed Nathaniel."

Her hand flashed out like a rapier, striking his cheek with a sharp slap. His head snapped back and his knees buckled. He did not try to rise, only knelt in the snow with his head hanging limply against his chest. Then he began to sob wretchedly.

"No. No, please God, no." Again and again came the questioning sob of despair. To see him so openly defeated, so stricken, cut deep into Elizabeth's heart. She attempted to subdue the unwanted sympathy with scorn. She stepped from the flames and cast off her fur wrap, the flames accentuating the perfection of her bronze flesh. Naked, she knelt before him. Digging her nails into his temples, she raised his face to meet hers. "You are the flesh of my flesh, boy. Do you not recognize the breasts upon which you were nourished?"

Nath uttered a strangled cry of pure despair. It was her, horribly altered, but his mother nonetheless. "Oh mother, what's happened to you?"

"I think that you know," she retorted venomously, then pulled his face to her warm breast. "Nourish yourself, boy. You've grown frail.

He tried to pull away, but she easily held him fast. The spill of his hot tears against her velvet skin caused her to wince. ' _Stop this_!' a voice thundered from within her. Eventually, his thrashing subsided and he succumbed to her and wrapped his arms about her wasp waist, falling into her embrace. Altered or not, she had come back to him. His mother. His precious Elizabeth had returned to him, just as his heart had always insisted that she would. Elizabeth closed her eyes against the sting of an unfocused, ineffable need. She could hear a wordless call, seductive and sweet, imploring her to take this man child...to make him hers. She also felt the danger that his proximity, his very existence, posed to her soul.

The sensation of his flesh against hers was so natural, so hypnotically correct, stirring an almost addictive hunger within the demon. That hunger served to explicate not only her peril, but her strange relationship with this enigmatic young man; her need was a palpable thing that went beyond spiritual love. It was not something that resided in the soul of the prisoner. If it had been as simple as that, Elizabeth would have been immune to the call of her own flesh. The Turning had not purged that need. It was engrained into the cells of her physical body. At best, the transformation had perverted that healthy love into something decadent and depraved. She had enough presence of mind to grasp the consequences of surrendering to that unholy lust. Trembling, she pushed him away.

Their gazes brushed each other. He posed the inevitable question, "How? How did this happen to you?"

There was no reproach, no disdain in his voice, only an honest desire to understand. She faltered before that gaze, so innocent and earnest in its need to be shown some intelligible reason. He made her feel base in comparison. She suddenly wanted to flail him with the truth, to brutalize him with it. She found her rancor both surprising and irresistible. "Because it was what I wanted."

He shook his head, trying to break free of her powerful grasp. Roughly she gripped his arm and forced him to listen. "She came to me. Erudite, beautiful; a woman full of mysterious promise. She showed me what I was and what I could be only if I surrendered myself to her, which I did willingly. I went to her bed and took her and then she took me. She fucked me and I loved it immensely. I reveled in doing things to her that would have made the most wanton of harlots blush. I gave her my body and soul of my own volition. Look what she has given me in return; immortality and power beyond the limits of mortal imagination.

Her voice had become shrill, almost hysterical. She punctuated each sentence by shaking him for emphasis. His tears had stopped. He regarded her somberly. "Was it worth it, mother?" he inquired in a distant voice. "The things that you threw away to be a demon's whore. Your innocence? Me? Did I mean so little to you that you would abandon me without a thought?"

The light in her eyes flickered between rage and doubt. Mildly, he added, "You can't know how much I pity you."

She drew back her fist and swung it like a mace. He turned his face into the blow as though welcoming it. It fell like a mallet and he slumped forward with a grunt. Elizabeth raged at the prone form, "Don't you ever speak to me like that. Ever."

Roughly turning him onto his back, she stiffened. The entire right side of his face had risen into an angry, swollen knot. ' _Oh my boy. My beautiful boy. Look what I've done to you_.' He gazed calmly up at her with his one good eye, oblivious to his pain.

"Don't provoke me," she whispered, badly shaken by her inability to keep a rein on her emotions. Impulsive violence had always been Cynara's propensity, not hers. He offered her a bloody, crooked grin. She saw that provoking her was precisely what he wished to do. He wanted her to lash out at him, to bludgeon him to death as if only death could provide him a merciful release from the hell that her coming had visited upon him. She rose and turned her back to him in an effort to bridle her emotions.

"It was you who saved me from Petru's men," came the gurgled voice from behind her, offered more as a statement of fact than an interrogative. "You saved my life and you couldn't bring yourself to kill me."

"Enough!" Elizabeth admonished tersely.

"You can't kill me now," he continued, ignoring her warning. "Part of you wants to, but another, more elemental part, won't let you. You're too weak."

"Shut up!" she blared, losing her composure totally. She wheeled upon him. Her face was contorted by fury, lips twisted, eyes blazing, and threads of orange lacing the amethyst.

"Tell me that you love me, mother."

"I despise you. Your father was a jackal," she spat.

"You love me," Nath repeated mildly.

"I killed him. He was a reprobate."

Again the simple maddening declaration. "You love me."

"Your friends, I gleefully killed them."

"But you love me, mother. It's pointless to deny it. The very fact that I'm alive is testament to just how strong your love is. Say it. Cleanse a little corner of your soul."

Elizabeth snarled, baring her teeth like the wolves that looked on with growing anxiety, perhaps grasping some sense of the drama being enacted before them.

Nath was undaunted by her towering rage, unconcerned by the ominous orange fire blooming in the depths of her spectacular eyes. "I forgive you, mother."

Her anger abruptly soured and died. In its place came a rich, sardonic laughter. "You forgive me?" she echoed, stupefied by what she construed as monumental arrogance. "You are a frail little gelding who will molder in his grave, forgotten, while my power grows in magnitude. I shit on your forgiveness."

He winced briefly at her vulgarity, his discomfort causing her to smile. The perimeter of fire glinted upon the jewel encrusted dagger, drawing her eye. It was a magnificently crafted killing tool. She crossed over to where it lay and stooped to retrieve it. It vibrated in her hands as though charged by an unseen force. Without looking to Nath, she remarked, "You've been a diligent boy. I doubt that you have any real concept of what this symbolizes."

"What do you intend to do with me?" Nath asked in a voice which displayed a marked indifference.

She twisted to face him, grinning a feral, toothy grin so unlike the sepia toned smile that he remembered. "You've come all of this way to meet the Dark Lady and I'm going to grant you your wish."

She snared his collar and hauled him to his feet, unmindful of his choking as the snow suit tightened around his throat like a noose. She then shoved him in the direction of the canyon's mouth.

4

As they marched, the fever raged in the caverns of his ravaged body, creeping higher by the hour, urging him ever closer to shock. The canyon, where nearly two hundred years before Peytor Saravic had leapt to his death to avoid a shambling horror, was only eight kilometers south west of the present Saravic estate. Nath fought valiantly not to fall, but the black circles clouded his vision with increasing frequency.

Delirium held court in his mind, filling it with a flood of bizarre images and thoughts. He grew increasingly certain that, should he turn suddenly, he would come face to face with, not his mother, but a moldering skeleton wrapped in the dirty cerements of the grave. He could not bring himself to attempt the experiment. At last the fever undid him and sent him tumbling to the ground. He scrambled to his feet like a dazed prize-fighter. Swaying unsteadily, he took a few looping steps and went down again.

Realizing that his legs had deserted him, Nath began to crawl, hooking his hands into the snow and pulling himself forward in a grim parody of a crab.

Elizabeth stopped, trying to view his plight with cold detachment, telling herself that she would be just as well served by his death. His arms buckled and he fell onto his face. He lay this way for a long moment and she began to think that his heart had failed. Abruptly, he rolled onto his back. His lips parted and from the fever stoked depths of his tortured mind came a single word; an age old entreaty that could not be ignored. "Mooother!"

It sliced through her pretensions and affectations, cutting into the core of her heart. She was at his side before she was even aware of intentions. He opened his one good eye and offered her a lunatic grin. Tittering, he whispered hoarsely, "I know you."

Then he lapsed into unconsciousness, head lolling bonelessly on the thin stalk of his neck. Tenderly, Elizabeth swept him into her arms and lifted him from the snow. She was astounded to find that he weighed no more than a bundle of dried sticks.

She removed her wrap and enfolded him into it. Cradling him delicately in her arms, his head turned into the warmth of her breast, Elizabeth Simpson carried her son into the lair of the Night Queen.

Chapter Fifty One

1

"Look, Contayza!" Jimmy exclaimed excitedly from somewhere ahead of her, rousing the gypsy from her wool-gathering. She glanced up, half expecting to see some new nightmare converging upon them, primed and hungry for blood.

Instead, she was delighted to discover a small clearing at the center of which stood a quaint log cabin. Jimmy was hunched down near the edge of the tree line, cautiously surveying the cabin for some sign of occupation.

"There doesn't seem to be anyone here," he concluded after a moment. She had only to look at the smokeless chimney and the field of unbroken snow near the door to establish that much.

"It's a trapper's cabin," she explained. "Trapping is illegal and so are these cabins, but this far from the developed areas the rules are not so stringently enforced. It doesn't look as though this one's been used for some time."

"It's almost too good to be true," Jimmy remarked, clearly pleased. "Just think, a roof over our heads."

Contayza frowned. It was no more than fifteen kilometers to Chevru. She had not intended to stop, Jimmy discerned as much and argued, "Contayza, it's nearly nightfall. We'll reach Chevru by mid day tomorrow. Real rest and some decent shelter will do us good."

Reluctantly, she nodded her agreement. Another day wouldn't matter and she could not dispute that she needed the rest.

"Besides, don't you know what day it is?" he asked. She shook her head, having lost all conscious track of time.

As though aghast, he bellowed, "It's Christmas!"

She gaped. Already? Surely not. The delighted expression in his eyes said otherwise.

"Well then, this must be our Christmas present - a mansion built in heaven," she declared, sweeping her arms in the direction of the cabin. He laughed like a child and she joined him. Happy, they rose and crossed to the cabin, hand in hand.

2

Her initial observation had been correct. The place had not been used for a long time. A patina of thick white dust covered the entire floor. Still, the pair was pleasantly surprised by what they found. A table of rough planks stood near one wall along with two similarly constructed benches. The wall opposite the door was dominated by a serviceable, but crude fireplace and stone hearth. Jimmy was relieved to discover a cache of cut wood beneath a tarp piled against one side of the building.

The thing that sent shivers of delight up and down Contayza's spine was an antiquated, claw foot copper tub, hanging on one of the far walls. ' _A bath. My God, I can actually take a bath_ ,' she marveled, not really believing their good fortune. She crossed to the tub and took it down from the wall, placing it close to the fire. She spied three iron buckets, gathered them up and went outside to fill them with snow. Jimmy followed her, bringing in an armful of wood. Contayza saw that he tilted to one side painfully, favoring his damaged ribs. The hot water would do him good as well.

Five metal hooks had been placed in the stone for exactly this purpose. Hanging the buckets there, she declared, "We're going to be clean, Jimmy. We're going to be clean."

Jimmy smiled brightly; glad to see her in such good spirits, as if the water were capable of washing away more than just an accumulation of grime. He helped her start the fire, and then he left her to her pleasure, going out in search of food.

3

The cabin was small and heated quickly. Steam rose from the bath, making the air dreamy and humid, steaming the cabin's two tiny windows. The delicious warmth spread deep into Contayza's body, caressing and soothing muscles that had become hard knots of tension. The steamy heat and the languid sensations of penetrating warmth had her drowsy in no time. If she were to linger, she knew that she would start to doze off and she wanted to prepare his bath. She worried about him constantly now. His face was puffy and red from the scratches that he'd suffered at Pierca's hands. She feared the onset of infection. His face was also drawn and haggard, reflecting the nagging bite of pain his ribs had caused him.

Her thoughts kept circling back to the way he'd come to her defense, attacking in a desperate frenzy, when there was no chance of defeating the thing. He would have sacrificed his life for her without a thought. He'd said that he loved her, but more importantly to Contayza, he had proven it in irrefutable terms.

She allowed herself to slide down in the tub, completely submerging her head. Then she surfaced, shook her head and left the tub with only a mild twinge of regret. Naked, she knelt beside the fire and let its heat dry her. The warmth lapped at her flesh, as erotic and arousing as a lover's touch. She smiled and slipped into her snowsuit, foregoing the other garments. Then she set about readying another bath.

He returned twenty minutes later, two rather anorexic rabbits in hand, shrugging apologetically as he laid the dead animals on the table. Jimmy glanced at Contayza for the first time since entering the cabin. He drew a deep breath and exhaled sharply. The warmth of the cabin had restored color to her cheeks and sparkle to her lovely amber eyes. "You look radiant," he commented thickly, blushing as he did. Her beauty had a way of causing him to feel awkward and inept. To hide his clumsiness, he inquired lightly, "Do you think a bath will do as much for me?"

