by phuc
"Why are you sad?" he asked.
She felt limp in her seat. "I used to be in love with this guy, but I ended the relationship, and now I'm not sure if I did the right thing."
"Only you can decide if you did the right thing. How do you propose to do that?"
Veronica stared.
Khoronos rose at the end of the table, his face clement in some kind of boundless what?
Wisdom? Or was it truth, the sum of wisdom? That's what Veronica sensed in him now an utter lack of falsehood. Here was a man who truly did love.
Here was a man who knew.
"I'm sorry to have upset you," he said through a voice that issued like smoke. "You are a great artist."
"I'm not a "
"And once you are able to see yourself, and your desires, in a more truthful light, you will be even greater."
"I " she muttered.
"You will be timeless, Ms. Polk." The subtle, incised smile touched her like a caress. "You will be immortal."
«« »»
The Mitchell's Brewery clock ticked toward midnight.
"I better get going," Faye Rowland said. "I live in Tylersville that's fifty miles away and I've got to drive to the LOC in the morning."
Jack, somehow, had stayed sober. Getting plowed in front of the girl would not make for much of a professional first impression. He admired her perseverance; she'd suffered an hour's drive just to get briefed early and save time.
"You can stay at my place if you want," he offered, then regretted it. She probably thinks I'm putting the make on her. "I've got several extra rooms, and I live a bit closer than Tylersville."
"How close?"
"About a quarter of a mile."
"Okay," she said. "I mean, if it's no trouble. I'd get an earlier start in the morning if I stayed tonight."
"No problem." Jack motioned for the check.
"Is the clock two hours fast?" Craig asked in disbelief.
"Lately I've been turning into a Scotch-filled pumpkin at midnight." Jack paid up, and when the girl was out of earshot, he whispered, "It's not what it looks like."
"Sure," Craig said, "And I'm a virgin. Later."
Jack took Faye up the short steps to the street. A used-book store across the street had a poster in the window: "Big Brother is watching you." Lately, Jack felt watched everywhere he went, overlooked by his own doubts in himself. But tonight he was impressed; this was the first night in a while he'd left the Undercroft sober.
They drove in Faye's car, a big red Chevy clunker that sounded like a Russian tank. He showed her into his row house and flicked on the lights. "I got three rooms downstairs. Two I rent to college kids, but they're on break." He showed her the spare. "Linen closet's there, shower's there.
I'm upstairs if you need anything. And thanks for doing this for us."
She kicked off her shoes. "Researching a ritual murder is a bit more interesting than running state unemployment fluctuations all day. I'm happy for the change." But when she set her briefcase down, Jack noticed the wedding ring on her hand. How could he have missed that?
He tried not to act surprised. "Oh, and feel free to use the phone if you want to let your husband know where you are."
She looked remiss, then laughed. "Oh, this?" she said, and held up her hand. "I'm not married, I just hate being pestered. I only wear it to keep the predators away."
Jack gave a sad smile. The comment swept him, and his mood crashed. Honey, he thought, you're gonna need a lot more than that to protect you from the predators in this town. Just ask Shanna Barrington.
"Good night," he said.
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CHAPTER 9
"Good night," Khoronos said.
Veronica turned at her bedroom door. "See you in the morning."
"Remember, Ms. Polk, you're also here to create. Start giving your project some thought."
They'd sat up for hours after dinner, discussing only artistic formalities. Their conversation was harmless, but this, she knew, was part of Khoronos' tactic. He'd sown his psychological seeds at dinner; now was the time to let them grow. What did he want of her? Just a painting? Formalistic chitchat? The man, and his cryptic motives, distracted her. She had no idea what to paint.
"Dreams," Khoronos remarked now. He was a shadow on the landing, faceless.
"What?" Veronica asked.
"Pleasant dreams." He drifted back downstairs.
Dreams, she thought, and closed her door. Had he meant that she should use her dreams as her models? She'd painted many of her dreams in the past, but lately she'd stopped that. It seemed indulgent, selfish even. Love is in zah heart, Marzen had said. Creativity is rooted in the heart, Khoronos had added. Was it really an indulgence, then? Dreams were manifestations wholly of one's self in a sense, of the heart. Khoronos had even implied that all true art had its corms in the indulgence of the artist. Seeing, and the intricacies through which one saw, meant everything.
Indulgence is vision, she thought, and giggled. She liked the sound of that.
She felt odd somehow. She turned off the lamp and let the moonlight seep in. The open French doors admitted a warm breeze. A moment later, she was taking off her clothes.
What am I doing? she asked herself. She stood nude before the doors. Anyone who might be out back could look up and see her. But the impression appealed to her: being viewed in secret.
Indulgence is vision. I'm just being indulgent. She giggled again. Then she stepped out onto the veranda.
