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"No!" I shouted.
"All right."The transformation came to a halt. The dust settled. I felt myheart knock against my chest like it wanted to get out.
"I'll tell you what I'm going to do," he said. "I'll let you handlethings with Dora, since you seem obsessed with it. And I won't beable to distract you from it. And then when you've finished with allthis, this girl and her dreams and such, we can talk together, youand I.""About what?""Your soul, what else?""I'm ready to go to Hell," I said, lying through my teeth. "But Idon't believe you're what you claim to be. You're something,something like me for which there aren't scientific explanations, butbehind it all, there's a cheap little core of facts that will eventually laybare everything, even the texture of each black feather of yourwings."He frowned slightly, but he wasn't angry.
"We won't continue at this pace," he said. "I assure you. But fornow, I'll let you think about Dora. Dora's on her way home. Her carhas just pulled into the courtyard. I'm going, with regular footsteps,the way I came. And I give you one piece of advice, for both of us.""Which is what?" I demanded.
He turned his back on me and started down the stairway, as quickand spry as he had come up. He didn't turn around till he reached thelanding. I had already caught Dora's scent.
"What advice?" I demanded.
"That you leave Dora alone completely. Turn her affairs over toworldly lawyers. Get away from this place. We have more importantthings to discuss. This is all so distracting."Then he was gone with a clatter down the lower stairs, andpresumably out a side door. I heard it open and close.
And almost immediately following, I heard Dora come throughthe main rear entrance into the center of the building, the way I hadentered, and the way he had entered, and she began her progressdown the hall.
She sang to herself as she came, or hummed, I should say. Thesweet aroma of womb blood came from her. Her menses. Madden-ingly, it amplified the succulent scent of the whole child movingtowards me.
I slipped back into the shadows of the vestibule. She wouldn't seeme or have any knowledge of me as she went by and on up the nextstairway to her third-floor room.
She was skipping steps when she reached the second floor. Shehad a backpack slung over her shoulders and wore a pretty, loose old-fashioned dress of flowered cotton with long, white lace-trimmedsleeves.
She swung round to go up when she suddenly stopped. She turnedin my direction. I froze. She could not possibly see me in this light.
Then she came towards me. She reached out. I saw her whitefingers touch something on the wall; it was a light switch. A simpleplastic light switch, and suddenly a flood came from the bulb above.
Picture this: the blond male intruder, eyes hidden by the violetsunglasses, now nice and clean, with no more of her father's blood,black wool coat and pants.
I threw up my hands as if to say "I won't hurt you!" I wasspeechless.
I disappeared.
That is, I moved past her so swiftly she couldn't see it; I brushedher about like the air would brush her. That's all. I made the twoflights to an attic, and went through an open door in the dark spacesabove the chapel, where only a few windows in the mansard let in atiny light from the street. One of the windows was broken out. Aquick way to make an exit. But I stopped. I sat down very still in thecorner. I shrank up into the corner. I drew up my knees, pushed myglasses up on my nose, and looked across the width of the attictowards the door through which I'd come.
I heard no screams. I heard nothing. She had not gone intohysterics; she was not running madly through the building. She hadsounded no alarms. Fearless, quiet, having seen a male intruder. Imean, next to a vampire, what in the world is as dangerous to a lonewoman as a young human male?
I realized my teeth were chattering. I put my right hand into a fistand pushed it into my left palm. Devil, man, who the hell are you,waiting for me, telling me not to talk to her, what tricks, don't talk toher, I was never going to talk to her, Roger, what the hell am I to donow? I never meant for her to see me like this!
I should never, never have come without David. I needed theanchor of a witness. And the Ordinary Man, would he have dared tocome up if David had been here? I loathed him! I was in a whirlpool.
I wasn't going to survive.
Which meant what? What was going to kill me?
Suddenly I realized that she was coming up the stairs. This timeshe walked slowly, and very quietly. A mortal couldn't have heardher. She had her electric torch with her. I hadn't noticed it before.
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