She crossed her arms beneath her full breasts and stroked her chin in contemplation, then said, "Lost cause, I think."

He blinked and she laughed "Go on and get into the tub, while the water's still hot."

He looked about in obvious discomfort. She chuckled even harder now. "Don't worry, I found a couple of old blankets that we can throw over the cross beams. Such modesty, really!"

They hung the blankets and then Contayza poured the buckets of steaming water into the copper tub. Dipping her fingers beneath the surface, she declared that the water was hot enough to boil lobster, and then retreated behind the blanket. She sat cross legged, peering through the tiny window. The sounds of his undressing came to her over the crackle of the fire. He groaned softly as he removed his snowsuit. Contayza could visualize the pain narrowing his eyes to slits. She then heard him utter a series of low moans as he tested the water and then settled into the tub. His audible commentary ended with a long, satisfied sigh, causing her to smile.

"Nice?" she inquired.

"Heaven," came the dreamy reply. The water rippled as he settled deeper into the tub.

The moment was simple and yet somehow magical. The house was so warm, so pleasant in contrast to the way in which they'd spent the last few weeks. She wondered if this augured a change in their fortune. Her mind insisted that she examine the things that he revealed to her the night that she had spit at him. He'd told her that he loved her and it had been quite clear that such a declaration of emotion was out of character for him. And what of her? Exactly how did she feel towards him? He was, in many ways, her diametric opposite, but she felt drawn to him despite their differences...or perhaps because of them. Something about him aroused her to displays of emotion, frenzied and at times, excessive passion. He was clearly not as intelligent as Nathaniel, who seemed to have a mantle of mysticism about him that almost frightened her. Still, her instinct informed her that Simms would be an easy man to love; a solid, dependable man. It did not surprise her to find that, if being totally candid, she was attracted to both men. It was a typical Contayza reaction. She had always been decadent in a way, never wanting to settle for anything less than the absolute. Nathaniel intimidated her in many ways. The woman who laid claim to him would spend a lifetime attempting, unsuccessfully no doubt, to measure up to his precious Elizabeth.

She'd lost the foundation upon which she had constructed her world. She had not allowed herself to ponder the implications of this until now, but this night was made for such speculations. What would her life be like if she were to survive all of this? If Jimmy were to return to America with Nath, what would be left for her here? A hollow life, populated by restless memories and a family of ghosts.

Did she love Jimmy enough to commit to him, to give up her country and her transient life style for the alien life which he had described to her? Perhaps a more salient question would be; could anything enduring or good be built on the foundations of blood and horror that had thrust them together? If there was sufficient passion and courage, she believed that it could. She was rich in both passion and courage. Together, it was possible that they could help each other fill the vast holes that had been torn asunder in their hearts and souls.

Beyond the blankets, she could hear him stir in the water and realized that her pulse was racing and that her snow suit had become uncomfortably restricting. The air around her seemed to exude delicious, sensuous warmth. She could seize the moment if she wished. Whole lives could be built upon such beginnings if only someone dared take the initiative. She believed that Jimmy was far too reticent to ever make the first move and so it must be left to her.

Pulse pounding like thunder in her temples, she rose and shrugged free of her snow suit. Her reflection in the window pane was fuzzy, but pleasing none the less. Her body, always tight and trim, had been hardened by the rigors of the past few weeks. She silently pulled the blanket from the crossbeam and came to stand behind him on shaky legs.

The tub faced directly into the fire and Jimmy gazed dreamily into the dancing flames, too entranced by the rhythmic dance to have heard her approach. She knelt behind him and tenderly laid her hands upon his knotted shoulders, which were covered with thick slabs of muscle.

Jimmy cried out and started to rise, but Tayza firmly pushed him back down into the water. "Sit, Jimmy."

Slowly, she began to massage his neck and shoulders, digging deep into the knots of tension in his neck and deltoids. He was stiff and resistant at first, but gradually surrendered to the gentle probing. He could feel his penis stiffen against his thigh, grateful for the concealment of the deep water. He allowed his chin to settle to his chest and closed his eyes, trying to focus upon the sensation of her touch.

Contayza expertly worked the muscles, feeling giddy with anticipation. A thin sheen of perspiration had formed on her brow and her nipples were erect against the smooth copper surface of the tub. Her body urged her on, but she wished to create an act of magic tonight and true magic was an art that required time.

Her hands glided over the shoulders to the smooth skin of his chest, causing Jimmy to shiver and sigh. In a thick and tremulous voice, he murmured, "Tayza, it's getting awfully warm in here. I think I'd better get out of this tub before I nod off."

He could not conceal his anxiety and she found this somehow innocent and appealing. She rose slightly, wrapping her arms about his neck, while pressing her breasts against his shoulders. She was profoundly aware of the feel of her nipples against his skin, his moan informing her that the contact affected him in precisely the same way. She moved her mouth close to his right ear, deliberately dragging her lower lip over his ear lobe. "Jimmy, the things that you told me about the other night...I want them all. Teach me how to live in your world. Let me be the missing ingredient you spoke of."

He turned to her, his expression a mixture of euphoria and incredulity. His throat had tightened and he could only muster a nod. She smiled and kissed him, her hands massaging circles down his chest. When they at last broke the kiss, he breathed, "You're everything that I could ever want, Contayza."

"Close your eyes," she instructed and he complied. She began to place delicate kisses upon his neck and cheek. Rocking back and forth produced the heady effect of allowing her nipples to glide over his glistening skin. She kissed his neck, his cheek, his ear and his eyes, while her hands worked along his abdomen, finally disappearing beneath the water.

He arched his back slightly as her hand brushed along his thigh. When it reached his knee, she ran her index finger back along the same path, digging the long nails into the firm flesh for emphasis. He bit his lower lip and allowed his head to fall against her shoulder. As her tongue snaked across his lips and into his ear, her hand closed firmly around his penis. It jumped in response to her touch, causing her to giggle like a schoolgirl.

"What have we here?" she teased. She explored its full length, her heart stepping up a gear as she did. She began to move then, fingers tightening and then releasing. He issued a groan from somewhere deep in his chest as his knuckles turned bone white against the rim of the copper tub. He could feel her sweet breath against his ear as a color burst of light flickered in his mind.

"No, Contayza stop. I'm going to..." he protested mildly she overrode his protest. "I want you to love me long and slow, Jimmy."

His resistance eroded under the skill of her hand. She could feel the rapid approach of his release. He began to groan then, softly at first and then rising in cadence and intensity. She encouraged him, exhorted him and urged him higher. His entire body stiffened, the muscles standing out in bass relief and as she gripped him, he burst like a dam. To experience the surge against her finger's intoxicated her as though the orgasm had rippled through her flesh as well.

He fetched a deep sigh and slumped forward, feeling languid and drained. She continued to kiss him for a moment longer and then stood. Deliberately concealing her body, she held the blanket out to him. He gazed up at her dreamy eyed. She had never appeared wilder, more the quintessential gypsy. "Come out, Jimmy, we have magic to make."

He obeyed without question, too enthralled by her beauty to feel the least bit bashful. He stepped out of the tub, dripping water onto the floor. A sultry, mischievous light twinkled in her eyes as her glance ran over his body, admiring its lines. He came to her and enfolded her in his arms, pulling her to him with the blanket still between them. The feel of it prickled their skin and he ripped it away with an impatient hunger.

He held her at arms length and drank in the lines of her glorious body, while she returned his hot gaze with a pride that bordered upon defiance. Her breasts were magnificent, large and up thrust so as to mock gravity. Her body tantalized him like a siren's song. He could spend an eternity exploring her, becoming intimately familiar with each curve and contour.

"Have you come just to look or are you going to try it on for size?" she inquired brazenly. He replied by coming forward and kissing her roughly. He held her in a passionate embrace that made her feel light headed and breathless. She felt the first flicker of warmth in the frigid chambers of her mind and unlocked her thoughts, allowing her emotions to run free.

The allure of her breasts became irresistible. Sweeping her up in his arms, he raised her until they were at even height with his mouth and he engulfed her inviting nipple as she arched her back and locked him within the grasp of her thighs. Her velvety flesh, smooth and resilient beneath his tongue, made him drunk with need. He set her to the ground and pressed urgently against her, mouth clamped to hers, hands molding themselves to her breasts.

She cried out with abandon as he stiffened against her. She unleashed her thoughts, conveying a storm of electric sensations and neon colors that dazzled his senses. Entwining her fingers in his hair, she pulled Jimmy away and gazed into his eyes, her amber jewels blazing like celestial fire.

If she had ever questioned his love of her, those doubts were effaced by the reverence that shone in his eyes through the heat of lust. Aggressively, she rolled him against the copper tub and kissed his chest much in the fashion that he had attended to hers. Gradually she moved her attentions to other, more sensitive areas that reduced Simms to a quivering mass of nerves and sensation. They shared an intimacy that few people could, fortunate enough to experience each others emotions with a simple opening of mind; each glowing with heat and radiance like candles melting, running together to become one.

"Promise that we'll always be together, Jimmy," she demanded through gritted teeth.

"Always, Tayza," he vowed, pushing her onto her back on the warm hearth stones. He lay upon her again, tongues darting, jousting, retreating and thrusting in an intimate dance. He knelt above her and lifted her to him, hips cradled in powerful hands. Tayza closed her eyes and turned her head to one side, reducing awareness to touch, to pure scalding sensation. As he entered her gently, an endless chatter of emotion circulated between them in a joining of minds that rivaled the intensity of their physical coupling. They remained in this position for a few moments, she enjoying the sensation of being filled and he delighting in the security of being so completely surrounded. Unable to wait, she beckoned him forward, laying the flats of her palms along his cheeks and bringing him to her.

He began to move, slowly and then with greater urgency. She matched him with a frenetic undulation of her hips, creating a delicious friction that twisted their faces into masks of excruciating pleasure. Their passion was reflected red and yellow on the sweat soaked hearth stones. Tayza shrieked as the first tremor of orgasm wracked her body, causing it to contract like a vice. He joined her in release, crying her name as though it was an invocation of wonders.

The walls of the cabin reverberated with their cries. Jimmy made love to Contayza as if the act could grant him redemption for nearly thirty years of hollowness and she matched him as if their bonding could insulate her from the pain and tragedy of her shattered world. For a mindless, interminable period, they hovered on the white hot, cutting edge of pain and pleasure, where souls may be fused permanently if the magic is strong. As he collapsed beside her, totally spent, she cradled his face to her breast, feeling oddly insubstantial as though she could easily float away. She heard his shallow breathing and realized that he had fallen asleep. Dreamily gazing into the fire, she decided that, on this night, the magic had been there in all of its age old glory.

4

Contayza stood at the window, still naked, watching moodily as the large flakes of snow drifted down from the heavy sky. Christmas had dawned splendid and serene. Cotton puff clouds drifted lazily across the sky. The world appeared cast in the hues and shades of a child's fairytale. A world populated by beautiful, passionate women and handsome, noble princes ever ready to save them from distress.

Christmas also rang a bitter, discordant note of sorrow for Contayza. The loss of her family weighed upon her heart. The land beyond this thin pane of glass was indeed magnificent, especially the proud black mountains that soared majestically, only to vanish into the clouds, but she no longer had a place here. Cynara had severed those ties along with Petru and his ilk. Her new home lay over the mountains and across the water; a strange and frightening place that she could scarcely imagine. Jimmy would be her one known commodity, her real link. The thought comforted her somewhat, though she suspected that grief and loss had become permanent fixtures in her life.

She looked back over her shoulder to where he lay sleeping near the fire. The sight of him inspired both a deep longing and a profound regret. She had now raised the stakes in her war with the Dark Lady. For the first time in years she wished that there was a way she could honorably escape her obligation. She wanted only to be needed, to take and give love and live in an environment where mutual love permeated everything.

As desperately as she yearned for this, Contayza saw the folly of harboring such delusions. Her blood carried the stamp of obligation. The cry for retribution had been entrenched in her soul, along with the faces of her lost kindred. The shadow of Cynara Saravic would hang over her life like a black shroud. If there was ever to be true peace for her, it would only be attained by cleansing herself in Cynara's blood.

She crossed the floor with deliberate quietness and knelt beside Jimmy. She bent to kiss his cheek and he turned and took her in his arms. She moved atop him and lowered her breast to his mouth. In minutes they were moving in harmony, her insecurities and fear momentarily forgotten.