It felt good here nude in the open air of night. She parted her legs and let the faint breeze touch her sex. That felt good too. Now she was symbologizing: the night was her lover, the moon its eyes, the breeze its hands which traced up and down her body. Yes, that's what she wanted a faceless lover, a stranger full of primordial desire. No formalities, no bogus social games or strained inhibitions. Her mind at once filled with raw images of sex. Rough but seeking hands ranging her skin, male weight atop her body, a mouth sucking her nipples till they hurt. She tried to put a face on the lover, but it didn't work, as though a lack of identity was what made the fantasy truth. It didn't need a face to be real. All it needed was a heart and a cock, a hot curved cock stuck in her up to the balls. Here was vision, alright turning fantasy to an inner truth.
Khoronos had helped her see herself more honestly. That's how she felt just then: being fucked by a new sense of truth.
Next she was whining softly. When enough of her consciousness leaked out of the muse, she discovered her finger burrowed deep into her sex. What am I doing! she screamed in thought.
She slipped back into the bedroom, her sweat now a bath of embarrassment. What if someone had seen? I must be nuts!
When she clicked the French doors shut, she heard the bedroom door click open. A gasp froze in her chest, and she whirled.
The figure stood in the faint spilled light of the hall. It was a shadow, it was faceless. Veronica just stared. The figured closed the door and stepped forward.
"I vill go back aus if you like," it said. It was Marzen, obviously. Closer now, she could see he was naked in the blocks of moonlight, though the room's high shadow hid his face.
"Do you vahnt me to leave?"
Her stare locked forward, "No," she said.
"Zen close your eyes."
Veronica did so with no hesitation. This was the last appendage of any fantasy: reality. She wanted her eyes closed, to keep him faceless. She could sense each of his steps as precisely as if she were seeing him. She didn't even flinch when he took her hand.
He brought her hand to his mouth and sucked the finger she'd been masturbating with.
"Get down now," came the clipped whisper. "Down on zah floor."
Veronica lay back on the carpet, spreading her legs. She pulled her knees back to her chin, showing it all to him without scruple. She felt wicked, lewd. I'm a slut, she thought, stifling a giggle. She parted her thighs as widely as she could, her feet in the air. Her sex felt like a pot of warm oil.
At once Marzen began to lick it. He licked slowly and hard. The sensation, as well as the crude immediacy of the act, jolted her. It felt delicious and wild. Then the tongue bore down over the opening and penetrated her. She wished it could be huge; she was being invaded in a trespass that made her want more, that begged for a deeper and more meticulous inquest. Her bare feet clenched in the air when he began to suck her clitoris.
This promptitude and complete lack of ceremony drove the pleasure deeper. There was no falseness here just guileless lust. It was what she wanted, wasn't it? Marzen the faceless phantom, the night called her selfish fantasy enfleshed.
Oh, no, she thought. She was ready to go off already. Something began to crest, something huge in her that demanded exit. Her breasts ached, her sex and belly and inner thighs felt aflame. Just as her orgasm would break, Marzen stopped.
Her eyes slitted open. Marzen was kneeling between her legs; she could see the shadow of his erection in the moonlight. All she wanted in the world just then was for him to sink it all into her at once. Just get on top of me and fuck me, she was dying to say. Put your cock in me and fuck me right into the floor.
His big blue eyes roved from her sex to her face. "Love iss metamorphosiss," he said.
What was he talking about? She reached forward to take hold of his penis, but he slapped her hands away. When she leaned up, his big open hand landed between her breasts and shoved her back down. It was not a gentle gesture. It was nearly violent.
Yet his voice remained serene. "Love iss transposition," he whispered. "You are not yet ready to transpose."
Veronica's fascination played with her rage.
"Before you can love another person in truth, and be loved by another, you must first learn to love yourself."
She wasn't sure what he meant.
"Do it," he said. "Don't think about it, or vunder. Do it."
"Do what!" she exclaimed.
He pushed her legs further apart and looked at her sex.
Oh, my Lord, she thought. Somehow he had seen her on the balcony. He'd probably been watching from the door. Strangely, though, she felt no embarrassment. Just frustration colliding with her lust.
She brought her fingers to herself and began to masturbate. Marzen remained knelt in attendance between her legs. His erect penis pulsed almost directly above her moving hand. She glided her other hand up and down over her body. This combination of sensations felt even better than Marzen's oral ministrations.
Her sex felt burning now; it was thumping against the careful succor of her fingers. She looked up at Marzen, at his shining muscles, at his erection, thinking that seeing him would give the experience more spark. But it didn't. Transposition, she thought. I am not yet ready to transpose.
She didn't even know what that meant, yet it clearly worked within the structure of this bizarre, self-investigating liturgy. So she closed her eyes and thought about nothing. She fought to banish the image of other men from her mind. Her moisture continued to well. Instead, she thought about herself. She pictured herself touching herself, loving herself, and then she began to come.