5

They whiled the entire day away in dreamy bouts of lovemaking, speaking to each other with a physical and emotional eloquence that was beyond the limits of mere words.

Later, as the darkness descended, somberness settled over Simms. He understood that the heavenly interlude was coming to an all too sudden end. He had never lived through a day of contentment such as this and it was horribly cruel that it was about to end so soon. The cabin felt like an untouchable requiem, a place to hold the nightmare at bay and he did not relish the prospect of leaving it behind.

Contayza sensed his growing distraction and guessed its source, "Jimmy, tell me what's troubling you."

He turned to her, his face alight with a terrible anxiety. "How long before we reach Chevru?"

"If my understanding of where we are is correct, we should be there by mid afternoon if we leave early enough."

He frowned at this. "What do you intend to do once we reach Chevru?"

"Go to Cynara and end it," she replied automatically. An indecipherable expression flickered across his face. It was possibly one of vexation or pain. "Jimmy, we've discussed this before."

He looked into the fire. "I know, but I was hoping that what happened last night might have given you reason to reconsider."

She said nothing. He swiftly turned to her and clasped her wrist tightly, speaking quickly, in a hopeful, expectant voice, "Contayza, please, just give it one day. We'll go to Chevru tomorrow, but instead of going directly to confront Cynara, we'll wait for one day in the hope that Nath shows up. Please, twenty four hours, that's all I'm asking."

"And if he isn't there? What do you propose then, that we go looking for him?" She felt faint traces of anger readying to flare up inside of her. She wanted badly not to be angry, not so soon after what they had shared.

Jimmy shook his head earnestly. "No, Tayza. If we find that Nath hasn't reached Chevru, then the two of us will try to send Cynara back to the hell she deserves."

She searched his eyes for some hint of deception. They were hard and adamant. She considered it for a moment. It was always a possibility, however small, that Nathaniel had actually found the dagger. It was prudent to at least find out. Even more pertinent was her conviction that Cynara would be there, whether in a day or a week, the vile bitch would be there to greet them. Twenty four hours. What possible harm would be incurred by waiting another day?

She glanced into his face, her eyes darkening and her expression becoming lecherous and hungry. "All right, I'll wait for one day after we reach Chevru, but there's one condition."

He stiffened, his face becoming grim. "What's that?"

"That you make love to me this instant." she commanded huskily. He issued a mock groan, but had already begun to stiffen. She lay back and ran her fingers invitingly across her nipples. He complied enthusiastically to her condition.

"Merry Christmas." he whispered, losing himself in her warmth.

Chapter Fifty Two

1

The next day dawned the total antithesis of Christmas; depressingly ugly and brutally cold. Sheets of snow pounded the tiny cabin furiously. Both Tayza and Jimmy readied themselves for the final leg of their odyssey, knowing that their intimate interlude was over.

The wind had piled snow in deep drifts and fighting the wind and plowing through the snow, delayed their arrival until nearly five O'clock Boxing day. Chevru turned out to be a quiet little town nestled in a shallow basin between a stand of low mountains. To Jimmy, it radiated a rustic warmth that belied the atrocities that had occurred here over the centuries. The aura was a patch work of colors, not dominated by any one specific shade.

"It looks so peaceful...so tranquil," Jimmy offered. Contayza nodded distantly. They set out down the twisting road that led into the little enclave.

2

The street was nearly deserted, save for the odd wandering dog and a few adventurous souls, who dared to brave the raging blizzard. They scurried about with their hands thrust deep into their pockets and their chins to their chests, unmindful of the two ragged strangers who had stumbled into town, both wearing identical, dirty white snowsuits.

The town was built in a rough concentric pattern, with a square and an obligatory church located at its heart. Contayza led Jimmy through the square, apparently searching for something specific. Jimmy glanced at the few wooden signs and was naturally unable to read any of them. Finally, she led him up the wooden steps and into the foyer of what appeared to be a hotel or brooding hall.

They pushed through the doors and into the lobby. Neither had noticed the car parked across the square, tucked furtively into a narrow side road. A vintage black Jaguar idled in the shadows. Its soul occupant wore a black sable coat and matching hat. Her coal black eyes traced the two as they entered the small hotel. Her full lips were parted, the prominent white teeth gleaming wickedly in the twilight. As her hands caressed the leather wheel lovingly, the nails lengthened and sharpened into lethal claws. The beast was growing ravenously hungry. ' _Be patient_.' she advised herself. Soon the moment would present itself and that hunger would be appeased.

She settled back to wait, the deadly claws keeping beat to the passing time. Click click click.

3

The desk clerk, who appeared to be as old as the village itself, eyed the pair suspiciously as they approached the scarred wooden reception desk. Jimmy was not precisely sure why Contayza had led them here, believing that they were as poor as paupers. The old man's thick brows knitted as his eyes brushed over their tattered clothes. Apparently he was sharing the same misgivings.

Contayza unzipped her suit and produced a wallet, containing a huge sum of bills, which baffled Simms and dispelled the clerk's misgivings. His face was split by a yellow toothed, ingratiating grin, though his eyes never left the collection of bills.

He and Tayza spoke briefly. She counted out a number of bills and handed them to the man, who gave her a skeleton key on a plastic tab. The two continued to speak for a moment longer, Contayza's expression growing darker as the conversation progressed. Jimmy tried to decipher her thoughts, but was rather surprised to realize that she was thinking in her native tongue. Thoughts have languages, he realized. He had always assumed they were universal.

She nodded and led Jimmy in the direction of the stairs which were positioned near the rear of the desk. The red runner carpet had faded and frayed under the weight of an unknowable number of footsteps. They walked in silence until they had come to the room which was to be theirs. She inserted the key and opened the door upon a small room with a metal framed double bed and an adjoining bathroom.

Jimmy gazed about and remarked, "God, after what we've been through this place looks like the Waldorf. Goddamn, a real bed and mattress."

He crossed the bed and collapsed upon it without bothering to roll back the spread. He gestured for Tayza to join him, but she fixed him with a disapproving, scornful glare, and Jimmy dropped the pretence. "Look Tayza, I'm sorry. I was just..."

"Children have been disappearing in Chevru for the last six months. Twelve in all and none have been found."

Jimmy looked down in stunned horror as Tayza crossed to the window. Recalling the terror of Semelar, he asked, "The old man said that?"

"Among other things," she replied, her voice subdued and distant. "I asked him if he knew who was living in the mansion."

"What mansion?" Simms interrupted, confused and afraid. Six months ago, that would have been when all of this lunacy had begun, he recalled. Was there some connection between the first night in Semelar and this rash of disappearances?

"A government retreat was built on the site of the old Saravic estate or close to the original site. It was abandoned, oh maybe twenty years now. When you told me about Chevru, it only made sense that Cynara would choose to make it her new home."

"Wait a minute," Jimmy asked incredulously. "You're telling me that Cynara is living exactly where she lived during her years as Baroness? You once told me that these people were suspicious. I would think that her infamous legend would have been passed down to some of these people. I mean, this goes beyond simple arrogance to outright arrogant contempt."

Contayza offered him a twisted, sardonic grin. "Ah, there's the beauty of her insidious mind. When I asked the desk clerk about who might be living in the mansion, his eyes lit up like a lamp. There is a beautiful woman there, tall and lovely, who supplies them with free medical services."

"Jesus!" Jimmy spat disgustedly.

"When the children disappear, this pillar of the community actually helps organize the searches. How she must laugh, searching for children who she's already killed."

Jimmy couldn't react, his revulsion and outrage robbing him of his ability to speak. Could there be any hope for a world in which such a monster could flourish?

"There's more, Jimmy" Contayza continued gravely. Jimmy glanced up at her, already certain that he didn't want to hear what she was about to relate.

"The old man said that, on rare occasions, an angelically beautiful blond would accompany Cynara on her excursions to town. She was particularly adored by the children." She stopped allowing him time to digest the implications of this latest revelation.

Jimmy's eyes glazed over and his jaw tightened. He could feel the blood slowly draining from his face. "Elizabeth?"

Contayza merely nodded. Jimmy slammed his fist against the wooden head board. "Then Nath is in dire straits, if he were to learn that Elizabeth was alive, but that way, he would lose his mind. He worshipped her, Tayza. He never spoke about it, but at times, I would walk into his room and he would just be staring at her picture. He'd have this glazed, adoring expression on his face and you just knew that he'd been that way for hours. Better that he was dead or that she was dead, than to find her like this."

"She may have already found him, Jimmy. You have to prepare yourself for that very real possibility. He described how he'd been saved by a wolf like beast that had slain Petru's troopers. We all concluded that it must have been Cynara. That entire episode would have made more sense if we substituted Elizabeth for Cynara."

Jimmy tried to contemplate the idea of Elizabeth Simpson being like Cynara and found that he could not. He shook his head vehemently. "We're assuming the worst, Tayza. We have no way of knowing who the blond is. We're being unduly pessimistic."

She rejected this, saying, "In light of all that's happened, assuming the worst is probably only half as bad as the truth will prove to be."

Jimmy winced. There was no glib retort for that.

"What do we do now? I mean, you're saying that there may now be two of them to contend with." He shifted his gaze to meet hers and she saw that he appeared both vulnerable and discouraged. Unable to tolerate the sight of his abjection, she glanced away.

"There's a church just across the square. I'm going to go pray. I'll be gone for a short time. When I get back, we'll eat and get some sleep. Tomorrow, we'll decide what must be done."

Simms wanted to object strenuously, not wanting her to leave his sight, but her stony gaze told him that such objection would prove futile. "Would you like me to come with you?"

"No, stay and rest. I won't be long." Before Jimmy could say more, she was gone. Upon seeing the close of the door, he experienced a momentary flutter of apprehension; a congestive fear that he might never see her again. It passed as quickly as it had come and he settled back to wait. Within minutes, he had fallen into a heavy, dreamless slumber.

4

The thing in the Jaguar was no longer recognizable as human, any resemblance to the beauteous Night Queen having long since vanished. The beast's reptilian yellow eyes blazed. Cynara's insatiable lust for the kill had transmogrified her into the beast, the darkest incarnation of her evil. It sat waiting for the moment of opportunity which it felt certain was soon to come.

Before long, its patience was rewarded. The gypsy slut emerged from the hotel and crossed the deserted square, heading in the direction of the small church. The monster gave a start, first meaning to go after her, but she was already ascending the church steps. The gypsy was a devout girl of faith, no doubt, and a confrontation there would prove most troublesome. The other was vulnerable and alone and the enmity that existed between them was old and due to be set to rest. His powers were negligible at best and he would be easy prey. Him first and then the gypsy whore at a more opportune moment.

The lipless mouth split into a horrible parody of a grin, sporting rows of needle sharp incisors. The door to the Jaguar sprung open, hanging upon its hinges. The thing stepped out of the vehicle on spindly legs. As it crossed the snow drifted square, it began to change yet again, losing substance with each step. Now opaque. Now translucent. Finally, transparent; only a ripple in the snowy air.

The old man tried valiantly to concentrate upon his reading, but found his thoughts drawn back to the lovely gypsy girl who had just left the hotel. Her behavior had struck him as decidedly odd when she and her male friend had first registered. Her expression had been pinched and tense, growing more distressed as he related details regarding the occupants of the mansion. There was something off center about the two. They were the harbingers of some ambiguous, yet awful trouble. Perhaps he should...

Just then a cold breeze blew through the lobby and he glanced up, thinking that the gypsy woman must have returned. To his chagrin, the door was closed and the lobby area was deserted. He shivered. His flesh had risen into hackles as his nostrils caught a whiff of something rancid and sulfurous. `Evil portent!' his mind whispered frantically. His heart thudded heavily in his chest and he closed his eyes against the fear. After a time, the ambiguous dread passed, leaving him feeling weak and shaken.

5

At about the same time that the old man was visited by a premonition of disaster, Jimmy abruptly emerged from his doze. His breath came in ragged bursts and his heart pounded a drumbeat of terror.

"How could you be so fucking stupid!" he berated himself. ' _She's gone to face the witch alone, just like she said she would. You just let her walk right out of here_.' Just as he was about to swing his legs off of the bed and go out and find her, the wooden door to the room swung open. Someone stood silhouetted in the dull lights of the central hallway.

"Oh Contayza, thank God. I was afraid that you'd gone off without me," Jimmy exclaimed, literally sighing with relief. That sense of relief dulled his perceptive senses for a fraction of a second, which proved long enough to be his undoing.

The figure made no immediate response, instead stepping into the room and closing the door, submerging the pair in darkness. Abruptly, every function in Jimmy's body seized up. Two disembodied yellow dots floated in the darkness near the door. The intruder was not Contayza and he knew precisely who it was. That cloying, malodorous reek had been imprinted upon his memory. He was nine years old again and had just stepped into Dr. Simonovic's office for the first time.

"Hello Jimmy. It's been a long time," The thing began, its voice buzzing and insectile. "It's a shame how old acquaintances fall out of touch."

Contayza? Where was Contayza? He tried to warn her, just as she had summoned him on the ice. His call met something huge and black, rebounding uselessly in the chambers of his own mind.

"No help there, Jimmy. Only you and me," the thing chuckled, growing incandescent in the darkness. He scrambled across the bed, positioning it between himself and the approaching nightmare.

"What have you done to her?" he demanded hysterically.

The thing croaked derisive laughter. "Your little harlot is in the church praying to her spineless God for divine intervention, I suppose. A complete waste of breath, I can assure you. I have no intention of harming her, Jimmy. That is why I waited until the two of you were separated. My quarrel is only with you and that other little puppy. By the way, where is Nathaniel, Jimmy?"

The voice sounded casual on the surface, but she could not entirely conceal the faint undercurrent of concern. He felt certain of that. Nath's absence worried her. "Fuck you! You'll find out soon enough, bitch."

Cynara hissed, a forked tongue snaking between rows of deadly fangs. "Provoking me will mean the difference between dying quickly or slowly. Now come then. If you stand against me, I'll spare the harlot."

"Do you really expect me to put any stock on your word?" Jimmy spat back, trying to find some way to extricate himself from this killing box. He had to warn Contayza. His eyes swept over the window and without a moment's hesitation, he charged toward it, meaning to go through and take his chances on what lay beneath. He raised his hands to shield his head and ran squarely into a wall, where seconds before there had been a dirty pane of glass.

He crumpled to his knees with a grunt. A single rivulet of blood trailed over his forehead and into his right eye, obscuring his vision. Behind him, the bed flipped end over end, landing with a crash against the opposite wall. Cynara advanced upon him, clearly savoring the moment.

Jimmy feigned disorientation, making a great show of pawing at his bloody eye. The thing towered over him, its stench radiating from the diseased flesh in palpable waves. It reached for him. "Nowhere left to run now, Jimmy. Do you remember how you hurt me all those years ago?"

As the leathery fingers were about to close about his neck, he whipped his head toward it and cannoned out one final mental bolt. "EAT IT, BITCH!"

The thing faltered long enough to allow him to regain his feet and clutch a cheap table lamp. He swung it in a savage arc, driving it directly into the demon's reptilian eyes.

There was a piercing screech and the thing staggered backwards. Jimmy bellowed a lunatic laugh of satisfaction and darted forward, sprinting for the door. His hand was inches from the door handle, when he felt a series of white hot needles pierce the skin of his lower back. His scream was pre-empted by a lightening swift and razor sharp slash along his exposed throat. He was hefted from his feet as the thing drove its claws deeper into his flesh, wrapping them around his spinal cord.

He was drawn up against the door, his face mashed against the unyielding wood. As he spiraled down into unconsciousness, he heard Cynara whisper, "I'll say goodbye to your whore for you, Jimmy."

There was a crescendo of laughter, followed by a sickening crunch of bone. Jimmy Simms died with the noxious smell of charnel pits in his nostrils.

6

At first she believed that it was a dream, but logic informed her that it could not be anything but real. Her senses were much too sharp. Her surroundings were much too lucid, too vivid for this to be anything other than reality. The grass had become a rain soaked morass, chilling her bare feet to the bone. The night was as black as ink and she couldn't recall how she had come to be in a cemetery in the dead of night.

Up ahead, she saw the glow of several flood lights mounted on metal tripods. She began to sprint toward the light, urged on by some shapeless imperative. The lights shone down on a series of open graves all dug in a row. A tall, slender sextant, with his back turned to her, was lowering coffins into each of the holes. The gravedigger must have been exceptionally powerful because he was picking up the coffins and placing them into the holes with bare hands alone. There were two holes left and only one coffin. The sextant lifted the final coffin and began carrying it towards the next grave. The wood was slick with moisture, causing the sextant to fumble the coffin. It hit the wet grass with a muffled thud, spilling the pallid corpse face up.

She froze, the scream bursting out of her in slow motion. The sextant turned toward her, regarding her with a sheepish grin.

"I'm a little clumsy," Cynara admitted, eyes twinkling with malicious humor. Jimmy Simms lay upon the grass, staring up at the heavens with sightless, silver moon eyes. His face was pallid and grotesquely bloated. Cynara put her index finger to her lips and gave a conspirator's wink. "Shush. You won't tell, will you? I've saved the best plot just for you."

The girl turned upon her heels and fled to the sound of mocking laughter. "You should have kept him between your legs where he belonged, harlot."

She cried out as the parish priest shook her awake. Contayza stared about in total disorientation. Evidently, she had fallen asleep in one of the pews. She gazed into his mild brown eyes, certain that something terrible had happened while she slept like the disciples.

"What is the matter, my child?" the priest inquired gently, sensing her agitation. She pulled away from him without offering a response and rushed out of the church, almost falling several times as she raced back to the hotel.

Her frenzied entrance drew a cry of alarm from the old desk keeper as she sprinted through the lobby, taking the stairs three at a time. Her heart sank when she saw that the door to their room was slightly ajar. Behind her, the old man had come cautiously to the top of the stairs, recalling his presentiment.

Contayza stepped through the door and flipped on the light switch. Part of her soul died the moment that the flood of incondign yellow light revealed what had been concealed by the darkness. She sank slowly to her knees, rocking slightly. Jimmy was dead, his remains organized in a gruesome tapestry. The arms and legs had been ripped from his body, one limb then having been propped in each corner. His entrails had been draped around the bed to form a grotesque canopy. The rib cage had been left on the bed, stripped of all flesh. From where she knelt, gibbering like a child, she could see that the organs had been piled inside the rib cage. As bad as all of this was, it was not the worst. Jimmy's head had been jammed onto on of the bed posts. It gawked at her with unseeing eyes, a rictus of agony and horror. She raised her hands to her face to occlude the sight. She stumbled then, desperately wanting to seek cold refuge in the pit of madness. She might have done just that had it not been for the taunting words emblazoned in blood just above the headboard: I AM WAITING.

An internal circuit breaker came down, shutting off all thought, all emotion. From behind her, a voice cried out, "Mother of God, what's happened?"

Contayza pivoted to face the terror stricken old man. That terror escalated as his eyes met hers. They were large and lovely and devoid of all emotion, all humanity. "Please...I'm old, don't harm me." She ignored the entreaty. In a lifeless, mechanical voice, she demanded, "Did you see anyone go up the stairs after I left?"

"No. No one, I mean." His words decayed into babbled incoherency. She brushed past him and headed for the stairs. There was nothing left for her but the final moment of reckoning. As Reason gave way before a consuming need for retribution, Contayza Prowzi stepped into the frigid winter night and began the arduous trek toward her moment of destiny.

Chapter Fifty Three

1

Nath's body felt hollowed out and as dry as a sun bleached bone. He came awake in response to a cacophony of screams ringing somewhere in the fuzzy chambers of his mind. There were cries of terror and pain intermingled with shouts of triumph and perhaps loudest of all, desolate wails of abnegation. His eyes snapped open like broken shutters, cutting them off with merciful finality.

The first shafts of muted yellow light speared his eyes like desert suns. The grim reality of his own situation filtered back to him. Yet, there was one essential difference, he at least felt comfortable after a fashion. The room was truly magnificent, luxurious and sumptuously appointed. He was laying in the center of a large king sized bed, plush pillows beneath his head.

Sitting with one leg curled beneath her, lounging casually in a bay window seat, was his mother. She was gazing pensively at a small photograph. He knew the photograph well enough. He had carried it with him for the past twenty years of his life. His mother, smiling broadly at the camera, blond hair ruffled by the wind, blue eyes twinkling like diamond chips. She wore a bright red cardigan as if to ward off the autumn chill.

"She was my mother," Nath commented weakly. The amethyst eyes shifted to meet his gaze. Those eyes were cold and inscrutable. She crushed the picture in her hands and then held it out. It erupted into flames, burning to ash in the flat of her palms. With an uncharacteristic twist of petulance, she crushed the ash to powder. "I am your mother now, boy, as much as you may abhor the thought."

He simply shook his head. She pointed toward a small night table on which there stood a tray containing three pills, a bowl of steaming broth and a glass of juice with crushed ice. "You're ill. This will help."

"What difference does it make?" he muttered apathetically. "I'm going to die soon, so why expend the effort of trying to get well."

"Your mother never would have raised a pessimist," Elizabeth chided mildly.

"Go to hell," he retorted without much conviction.

She was beside him in the beat of a heart. Roughly, she raised his head and forced the three pills between his lips. She was suddenly, inexplicably furious. She raised the juice to his cracked lips and tipped the glass. It poured into his mouth, the excess dripping from his lips to the comforter. The liquid ran down his parched throat like a river of heaven.

"You're going to take the broth, or I'm going to force feed you. Do you understand?" Nath nodded, bewildered by her intense reaction. She tenderly cradled his head and lifted him into position, raising the porcelain bowl to his lips. The clear broth boiled but it made no impression upon his flesh. He sipped experimentally and then drank the rich liquid hungrily, body craving its magic to help fight its war against marauding illness.

"Why are you doing this?" Nath demanded in a voice wretched with anguish. "Why prolong my torment? What possible pleasure do you derive from subjecting me to more suffering than I've already endured?"

There was a brief flicker of something that might have been empathy behind her eyes and Nath thought that she was about to answer, but then the heavy door swung open and her eyes became hooded and remote. Nath tensed, expecting to see Cynara walk through the door. Instead, an ethereal red head, with lustrous green eyes, entered. She crossed to the bed and fixed Nath with a long, appraising glance. Without remarking, she turned her gaze to Elizabeth. There was a strange moment as a current of indefinable emotion passed between the two women. Then Alexandria said, "Cynara will return soon."

She returned her scrutiny to Nath, who felt the sudden urge to squirm under her incisive gaze. He thought of Jennifer Tillman, beauty enhanced to the millionth power, and shivered. Elizabeth took hold of Nath's forearm and roughly dragged him from the bed. His legs were rubbery from the illness and he was forced to lean upon her for support. Following Alexandria, mother and son left the bedroom and descended the spiral staircase. Nath was clearly awed by the opulence of the mansion. The foyer was adorned with marbles, brass and rich dark woods such as teak and mahogany. Cynara had built herself a tiny enclave of opulence in a land beset by turmoil and political repression. He shook his head in naked wonder. He wondered if Contayza had ever slept in anything more elegant than a folding surplus cot. He doubted it.

They reached the main floor, where Elizabeth herded him into the library. He was going to die. He understood that implicitly and accepted his impending death without reservation. There would be no illusory savior to arise and vanquish the darkness, no divine intervention. It would end here. He prayed that he would die with as much dignity as those who had fallen to bring him to this moment. Glancing at his mother and the other entrancing beauty, he considered how many of these demons, who inhabited the world of light, worked their vile machinations from behind beautiful facades, surrounded by unimaginable wealth. How easy it must be for them to lure and seduce the naive. They took the raw material of basic human desire and sculpted something ignoble, turning a man's nature against itself.

Elizabeth had left his side and was standing before the shattered remains of a cream white grand piano. There was an expression of muted grief upon her face that Nath could not decipher. At that moment, the front door blew open with a bang and all eyes swiveled to the double doors. The mistress of the manor had returned.

Cynara breezed through the doors in an elaborate flourish. Nath retreated to the wall near the window, hoping to escape immediate notice. Again, he was struck by the flawless beauty that was so incongruous with all that she was. Tonight, her color was high, her face flushed with obvious excitement. Upon seeing Elizabeth, she came to an abrupt, jerky halt. As Nath watched, unnoticed, he found himself fascinated by the almost palpable current of emotion that passed between the two night creatures. Elizabeth concealed her feelings behind a veneer of impassivity, but Cynara's expressive features appeared to ripple and churn as a whole spectrum of emotions washed across her face. Astounded by their complexity and diversity, the perplexed Nathaniel saw Cynara's face reflect bliss, anger, resentment, fear, love (incredibly love), betrayal, relief and finally, painful uncertainty.

Several moments passed and the two women continued to regard each other like living pieces of statuary. Nath felt a flicker of hope spark to life in some remote cleft of his heart. A concrete tension existed between the two and Nath again heard the tranquil voice of the angel utter his declaration of prophecy. "The fourth is the hinge upon which the outcome will be decided...this other is familiar, but beware for appearances are skin deep."