She moaned beneath the shadow. Marzen's silence gave evidence to a poignant supervision, and this, for some reason, made it feel better. Frantically her fingers teased repeated orgasms out of her sex, her buttocks flexing. Her fluids seemed to throb out of her sex, a tapped cask of flesh and pleasure. She'd never come this hard and this many times in her life.
Soon she could go no further; the jolts left her sex so sensitive another touch would make her scream. As her fingers came away, she felt the sudden hot spurts land across her stomach and breasts. She knew what he was doing, and it even pleased her; it sated her, being dampened by the fluids of his own orgasm. The last of his ejaculation dripped warmly onto her belly.
She lay panting for a time. Her body turned to rubber. She opened her eyes and saw his penis limpening in the dark.
"Now zat we have loved ourselves, next time we can love each other, ja?"
Next time? "Just give me a minute," she pleaded. "I'll be ready again in a minute."
Her disappointment gaped. Marzen got up and left the room. Before he closed the door, he said very quietly, "Pleasant dreams."
Veronica sighed. She had no energy left to reply, or even move. Then the door clicked shut: finality.
The long lines of his semen began to cool. She ran her hands over them, thinking of body lotion, and covered herself as much as she could. It dried quickly to starchiness more finality. She wasn't wearing his semen as much as she was wearing him, and that idea consoled her. Even though Marzen was gone, she still had him all over her.
She fell asleep on the carpet, curled up as a warm ball. The scent of him mixed with her musk, and the joyous exhaustion, rocked her consciousness away.
She dreamed all night.
She was standing naked in the deepest grotto. A figure ascended a figure composed entirely of flame. The figure was caressing her. Beneath its fiery skin, eloquent shapes moved, the suggestion of flesh. Hands of fire kneaded her body. A mouth of fire kissed her lips. The fiery shaft of the figure's penis entered her sex and ejaculated endless spurts of flame.
She knew that the fire was love.
It didn't burn her. It didn't hurt.
All she felt, as the fire devoured her, was ecstasy.
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CHAPTER 10
"It's not metal," Jan Beck said the instant Jack Cordesman walked into her lab, which occupied half the basement of the county's HQ. Myriad junk filled the workup section, shelves of glassware and chemicals, rows of fuming cabinets, comparison microscopes, and squat machines.
Jan Beck looked tiny amid all this, for she was tiny herself. She looked desperately thin in her lab coat. Her hair was flat ashen brown and frizzy, and she wore huge spectacles. In her hand she tapped a fat camel's-hair brush.
"You want a Coke, sir?"
"Sure. And what's not metal?"
She opened a refrigerator and got two sodas. Jack had time to glimpse a clear-plastic evidence bag containing one human foot. Then the fridge door sucked shut. "I worked up the n/a/a-scrape,"
she said, handing him a bottle. "The weapon that opened Shanna Barrington is not composed of metal."
"An airplane knife or something? One of these polycarb jobs?"
Jan Beck shook her frizzled head. "Plastic composites would be easier to ID. It's some kind of stone, I think. Our spec-indexes don't provide reference for stone-cutting objects, so it'll take me a while to ID."
He guessed she was about forty. She'd worked for the state police for years, and had come to the county for more money and because "county gets better homicides," she'd told him once. Jack often wondered exactly what constituted a "better" homicide.
"Stone," he said after her.
"Something brittle. It shredded well against the ribs and sternum. Some of the particulate residue I could actually gander fucking bare-eyed."
Jack loved this woman's sense of terminology.
" but it's also something that takes a mean edge. Flint, maybe, or obsidian. Some of the initial incisions could've passed for scalpelwork."
A stone knife, Jack contemplated. He'd have to inform Faye Rowland as soon as possible. The instruments of the ritual could lead to the ritual itself.
"And your killer's blood is B neg," Jan Beck said.
This was a bombshell. "How the hell...? Her fingernails were clean. And you said this semen didn't type."
"They were, and it didn't. Salined random bloodstains and malachited them. Shanna Barrington's type was A pos. One of the malachite samples gave a different hue, so I factored it. All that shit the killer left on the walls, the triangle and the symbols, was done in the victim's blood. All except one."
"Aorista?" Jack speculated.
"Good guess, sir. That word was written in B neg. What's it mean, by the way?"
"A process that doesn't end," Jack muttered
"That's a kick from your end." Jan Beck's cynical grin looked vulpine. It
was her way of saying, You've got a real winner here, sir. A killer whose buzzword indicated an unending process was the same as saying I will not stop. But Jack was thinking about the blood. The fucker cut himself, he thought. Why?
"We've got a hair problem too," Jan Beck went on. She led Jack to a labtop piled high with red hardcover field texts. Morphological Differentiation of Human Hair, one title read. And another: Microchemical Cortex Analysis. Several large CRP slide frames hung from a glowing lightboard.
Jack saw that they contained long kinky hairs.