They had read that augury all wrong, Nath realized excitedly. Gregory was not the hinge. Elizabeth was. There was still a chance. Somehow, her actions would dictate the way in which the final chapter of this grim odyssey would be written. Would it be possible to instigate a conflict between the two? He fought to keep his face neutral, all senses fixed upon the two women.

Cynara's mouth began to work and twist. Then she extended her arms to Elizabeth and declared, "Elizabeth, you've come home. I had grown worried that you had...that something had happened to you."

Elizabeth remained rooted, as if paralyzed by indecision. Finally, she set aside her ambivalence and went into Cynara's embrace. Nath flinched and averted his eyes as the pair kissed long and passionately. When they broke the embrace, Nath could see that the Dark Lady was clearly relieved by Elizabeth's display of affection. Had she been expecting something different? Nath thought that she had.

Cynara's expression of relief congealed when her gaze swept over Nathaniel. Her jaws unhinged as though she had just set eyes upon a vengeful specter. She held Elizabeth out at arms length, studying her closely. "Why is he here? Why is he not dead?"

Elizabeth's jaw tightened and her expression became inured. An electric undercurrent of dangerous tension rippled through the air, making the skin at the base of Nath's neck crawl into knots. Elizabeth spoke in a voice fraught with truculence, "Things have changed. There are questions that must be asked and answers that must be given if things are ever to revert back to what they once were."

"I told you that I wanted him dead. You swore that you would kill him," Cynara cried, as though on the verge of hysterics. "Why is he alive?"

Elizabeth declined to answer directly. Instead, she broke Cynara's gaze and went to Nath, pulling him before the Dark Lady. He stood before her with his head bowed like a condemned man before his executioner. "Why did you mark him, Cynara? What were you hoping to achieve? Tell me."

"Why did you not kill him?" Cynara reiterated a third time. Her voice was tight with a deadly, controlled patience. Nath felt as though he had been imposed between two belligerent nuclear superpowers, but found that he welcomed the coming explosion.

"Because I couldn't," Elizabeth shrieked hysterically. "Did you have no inkling of what would happen to me if the two of us were brought together? Is it not what you hoped for, to resurrect that witless simpleton who you first turned in Semelar? How pleased you'll be to know that she does exist somewhere inside of me, contained but very much alive. Don't rejoice prematurely, Cynara. Be forewarned; I will destroy the both of us before I will allow myself to be dispossessed."

Cynara watched the other demon cautiously. Elizabeth was building toward the towering rage that had overcome her in Bucharest. Despite the imminent threat, Cynara found herself contemplating what she had just been told. The old Elizabeth preserved still; could such a thing even be possible? Surely the Turning had completely eradicated her. Yet, when Cynara looked at her creation, with her heaving bosom and traces of panic lurking behind the rage in her eyes, Cynara discerned that the improbable had become reality. It was all that she could do to prevent herself from laughing aloud. She could sense Alexandria's gaze upon her like a palpable touch. It was essential that Cynara not convey the impression of having lost control of her concubine. Memories of the blue eyed beauty, the perfect amalgamation of innocence, passion and naiveté, kept intruding upon her thoughts at the most inopportune of moments.

"You're babbling foolishness," Cynara snapped. "Calm yourself. Things have happened since you left, changes that will affect the both of us." Cynara's glance stole briefly to Alexandria, but did not escape Elizabeth's notice. The incisive demon sensed some insidious conspiracy in the works.

"Why is she here?" Elizabeth demanded belligerently, eyes not leaving the demure red head.

Cynara winced, groping for an explanation that would make the demon's presence seem less ominous and in doing so, reached the pained realization that years of excessive self indulgence had led her to this accursed moment. "The Master has informed me that he requires things of both of us. There are processes to which we must both submit. I have been judged irresponsible in the manner in which I've guided you. It has been decreed that you shall undergo a formal ritual of Turning. Alexandria has come to oversee that process.

Elizabeth's eyes widened slightly and her lips pressed together in a thin white line of rage. Pulling Nath closer, she took a single step away from Cynara. "Never! I will not bear the consequences of your decadence." Her anger rapidly dissipated. In its place came a piteous mask of confusion and grief. "I am yours. I need you to help me. Have I devoted myself to you for all of these years only to be abandoned at the whim of a tyrant? The two of us could stand against all of them. Don't deny me!"

Cynara and Alexandria exchanged quizzical glances. A lunatic light flickered in Elizabeth's eyes, guttering and flaring before a wind of madness. ' _She's unraveling_ ,' Cynara thought miserably.

"Show me a sign of your fealty," Elizabeth demanded hoarsely, propelling Nath into the arms of the Dark Lady. "Kill him! Kill him and crush the other inside of me. Purge her from my system. Sweep away the doubt that stands between us."

Cynara caught Nathaniel, but made no move to harm him.

"Elizabeth, you don't understand," Cynara began, fumbling for the proper words to convey the hopelessness of their situation.

"No, it's you who doesn't understand," Elizabeth countered. "You never understand anything, you stupid, vainglorious bitch." Elizabeth turned her wrist in a gesture of summons and a vague shape flew from the bookshelf to her waiting palm. It slapped against her flesh, glowing wickedly beneath the library's yellow lights.

Cynara issued a small, sick whimper, shaking her head dumbly as incredulity and terror warred for control of her senses. Elizabeth waved the dagger before her wildly. The Dark Lady stood stone still, caught in the tetanus grip of apoplexy. Rousing herself, she took an involuntary step toward the library doors, barely able to restrain the urge to flee before the instrument of her potential undoing. Near the middle of the room, Elizabeth continued to rage, "Look at what I've done for you, you ungrateful bitch. He found this. They knew all of your secrets. This is where your petty manipulations have led you. You have the audacity to discard me like worthless chattel when I would save you from this."

Simpson waved the blade menacingly as her body shook with anger and spittle flew from her lips. The lovely eyes had gone the bright orange that Cynara had first witnessed in Bucharest. Saravic extended her right hand tentatively. "The dagger, Elizabeth. Give it to me."

The blond snarled and slashed at the air with the dagger, emeralds and rubies twinkling like eyes of a malefic demon. "Kill him, Cynara!"

Nath had fallen to one knee, forgotten in the aftermath of the dagger's dramatic appearance. Cynara turned her attention to the fallen man. Her face was clouded by confusion and ambiguity.

"Very well, Elizabeth. I'll kill Nathaniel," Cynara acquiesced quietly. "First you must give me the dagger."

Elizabeth's eyes flicked from the Dark Lady to Nathaniel and then to Alexandria. As though caught in a vortex of torment, her eyes squeezed shut in a paroxysm of agony. "Cynara, please help me."

She stumbled toward her creator, wracked by wave upon concussive wave of pain as the prisoner pounded away at the walls of her cage. The hand brandishing the dagger came up in an offer of submission. Something was tearing Elizabeth apart like an ugly and rampant cancer run wild. The furious orange drained from her eyes, washed away by a river of hot tears.

Cynara remained stationary, grief and horror riveting her to the carpet. The grim and bitter truth had revealed itself, both in the glinting reflection of her lover's eyes and the cataclysm raging in the lightless clefts of her own heart. The sheer scope and magnitude of her worthlessness assailed her reason. Beyond all of the power and the accrued wealth, concealed behind the facade of beauty and the insatiable lust for evil, there existed a barren, frigid void of darkness that no excess of power or wealth could begin to fill. Perhaps part of her had realized as much and sent her to search the world for an Elizabeth in a desperate denial of that cold nothingness. That quest had ended here in a wretched shambles. She was a creature born and fed upon belligerence and depravity. Her attempt to find a perverse facsimile of love was pathetic, misguided and doomed to fail.

She felt herself glide forward and accept the proffered knife, knowing that she would have no choice but to betray Elizabeth's trust. True to her nature, Cynara's instinct for survival asserted itself, pushing all other emotions and sentiments aside. The Dark Lady smiled reassuringly as Nathaniel's plea to his mother rang in her ears.

The dagger was almost within her grasp when the lights went out.

2

The kilometers flashed by in a mindless blur. Wind, driven by crystals of icy snow, stung her face and obscured her vision, but she seemed oblivious to the inclement weather. She had no clear perception of the world around her. At different times, she thought she heard mocking peels of laughter and strident cries of admonition. Once, a dark shape floated out of the trees, flicking its thick forked tongue and leering hungrily. It cackled madly before her like a demented specter. Untouched by the hideous apparition, she simply walked through it. It tore to pieces as though constructed of rice paper, and blew apart before the wind.

Contayza had lost the capacity to be influenced by terror. Shades could not harm her and night visions could not daunt or deter her. She carried in her head a portrait of her reviled enemy, the demon who had stripped her of all that she had, save for her hatred and a burning thirst for revenge.

When at last the mansion appeared, a vague black shape through the curtain of the blizzard, Contayza's face twisted into a lusty grin, which touched the bottom half of her face but did not reflect in her eyes. The perimeter of the mansion grounds was secured by a ten foot wrought iron fence. Beyond the gates, a tree lined brick drive wound its way to the main building only the roof of which was visible from the main road.

She had only to recall the obscene way in which Cynara had left Jimmy's body and the gate's one inch diameter vertical staves crimped before her. The hinges emitted a torturous screech and the gates fell open before her with a wave of her hand. The power had grown to unfathomable new levels. She suspected that this had to do with constant usage. She could sense it boiling within her like lethal lava, yearning to spew out and decimate anything unfortunate enough to be exposed to its wrath.

Fresh tire tracks sliced through the blanket of snow. She followed them, channeling the frenzied storm, summoning all of her long-harbored vitriol and rancor to fuel its fire. Entering the main courtyard, she stood before a large bank of windows, where inside animated shadows gestured and danced behind cream lace curtains.

Contayza paused. The moment seemed to require a spectacular gesture to herald her arrival. Her eyes fixed upon the sleek black Jaguar that was parked near the stairs leading up to the main entrance. She found that she loathed its feline lines and its sleek silhouette. The vehicle embodied everything in Cynara that she abhorred. She lashed out at the Jaguar as though it was Cynara herself. The night exploded in an inferno of yellow and orange flames. A deafening roar declared the commencement of the final conflict.

3

The instant that Contayza destroyed the gates, the fully electrified fence short circuited, tripping breakers and momentarily shutting down the property's electrical supply. The library had been plunged into darkness just as Elizabeth had been about to relinquish possession of the dagger.

Amidst the startled gasps and confusion, only Nath reacted quickly. Dropping to his hands and knees, he scampered through the pitch black library, hoping to reach the double doors undetected. The lights flickered back to life before he had even gone ten feet. Elizabeth had drawn away from Cynara, still clutching the weapon. She immediately brushed past the Dark Lady, intercepting Nath before he could reach the doors.

Cynara had turned to the bank of windows, momentarily distracted. She moved to the translucent drapes and peered through.

"She's come then," she declared with a satisfied whisper. As if in confirmation, a huge explosion rocked the entire building, toppling bookshelves and spilling precious vases and crystal. Cynara took an instinctive step away from the window, but was too slow to avoid the second concussion, which blew in the large bank of glass as well as most of the wall around it. The air was suddenly alive with a lethal hail of glass and plaster shrapnel. Instinctively, Elizabeth enfolded Nath in her arms and fell atop the small man, shielding him from the flying debris.

The room was dust-filled and dark, plunged into an expectant silence. Cynara, who had absorbed most of the initial impact, rose cautiously to her feet. A diminutive figure stepped through the jagged hole that had been blasted into the side of the building.

"So you've come to play then, my little gypsy slut?" Cynara laughed. "You're foolish, but admirably brave. Come in and make yourself at home. Let's..."

From where he laid, Nath could see something literally leap from the woman who he now recognized was Contayza. It seemed to spread out and dart forward like a huge shadow bat, bulldozing Cynara and lifting her from her feet, before slamming her against the far wall. Cynara grunted and slid bonelessly to the ground.

Contayza took another step into the room and gazed about. She was vaguely aware of other shapes in the darkness. They were insignificant. Only Cynara mattered. If the others made any attempt to intervene, she would destroy them without compunction. She could feel her entire body vibrating wildly as she readied herself to unleash her next assault. The more that she employed her telekinetic abilities, the greater her comprehension of its mechanics became. She need only visualize something in her mind's eye and her vision would manifest itself in the real world.

Now she gazed in upon a dervish, a funnel of unadulterated energy that caught everything in its grip and scattered it like dust. At once, a terrible vortex opened at the center of the library. Bookshelves were ripped from the wall and sent spinning about. Sofas were swept up and spun about like balloons in a whirlwind. A heavy antique tea cart sprang from its position near the double doors. It flipped end over end, striking Alexandria in the face with the force of a mallet. The ancient demon landed amidst the debris of the cart, one heavy, spoked wheel digging deeply into her lower back. She was truly astounded that a mortal could command such awesome power.

Cynara had managed to climb to her feet when the remains of the piano crashed into her as if to avenge past injustices. Cursing with frustration, she hurled the wreckage off and sprang to her feet. "I hope you enjoy your little moment of glory, gypsy cunt," she seethed. "You'll have an eternity to pay for it."

Elizabeth watched all of this with rapt attention, body pressing Nathaniel to the floor. Contayza's maelstrom fascinated her. Nath's eyes fixed upon the dagger, which she clutched in her right hand, evidently forgotten. He tried to calculate his odds of wrestling it from her grasp and striking at Cynara.

Cynara charged forward, wanting the pleasure of tearing Contayza's head from her shoulders with her bare hands. Tayza stood absolutely still, charting the demon's approach with inscrutable amber eyes. As the Dark Lady passed beneath the heavy, circular chandelier, it leapt from its moorings and pounced upon her like a giant predatory cat.

The demon was driven into the carpet not ten feet from where Nathaniel lay. He could hear her growling deep in her throat like an enraged dog and understood that as devastating as they appeared, Tayza's assaults would ultimately prove futile. He made a wild grab for the dagger, digging his fingers into the flesh of Elizabeth's wrist. With a causal swipe of her hand, she struck him in the left temple with the haft of the dagger. A galaxy of stars exploded before his eyes, accompanied by the vehement warning, "Try that again and it will be at the expense of your left eye."

Cynara roared and howled like a wounded animal, but before she could retaliate, the floor beneath her opened and swallowed her. A titanic rumble shook the building as a huge crack snaked its way across the library ceiling. The library doors blew off their hinges like playing cards and the opposite wall crimped. There was a sickening screech as the entire roof structure sagged.

' _She's going to bring the house down_ ,' Nath thought gleefully, wanting to applaud her courageous spirit.

"Let me give you a taste of home," Contayza offered, speaking for the first time in a flat, inflectionless voice.

The air hissed and crackled as the three remaining walls burst into flames, casting a macabre flickering light over the carnage. A gaping hole had been torn into the floor and it was through this that Cynara had fallen. Contayza noticed an exotically beautiful redhead lying in one corner, regarding her through impassive, lovely eyes. This woman seemed in no way hostile and so Contayza elected to ignore her. Then her eyes shifted to Elizabeth, who lay huddled over Nathaniel.

For the first time since she had left the hotel, Contayza's concentration was distracted from her mission of vengeance. "You're all right, Nathaniel. You're alive!"

Then her dust covered face began to work miserably. "She's killed Jimmy, Nath. Jimmy is dead."

Nath heard himself groan from somewhere beneath the wave of grief that crashed down upon him. His heart contracted into a painful knot. He dropped his head to the carpet, waiting for the initial cacophony of shock and loss to subside. The flames had found purchase on the drapes and the scattered piles of books and were racing up the drapes with a ravenous purpose.

With blinding speed, something burst forth from the jagged hole in the floor, nimbly landing not far from the edge. Cynara's alter ego stood before her tormentor. It grinned a viper's malevolent grin, yellow lizard eyes iridescent with hatred, "Let's play, bitch."

It came forward with deliberate slowness. Contayza understood empirically that she could not harm the demon with barrages of furniture. Still, she would derive a great deal of pleasure and dark satisfaction from flailing at it, excoriating it, spending a lifetime beleaguering the loathsome thing, but knew that inevitably she would lose. Her only hope was to duplicate her destruction of Petru. Closing her eyes, she summoned all of the animosity that dwelled in the dark places of her soul. The power mounted until it threatened to consume its wielder. Then she unleashed the force, air whining as the invisible missile cut through it like a scythe. It struck the flat footed Cynara like an avalanche, propelling her through the air and into the wall of flames. The tattered remains of her clothes quickly ignited, lighting the demon up like a living torch. Her arms pin wheeled wildly, beating fruitlessly at the hungry flames. The suffocating stench of burning flesh filled the library.

Nath uttered a cackle of triumphant laughter as Elizabeth roughly hauled him to his feet. His expression soon faltered when he noticed Contayza's expression of open perplexity. He glanced around to see Cynara, restored to human form, kneeling with her arms extended forward like a penitent begging for absolution.

"Now let me show you what I can do, little girl," Cynara intoned with a snarl. Two tongues of white flame had flared to life in the upturned cups of her palms.

Nath need only one glance at Contayza to know that she had exhausted the last of her attacks. It had become painfully obvious that Cynara was impervious to anything the gypsy could throw at her, despite the enormity of her power.

"Run, Contayza!" Nath exclaimed wildly. Elizabeth made no attempt to restrain him. The gypsy glanced at him and merely shook her head, her intransigent expression making it clear that there would be no flight.

"Yes, do run," Cynara agreed. "Let's at least make some sport out of this. I'll allow you a fair head start," she offered magnanimously.

"Cynara, do not prolong this for the sport of it," Alexandria admonished sternly. Cynara's glance slid bitterly to the ancient demon and then back to Tayza who had made no attempt to flee.

"I will not run from you Cynara," Contayza vowed gravely. "Come and kill me if you are able. I will fight you with my teeth and nails, but I will never give you the satisfaction of seeing me run."

The iron in Contayza's eyes and the nobility in her tone caused Cynara to pause. She opened one palm and the white flame leapt in a dizzying arc, igniting the hardwood floor immediately behind Contayza. The gypsy steadfastly refused to flinch. Instead, she continued to glare back at the demon fearlessly.

"You will scream. I can promise you that much," Cynara rasped, employing anger to conceal her disquiet at the woman's refusal to cower before her. She waved her other hand and a fist sized piece of brick broke free of the exterior wall. It struck Contayza upon the side of the face, driving her to one knee. Blood ran copiously from the wound, but the gypsy ignored it, rising unsteadily to her feet. Her eyes were clouded with pain, but she offered Cynara a defiant grin. This time a football sized piece of metal cannoned into Contayza's stomach, knocking her through the ruined wall and into the snow. She lay gasping for a long time, but then climbed doggedly to her feet.

Nath turned to Elizabeth. His eyes were misted with tears and he spoke in a beseeching voice made thick with grief, "Please. She's torturing her. Stop this. If you ever had any love for me, stop this!"

Elizabeth blinked, her left eye twitching madly. Her son was speaking to her. Her son was pleading with her. Everything had become hazy and surreal. Somewhere deep inside of her, she could sense the onset of a cataclysmic upheaval, but found herself powerless to quell it. She glanced dazedly at the man before her. His gaze was sharp and penetrating. He was appealing not to her, but to the other inside of her. It was imperative that she silence him before his plea incited some irreversible and terrible process, but inexplicably she found that she could not, as though her body had been turned to lead.

Contayza's eyes were glassy and her breath came in ragged gasps, but she stumbled back through the hole in the wall despite her obvious pain. "You promised to show me something," she taunted. "I'm still waiting. Don't deny yourself the ecstasy of killing me with your bare hands."

Cynara stiffened, her upper lip drawing back in an unconscious snarl. "You're brave to the point of folly, girl, but I suppose that I should have expected as much. Your stock has always been valiant if somewhat obtuse. You've come to seek retribution in the name of Rebecca and naturally you have failed. Perhaps it would be fitting if you met with a similar fate...before I kill you of course."

The wicked gleam in Cynara's eyes heralded the transformation. Holding out her right hand to the gypsy, Cynara glided forward. As she came, the fingers began to melt and run like hot wax, until everything beyond her wrist was a formless lump of soft tissue. Four abnormally long fingers, each topped with wicked claws, took form from within the mass.

"You've always been an impudent little bitch," Cynara spat. "Your tongue has mastered your good sense and it's high time that particular fault was rectified."

Contayza grasped the demon's intention, but still refused to flee. She would die with the acidic taste of the enemy's flesh in her mouth.

Increasingly distressed, Nath turned back to this mother, who held the ritualistic dagger in one hand and Nath's forearm in the other. The angel's prophecy echoed in his head like the strident buzzing of an air raid siren. If this situation was to be retrieved, she would have to act now.

"Please, if there is an iota of compassion and decency within you, stop this." His voice was strident with hysteria. Elizabeth's eyes held the same stony vacuous glint as if they were not looking outward to the atrocity, but inward upon her own tormented soul. The flickering darkness and his own mounting frustration did not allow him to recognize the subtle shifting there. He made a grab for the dagger, again trying to pull it from her grasp. He strained mightily, but could not extricate it from her grasp. It was immovable as Excalibur set in stone.

"Goddamn you," he cried helplessly. "Goddamn you to hell." He spit into her face and tugged his arm free of her grasp. Her fingers relaxed and he stumbled away, staring at her for a fraction of a second, glowering at her bitter betrayal, while she stared back with glassy, unseeing eyes.

He wheeled about just as the demon grew rigid and squeezed its eyes shut. Her muscles spasmed and rippled and then her body gave one tremendous spastic jerk. When her eyes had closed they'd been a misty amethyst, but when they reopened, Elizabeth Simpson gazed at the world with the deep blue eyes of her birth. After twenty years of imprisonment, she had finally evicted the demon. There was a dizzying moment of disorientation caused not only by the chaos before her, but also by the incredible sensation of power flowing through her new body. Then the urgency of the moment impressed itself upon her and she whispered, "My son? Where is my son? Where is Nathaniel?"

With dawning horror, she saw exactly where he was and how dire his predicament had become.

Upon turning away from his mother, Nath had charged Cynara, a primitive cry of fury welling up from his guts. Unmindful of the futility of his action, he threw himself at the demon, who turned her head in time to see his attack. Hitting her was very much like slamming into a brick wall. He bounced off of her right shoulder like a rubber ball, landing amidst the ruined carpeting and the shards of hardwood with a grunt.

Contayza tried to use the diversion as an opportunity to attack, but Cynara swatted her down as though she were a fly. Then the demon focused her murderous attention upon Nathaniel. Her face was twisted into a belligerent grin, as she towered over Simpson like a monolith. "So the righteous sheep has decided to soil his hands with violence. I'd be delighted to oblige you."

Her grin contorted into a mask of pure hatred. The clawed hand reached for Nath's throat and pulled him to his feet. The needle tipped claws dimpled his flesh bringing tiny traces of blood. Millimeter by millimeter, she tightened her grip ever deeper into his throat.

"You should have taken my offer in Brasov, Nathaniel. It would have been much sweeter to be my lover than my victim," she taunted. "How does it feel to die knowing that I've won?"

4

"Oh, God in heaven," whispered Elizabeth Simpson as memory flooded back to her. With the torrent of memories came the shame and self contempt. Her despair seemed inconsequential next to the understanding that the woman who had betrayed her was about to kill her son.

"Cynara, stop!" she cried wretchedly. Cynara's eyes widened and she released Nathaniel, who fell to the floor, shaking wildly and clutching his bleeding throat. Cynara's mind buzzed as she turned toward Elizabeth and squinted through the thick smoke. Had it been her imagination or had that actually been the voice of the woman she'd seduced in that small Washington town?

"Elizabeth?" she inquired tentatively. The other woman ventured closer. Her face was layered with thick black grime, streaked by trails of tears. The eyes were the ethereal blue that Cynara had longed for. Cynara noticed that Elizabeth held the dreaded dagger in white knuckled fingers.

"What have you done to me?" Elizabeth demanded, through the veil of her tears. "Do you despise me so much that you would kill my son before my very eyes?"

Cynara shook her head dumbly, backing away from the blade. "Elizabeth, I love you... you and I are blood now. I am in your heart. Can't you feel that?"

Cynara continued to retreat, openly frightened by the maniacal light glowing in the other woman's eyes.

"You love me?" Simpson screamed derisively. "You've destroyed everything that I know. You've turned me into a fucking monster." She raised the blade, gripped it in both hands and turned the tip to face her own left breast. Cynara shook her head frantically, grasping Elizabeth's intention. "Elizabeth, don't. You have no notion of what you're about to do."

Cynara's naked horror only provoked Elizabeth further. "I despise you. I curse the day that I ever met you. You say that you're in my heart. I'd rather die than have you there."

Before Cynara could react to prevent it, Elizabeth plunged the mystic blade deep into her left breast, then released the blade and staggered back as Cynara clutched her own left breast, eyes wide with terror and incredulity. The Dark Lady's pouting lips stretched into a wordless scream. Simultaneously, both she and Elizabeth toppled to the carpet.

Agonized by every movement, Cynara crawled over the wreckage to where her beloved Elizabeth lay upon her back. The blond lay staring wide eyed at the ruined ceiling. Cynara gently eased the blade from the jagged wound that did not bleed. She lay the dagger aside and collapsed atop the other woman. With the last of her strength, she kissed Elizabeth's slack lips and whispered, "You can't know what you've done."

Then the abyss appeared beneath them and swallowed both.

Chapter Fifty Four

1

Nathaniel could not move, could not speak, even to express his inarticulate grief for the woman he'd so briefly gained only to lose again. He knelt with his hands upon his knees, praying that the nightmare before him would dissolve and be replaced by an alternate, more palatable reality. He felt an arm about his neck and Contayza's warm breath in his ear.

"Are you okay, Nath?" she asked through teeth gritted against her own pain. He nodded, having only heard her distantly, unable to drag his eyes from the hideous spectacle of his dead mother, now lost for a second time. "We have to get out Nath," Contayza was saying urgently. "This whole place could go up."

As if to punctuate her statement, the ceiling near the interior wall collapsed with a low rumble. Both Contayza and Nath were assailed by a rush of thick, choking smoke. Nath heard himself make a small, hurt sound at the back of his throat. Contayza began to forcibly drag him toward the opening that was rapidly shrinking before the advancing wall of flame.

Nath screamed shrill protests that went unheeded as she pulled him by the hair and the jacket. ' _I'm not going to lose you too, Nath_ ,' she promised herself, ignoring his protest.

"Contayza, that woman near the wall; the entire ceiling came down on top of her." Nath shouted, trying to pull free.

"She's not a woman Nath and there's nothing we can do for her. Nothing we can do for any of them," Contayza retorted, refusing to let him go. The ceiling above them issued an ominous groan. Contayza started to pull with greater insistence.

A figure appeared through the wall of fire and smoke, walking slowly as though oblivious to the destruction about her. She paused to examine the hole through which the two women had vanished and then came directly to the pair of humans. Contayza positioned herself between Nath and the approaching demon, standing defiantly to face her.

Alexandria stopped two feet from the gypsy and smiled amicably, "I mean you no harm. We must move out into the courtyard."

Contayza nodded brusquely and hauled Nath to his feet, encircling him with a protective arm. The demon shepherded the two out of the building and a safe distance into the courtyard. Then she returned to the gaping hole and standing utterly still before the opening, made a sweeping gesture with both arms. In response, sheets of snow swept up from the grounds and through the opening. After several minutes, the miniature blizzard had extinguished the flames.

Alexandria then returned to the pair. Nath dropped his face to his hands, while Contayza leapt to her feet and shouted jubilantly "We've done it. Nath, it's over. It's really over."

In a voice which immediately dampened Contayza's euphoria, Alexandria remarked "No, it's not quite over. There is one final battle to be fought."

2

She had the impression of falling in great spiraling circles, though some instinct informed her that this sensation was more symbolic than real. She was not dead, though she should have been after driving the dagger deep into her own heart and feeling the lethal tip pierce the beating organ. Yet, against all logic, she was still alive.

Elizabeth Simpson gradually became aware of a dull gray light swirling around her and then she was falling, not in slow lazy spirals, but in a dizzying vertical plummet. Seconds later, she struck the ground with a bone jarring impact that left a three foot deep crater in the loose earth. She lay unmoving for a long moment, trying to assess how badly she had been hurt. To her positive astonishment, she found herself totally unharmed. With this realization came the recollection of what had transpired before her attempted self immolation. The memory made her cry out with inconsolable anguish and grief.

Eventually, it came to her that she was laying in a meadow. Above her, thick black and gray clouds lumbered across the sky, pissing contemptuously upon the barren field that had become a watery morass. She pushed herself to her feet and peered about to see that she had landed at the base of a steep slope. The hill was the only deviation in the strange landscape which was otherwise monotonously flat.

At the top of the hill stood what looked to be an abbey or perhaps a brooding acropolis. Its columns and walls appeared as white and bleached as dried bones. Upon first sight, she found it to be repulsive and decidedly sinister, but understood implicitly that she would have to go there. She had been brought here for a specific reason and that purpose would be revealed within the walls of the acropolis. Without further consideration, she began to climb.

Rain and wind lashed her face savagely. The slope proved to be much steeper than it had first appeared. She was forced to negotiate the last hundred meters on her hands and knees, digging her fingers deep into the muddy grass for purchase.

When she reached the high wooden doors, Elizabeth was sodden and muddy. She pushed upon the door and it swung open easily. She stepped into the warm and dimly lit interior, hearing the din of voices issuing from somewhere inside. She was suddenly possessed by the certainty that something of unspeakable evil was about to unfold in this ungodly place, but knew that she could not turn away, for hers was a pivotal role in whatever dark drama was about to transpire.

Down deserted hall after deserted hall, she pursued the sounds of the elusive gathering until she began to suspect that the noises were being made by a host of invisible phantoms. She was about to give up when she came upon a hall that opened up onto a large gallery. The room was jammed with people attired in the garments of impoverished Middle Ages peasants. As she observed them, Elizabeth was distressed to discover that they were all afflicted with some manner of deformity; perhaps a bulging eye or a heavy, protruding brow. At the head of the gallery, a small group of nuns had gathered about a raised dais, there faces concealed by habits.

Elizabeth could discern an air of expectation hovering over the assembly. The smell of imminent violence was strong and tangy within the room, challenging the stench of collective unwashed flesh. From a side door, a statuesque, graceful nun entered the room. Like the others, her face was concealed.

She mounted the dais and stood silently. A low murmur ran through the crowd. Then something began to rise from the floor directly behind the dais. It was concealed beneath an opaque white shroud and rose a full eight feet above the tall nun. Upon seeing the shrouded object, the gathering began to cry out deliriously. The intimation that this was to be some type of blood sacrifice touched Elizabeth more strongly with each passing second.

The nun upon the dais raised her left arm and pointed directly at Elizabeth with a long, elegant finger, the nails of which were startlingly black. There was a suggestion of recrimination in that gesture that made Elizabeth want to shy away from it. The crowd turned to face her, revealing the full extent of their collective deformity. They began to applaud and encourage her to come forward. She could not account for the envying expressions upon their faces.

Almost as though her will were being subjugated, she began to drift toward the dais. The tall silent nun reached out and touched her hand, leading her to the shrouded object. ' _I don't want to touch that thing_.' she told herself with an involuntary shudder, knowing that she would anyway. As she stood facing the mysterious object, the tall nun began to address the gathering. This time Elizabeth heard and understood every word. They thundered in her mind as if her skull had become an echo chamber.

"When have gathered on this ignoble day to witness the working of the Lord's justice. We have been consigned to the task of punishing the miscreant, the evil doer. We must give ourselves enthusiastically to his purpose. Are we not his willing servants?"

A massive roar of affirmation rocked the hall.

"Today we have been called upon to mete out justice to an omnipotent one. She stands proud and arrogant in her transgressions. What are her sins, children?"

Speaking in unison, they lustily tolled the condemned one's misdeeds, "Hubris! Ingratitude! BETRAYAL!"

The nun spoke to Elizabeth now, "Child, reveal this sinner to us now."

Elizabeth saw her hand reach out in slow motion and pull the shroud away. Her screams of horror were lost amidst the shouts of euphoria peeling from the throng behind her. She gazed up to see herself, livid and blue, crucified upon an x shaped wooden cross. Rusty spikes had been driven into her hands and feet. The gruesome wounds bled sluggishly. Her head lolled bonelessly upon the stalk of her neck as her eyes squeezed shut against the pain. Occasionally her body would twitch as another spasm of agony shook it like a rag doll.

"Behold the Lord's will!" cried the nun to the sheer delight of the gathering, some of whom had begun to hurl things at the suspended woman. Elizabeth had begun to back away, but now found a lance thrust into her hands. She stared at it in numb horror, the exhortation of the mob ringing in her ears.

"Kill her! Kill her! KILL HER!"

The crucified Elizabeth opened her pain clouded eyes and was staring down at her potential executioner with naked terror. Elizabeth attempted to cast the lance aside, but could not command her fingers to release their grip on the weapon. Crying hysterically, she darted towards the woman and buried the lance deep in her left breast. The thick geyser of blood and the harrowing wail of agony were greeted by a frenzy of wild applause from the crowd.

Elizabeth stumbled back, hands covering her mouth in shock and disbelief. She turned to face the nun only to find Cynara staring back at her with a flat, inscrutable expression. Saravic's countenance darkened and then she slowly turned to face the suspended horror. Grasping the haft of the lance, Cynara mouthed an incantation and soon a thin line of argent flame leapt from her fingertips and marched purposefully along the blood smeared length of the wooden weapon. Incredibly, horribly, Elizabeth's thrust had not killed her crucified image. It began to quiver as the argent fire quickly began to consume the wood, eventually finding purchase upon the tormented victim's dying flesh.

Transfixed, Elizabeth watched as the fire quickly engulfed the crucified parody, its screeching wails of agony rising above the thunderous approval of the grotesque mob.

Cynara turned a satisfied grin upon Elizabeth and then remarked, "Now imagine how dear, sweet Nathaniel must have felt."

Shaking her head vehemently, Elizabeth fled from the hall with the tumultuous, blood drunk cheer of the crowd snapping at her heels.

3

The hall into which she fled did not even faintly resemble the one through which she had first entered. The ceiling was lower and try as she might, Elizabeth could not see any of the four walls. She spun about, thinking that she would look back into the gallery. Instead she was confronted by a dwindling murk that hinted at some horrible infinity. This darkness was thick and most definitely not empty.

Elizabeth could discern thin, grating noises and the soft, furtive whispers of movement across the floor. All of this struck her as vaguely familiar, but why or from where whether a real memory or the fragment of some forgotten dream she could not be certain. She was not particularly concerned by this. It was all part of some macabre game or some ancient process about which she knew nothing. It occurred to her that it was imperative that she try to make some sense of what was happening. Her very survival depended upon her ability to grasp the nature of what was obviously a ritual of combat. She suspected that Cynara had seized the initiative in the contest and understood that this could well prove fatal.

She heard a stealthy scuffling and froze at the sound of foam rubber dragging across concrete. Pivoting about, she caught a glimpse of a figure lurching toward her. She began to back away, shaking her head in abnegation. The bitter pain of memory speared her as surely as the lance had pierced her double's heart. She staggered and fell to one knee, shielding her eyes from the approaching nightmare. "Please no...go away. I, I can't face you. So much pain, too much heartbreak. Oh please go away."

She heard the thing come to a halt before her. She hung her head and clamped her hands to her face like a small child who hopes that denial will banish the bad thing. In the metaphysical world, as in the real one, hope alone was never enough to exorcise the demon. Bony fingers gripped her wrist and began to pry the hands away from her face. She fought to resist, but grief had robbed her of her phenomenal demon strength and the hands were pulled inexorably from her face. Whimpering, she gazed up at the man standing before her like an avenging specter. His face was aged, criss-crossed by deep cracks and wrinkles, beneath gossamer fine white hair. The eyes were the dull, listless blue of one who has seen the angel of death hovering over his shoulder. The stooped shoulders seemed as though they had been bent by the weight of the world. The tattered clothes hung in flaps from the emaciated body; the figure of an emaciated derelict. His presence brought the object of this game home to her in soul crushing terms. Cynara was trying to break her spirit and had conjured this hellish apparition to do precisely that.

"I tried to warn you, Elizabeth," the grim ghost intoned softly. Its voice was tremulous and thin. Elizabeth let out a wretched wail and threw herself to the concrete, no longer able to bear the sight of this shambling, decrepit incarnation of David Stillman.

"If only you had listened to me, so much of what's happened could have been avoided. All of the suffering...all of those unnecessary deaths," David concluded gravely.

"Oh David, please forgive me. I swear that I never meant to hurt anyone. I only..." But she could not continue, knowing that she could never hope to rationalize away all of the iniquity that her actions had bred. She crawled to him and wrapped her arms around his legs. "I loved you, despite everything else that happened...I truly love you."

"I know you do," Cynara whispered tenderly. Elizabeth recoiled, trying to scramble away from the Dark Lady, and then she was falling again.

4

The descent was brief and when she landed, she recognized her new location at once. She had spent twenty long years incarcerated in this tedious hell. Elizabeth lay in the gray dust searching her soul for a reason to rise. She welcomed death as a cold comfort, seeing it as a craven, but preferable alternative to whatever life might await her beyond this desolate moment.

The wind sighed and she turned her head to see Cynara standing thirty meters from where she lay. Between them, buried to the haft in the dirt, was the ritualistic dagger. Cynara's lovely face was set in an alien hieroglyph of an expression that Elizabeth could neither decipher nor recall ever having seen before. This was to be the end then. The preliminaries had been dispensed with and now there remained only the settling of accounts. Resigning herself to the inevitably of the process, she sighed and climbed heavily to her feet.

"So it's come to this then; a simple matter of who kills who first?" she asked bitterly.

Cynara nodded stiffly, her face taut as though she feared that it might crack should she speak or shift expressions. Watching the other woman's combative stance, Elizabeth understood how woefully inadequate she was, how ill equipped she was. Compared to Cynara's fire honed proficiency she was pathetically inept to face a mortal combat. She had always been afraid of physical violence. The mildest of confrontations had always tied her stomach into knots. She fought to mask her fear with indignation. "Damn it Cynara, what is this about?"

"Very well," Cynara nodded. "When you so foolishly plunged the dagger into your heart, you were ignorant of the fact that the two of us are inexorably linked. You are an extension of my will. Had you made your misguided statement with your own dagger, you would have perished, but because you used mine, and because you are an extension of my spirit, you have inadvertently plunged us both in limbo. Only one of us can return to the world. The other must be consigned to the void. That is why this," she gestured toward the buried dagger "has become necessary."

"And if we were simply to decline combat?" Elizabeth offered without much hope.

"Then we would both remain here in oblivion," Cynara replied in a tone which made it perfectly clear that this particular solution was unacceptable. Her voice was flat and melancholy, causing Elizabeth to tremble violently. She noticed that, while Cynara had offered her explanation, they had each inched ever closer to the dagger, both no further than a body's length from the weapon.

Liz cried out and made a headlong dive for the dagger. She sailed through the air and wrapped her fingers around the ornate haft. Before she could pull it from the sterile soil, Cynara's right foot stamped down heavily upon her wrist, pinioning her hand to the gray dust. Elizabeth cried out in pain and tried to pull her hand free. Cynara casually reached down and seized hold of a handful of blond hair. The demon's features were distorted by a complex array of emotions. Tugging Elizabeth's head upward, she raised her hand and held the clenched fist trembling above her head. Cynara uttered a strangled cry and swung the fist, which opened to a flat palm half way through the blow.

The report of flesh upon flesh was sharp and Cynara rasped, "Damn you for what you've done. You've ripped my heart to shreds."

Dazed, Elizabeth attempted to rise, but Cynara tilted her head slightly upward and Simpson found herself being flung through the air as if being heaved by an unseen catapult. She landed in a sprawl and then rolled onto her back. Cynara raised her right hand to the sky in a gesture of invocation. The sand around Elizabeth churned violently and then the fleshy red tentacles appeared from the barren earth. They undulated in the air for a moment and then wrapped themselves about Elizabeth's limbs and torso. She strained against the writhing tentacles, crying out with shrill revulsion. Struggle as she might, she could not break free. Seeing that she was hopelessly ensnared, Simpson surrendered to the inevitable.

Cynara bent down and retrieved the dagger. Then she strolled over to Elizabeth and knelt down beside her former lover. "Ah Elizabeth, didn't you know that you could never beat me? You never possessed the killer instinct. I have to do this Elizabeth. Try to understand that. I wanted an eternity together, but you've left me no choice."

The blonde's eyes had suddenly become serene now that it was clear that death was upon her. "I hope that you're not seeking my approval. I ask only one thing, Cynara. Please spare my son. Allow him and the girl to live. Take my life in exchange for theirs."

Cynara gritted her teeth. That strange, uncharacteristic expression was back upon her face. "Couldn't you at least plead for your life? Must you accept this so readily?"

Elizabeth shook her head against the fleshy restraints. "I have nothing of value to beg for other than the life of my son. What purpose would be served by my survival?"

Cynara's lips quivered, but she willed her trembling hand to move, bringing the dagger into position just above Elizabeth's left breast. She was reminded of her exhilaration that first night that she had turned this ethereal creature. The memory brought the useless desolation of the moment home with heart wrenching poignancy.

"And now you would kill the one thing for which you have searched an entire lifetime," Came a gentle voice from beside her. Startled, she glanced up to see the beautiful Alasha Saravic regarding her with those placid blue eyes that she recalled so well. Cynara glanced down at Elizabeth, who had closed her eyes against the imminent bite of the blade. "What will await you on the other side of this...another search for fulfillment and validation? Another betrayal? Or perhaps an eternity of desolate solitude with only bitter memories to keep you company. You've come to realize that you need love, Cynara, but see just as clearly that you can never attain it. Love and the thing that you have become are as incompatible as fire and water. You know this and cannot discard that knowledge or ignore it no matter how desperately you try to." The shade reached out and touched Cynara's arm, speaking with the compassion that had characterized Alasha. "If it is love that you truly wish to feel then let this woman live."

Then the specter dissolved. Cynara glanced at Elizabeth thoughtfully and smiled a fey grin. "You play this game better than you know, dear one."

Turning the dagger away from Elizabeth's breast, Cynara made a dismissive gesture with her hand and the tentacles withdrew into the earth. Elizabeth opened her eyes, not certain why she was still alive. Cynara knelt beside her, staring hypnotically at the dagger. "I cannot destroy you Elizabeth. I have no remorse for the things that I've done, I am a creature of evil. But I have found in you a thing that I cherish more than myself."

She glanced down at the blond. Tears glistened in her eyes, which when free of arrogance, were indescribably beautiful. "Perhaps you can never forgive me for what I've done, but you may learn to hate me a little less. Who knows, in time you may even come to think of me with a touch of wistful regret for all that we've lost.

In a rapid movement, she flipped the dagger, catching the blade in her fingers. Then she extended it to the astounded Elizabeth. Cynara uttered a high, nervous laugh. The sound was vulnerable and frightened, so unlike her normal throaty laughter which exuded supreme confidence. "I've taken life with such casual abandon. It may surprise you to know that I'm afraid. Please be quick."

Elizabeth stared at the killing tool. ' _I can't_ ,' she told herself. ' _I just can't_.'

Cynara discerned her hesitation. She offered a shaky smile and took Elizabeth's hands in hers. She guided the tip of the blade to the gap in her ribs just below the left breast. Elizabeth could feel her hands shaking as they held the dagger, wanting to relinquish their grip. Cynara's hands held them fast.

"A kiss?" Cynara requested shyly. Fighting her repugnance, Elizabeth bent forward and pressed her lips to the Dark Lady's. She could feel the demon's lips twist upward into a smile. Then Cynara gave a violent tug and pulled Elizabeth to her. Simpson screeched as the tip impaled Cynara's heart, causing it to explode like a black balloon.

In the end, her death was neither dramatic nor prolonged. It was not heralded by a thunderous rumble from the bowels of the earth or a titanic gusting of the devil's breath. Cynara made a small whimpering sound in the back of her throat and fell backward. She watched Elizabeth through a red translucent curtain that grew steadily darker. Elizabeth was struck by a crucial question and she exclaimed, "Cynara, there is something that I must know."

Cynara offered her a fey smile and whispered weakly, "Be quick, my precious one. Ask your question."

She did and Cynara granted her an answer.

Then the Dark Lady issued a low, guttural groan, jerked once and lay still. Elizabeth Simpson sat silently watching until the shifting gray dust had buried Cynara Saravic.

5

Nath sat waiting impatiently before the wreckage of the library. The fire had been doused, but thick white smoke continued to pour through the opening. Alexandria had explained what was happening with brutal candor and now stood apart from the two humans, tensely watching the billowing smoke. The drama within was unprecedented in her lifetime and she wondered if such a tragedy had ever before been enacted.

She had solemnly promised the pair that, should Cynara emerge the victor, she would prevent her from harming them. Nath seemed grateful in an offhand way, but Contayza only glared at the demon with undisguised animosity.

The three watched and waited with growing unease. Then a figure passed through the smoke and into the chilly night air. The figure was covered in black grime from head to toe and held a lifeless body in her arms. She proceeded out of the wreckage and toward the group. Nath jumped to his feet and started forward, but Contayza caught him in her arms, holding him back. Alexandria remained stationary.

The woman stopped and regarded the group, her eyes obscured by dark shadows. Then she softly declared, "It's over. Cynara Saravic is gone forever."

Epilogue

1

In the milky gray light of morning, Elizabeth Simpson carried the body of Cynara Saravic to its final resting place, whiled Alexandria walked behind her. They came to the spot where, months before, Cynara had held a hand full of soil and spoke to Elizabeth of the land's dark vitality. It struck Elizabeth that this would be an appropriate spot to lay the Dark Lady to rest.

They buried her deep in the frozen soil. There were no words to eulogize the demon. She had been what she had been and final words would have been as pointless as the life she had led.

As they returned to the mansion, Alexandria felt compelled to say, "She loved you well, Elizabeth."

"I know," Elizabeth replied distantly and then lapsed into a pensive silence. After a moment, she posed the question that had been lying between them since she'd emerged from the wreckage of the mansion. "What do you intend to do, Alexandria?"

The Egyptian beauty stopped and studied the taller woman closely. She found herself confronted by a woman who would be very easy to love. "You are truly a remarkable being, Elizabeth. You have come to an epiphany in two decades that I struggled for sixty centuries to acquire. I will help you explore and develop your powers so that you might defend yourself against the avengers who will be sent forth to slay you."

Elizabeth nodded her tacit gratitude and the pair returned to the house.

2

During the following five days, Alexandria honored her promise to help Elizabeth acquaint herself with her new abilities. The ancient demon was privately shocked to discover just how extensive these abilities were. The Master's minions were going to experience a great many nasty moments at this woman's hands.

Nath and Elizabeth spent hours simply talking together. He told her of his childhood and the things that he had done as a young man. She listened quietly, most often on the brink of tears. Her face shone with a love and pride and an inconsolable regret that would haunt her eternally.

On the day that the year turned from old to new, Elizabeth ushered Nath and Tayza into the large sitting room which stood opposite the derelict library. Nath immediately noticed that she seemed subdued and distant. She could barely bring herself to look at her son. "This is to be our final day here," she began ponderously. "Alexandria has left and so must we."

"We're going home?" Nath asked happily. Elizabeth glanced at him quickly and averted her eyes, already feeling the painful repercussions of what was to come. "The two of you will be leaving, yes."

Stunned, Nath demanded, "You're saying that you're not coming?"

Elizabeth forced herself to meet his hurt, resentful gaze, her eyes filled with uncompromising steel which she did not feel. "I have no place in your world Nathaniel. I am a deviant, a hunted exile. They'll come searching for me and try to destroy me. You would never be safe in my presence. We'd live in constant fear and never know happiness. Even if this wasn't the case, there are things that I'm obliged to do."

"Then I'll never see you again," Nath concluded, staring sullenly at the carpet. She felt her heart contract painfully. He looked so much like the little boy she had once known.

"Never is an absolute and thus meaningless word. I'll come to you if fate allows it. Yet, even if we should never set eyes upon each other again in this life, we will be together. You need only look into your heart to find me."

A tortured sob escaped Nath's lips and he rushed from the room. Elizabeth bowed her head and began to weep silently. She felt a hand upon her shoulder and looked up to see Contayza regarding her solemnly.

"I promise you that I'll take care of him," she vowed.

Elizabeth smiled and bowed her head. Contayza knelt beside her and held her for a long time.

3

Near noon, Elizabeth stood upon the steps and watched as Tayza put a briefcase into the trunk of Cynara's black Mercedes. The briefcase contained two legitimate American passports and three hundred thousand American dollars from Cynara's safe; a reparation payment for damages suffered. Contayza waved goodbye and climbed into the driver's seat while Nath stared straight ahead. He had not exchanged a single word with Elizabeth since he'd fled the sitting room.

The car began to pull away and then came to an abrupt halt. The passenger door burst open and then Nath ran to her. She spread her arms and they held each other, content in the comfort of their embrace. Nath pulled back and gazed into her eyes. "Mother, I have always loved you and always will."

"Same here kiddo," she laughed, poised on the brink of tears. He laughed and then ran back to the car, climbing in beside Contayza. He did not look back as the car passed through the trees and out of sight.

She stared vacantly at the driveway for a few moments, trying to master the paralyzing pain in her heart. She turned back to the house that now resembled an abandoned crypt.

Brushing the tears from her eyes, Elizabeth uttered the single word that would send her forth on her odyssey.

"David."

After word

What followed that grim day? I can tell you that Contayza and Nathaniel escaped Romania and returned to the United States where they were married just over a year later. They built a life together, living for each other and through each other.

They revered the memory of Jimmy Simms.

Contayza honored her tacit promise to Elizabeth. She loved Nath with all of her heart and on the days when his eyes were pinched and clouded with longing, she took care of him and loved him all the harder.

And what of the demon Elizabeth Simpson's odyssey and the things that befell her during its course? That is another tale and perhaps, when the night is dark and the wind is high, you and I will come together again and I will tell it to you.

George Straatman

February 8, 1994

April 20, 2008

