Door after door, whether open or closed, failed to entice me, until I stopped finally at 1203, which stood ajar.

THIRTY-ONE

MOST OF THE FURNITURE HAD BEEN REMOVED FROM Room 1203. Only a pair of nightstands, a round wood table, and four captain's chairs remained.

Some cleaning had occurred. Although the space was far from immaculate, it looked more accommodating than any place I'd seen previously in the ruined hotel.

The pending storm had dimmed the day, but fat candles in red and amber glass containers provided light. Six were arranged precisely on the floor in each corner of the room. Six more stood on the table.

The pulse and flicker of candlelight might have been cheerful in other circumstances. Here it seemed cheerless. Menacing. Occult.

Scented, the candles produced a fragrance that masked the bitter malodor of long-settled smoke. The air smelled sweet rather than flowery. I had never breathed anything quite like it before.

White sheets had been tucked and pinned to the upholstery of the captain's chairs, to provide clean seating.

The nightstands flanked the big view window. On each stood a large black vase, and in each vase were two or three dozen red roses that either had no scent or could not compete with the candles.

She enjoyed drama and glamour, and she carried her creature comforts with her even into the wilds. Like a European princess visiting Africa in the century of colonialism, having a picnic on a Persian carpet unrolled on the veldt.

Gazing out the window, her back to me as I entered the room, stood a woman in tight black toreador pants and a black blouse. Five feet five. Thick, glossy blond hair so pale it looked almost white, cut short but not in a manly style.

I said, "I'm almost three hours ahead of sundown."

She neither twitched with surprise nor turned to me. Continuing to stare at the gathering storm, she said, "So you're not a complete disappointment after all."

In person, her voice was no less bewitching, no less erotic than it had been on the phone.

"Odd Thomas, do you know who was the greatest conjurer in history, who summoned spirits and used them better than anyone ever?"

I took a guess: "You?"

"Moses," she said. "He knew the secret names of God, with which he could conquer Pharaoh and divide the sea."

"Moses the conjurer. That must have been a freaky Sunday school you went to."

"Red candles in red glasses," she said.

"You camp out in style," I acknowledged.

"What do they achieve-red candles in red glasses?"

I said, "Light?"

"Victory," she corrected. "Yellow candles in yellow glasses- what do they achieve?"

"It's got to be the right answer this time. Light?"

"Money."

By keeping her back to me, she meant to draw me to the window by the power of her mystery and will.

Determined not to play her game, I said, "Victory and money. Well, there's my problem. I always burn white candles."

She said, "White candles in clear glasses achieve peace. I never use them."

Although I had no intention of bending to her will and joining her at the window, I did move toward the table, which stood between us. In addition to the candles, several objects lay there, one of which appeared to be a remote control.

“Always, I sleep with salt between my mattress and my sheet," she said, "and over my bed hangs a spray of five-finger grass."

"I don't sleep much these days," I said, "but then I've heard that's true of everyone when they get old."

Finally she turned from the window to look at me.

Stunning. In myth, the succubus is a demon in exquisite female form, and has sex with men to steal their souls. Datura had the face and body ideal for such a demon's purpose.

Her posture and attitude were those of a woman confident that her looks transfixed.

I could admire her as I might admire a perfectly proportioned bronze statue of any subject-woman or wolf, or whidding horse-but a bronze lacking the ineffable quality that fires passions in the heart. In sculpture, that quality is the difference between craft and art. In a woman, it is the difference between mere erotic power and beauty that enchants a man, that humbles him.

Beauty that steals the heart is often imperfect, suggests grace and kindness, and inspires tenderness more than it incites lust.

Her blue stare, by its directness and intensity, was meant to promise ecstasy and utter satiation, but it was too sharp to excite, less like a metaphoric arrow through the heart than like a whittling knife testing the hardness of the material to be carved.

"The candles smell nice," I said, to prove that I was neither dry-mouthed nor stiffened into speechlessness.

"They're Cleo-May."

"Who's she?"

“Are you really so ignorant of these things, Odd Thomas, or are you so much more than the simple soul you appear to be?"

"Ignorant," I assured her. "Not just of five-finger grass and Cleo-May. I'm ignorant of lots of things, entire broad areas of human knowledge. I'm not proud of it, but it's true."

She was holding a glass of red wine. As she raised it to her full lips and took a slow sip, savored the taste, and swallowed, she stared at me across the table.

"The candles are scented with Cleo-May," she said. "The scent of Cleo-May compels men to love and obey she who lights the candles." She indicated a bottle of wine and another glass on the table. "Will you join me in a drink?"

"That's hospitable of you. But I better keep a clear head."

If the Mona Lisa's smile had been the same as Datura's, no one would ever have heard of that painting. "Yes, I think you better."

"Is that the remote control to trigger the explosives?"

Only her frozen smile revealed her surprise. "Did you and Danny have a nice reunion?"

"It's got two buttons. The remote."

"The black one detonates. The white one disarms the bomb."

The device lay closer to her than to me. If I rushed to the table, she would seize the remote first.

I'm not the kind of guy who punches women. I might have made an exception in her case.

I was restrained by the suspicion that she would slide a knife in my guts even as I cocked my fist to throw the punch.

Also, I feared that, in a flush of perversity, she would press the black button.

"Did Danny tell you much about me?" she asked.

Deciding to play to her vanity, I said, "How does a woman who has so much going for her wind up selling phone sex?"

"I made some porn films," she said. "Good money. But they use up women fast in that racket. So I met this guy who owned an on-line porn store and a phone-sex operation that're like faucets you open and cash pours out. I married him. He died. I own the business now."

"You married him, he died, you're rich."

"Things happen for me. They always have."

"You own the business, but you still take calls?"

This time her smile seemed more genuine. "They're such pathetic little boys. It's fun, turning them inside out with words. They don't even realize how completely they're being humiliated- and they pay you to make fools of them."

Behind her, still without a toothy edge, storm light fluttered like veils of radiance cast off by luminous wings. But the subsequent thunder cracked hard and rumbled rough, the voice not of angels but of a beast.

"Someone must have killed a blacksnake," she said, "and hung it in a tree."

Considering her frequent inscrutable statements, I thought that I had been holding my own pretty well in our conversation, but this defeated me. "Blacksnake? Tree?"

She indicated the darkening sky. "Isn't the hanging of a dead blacksnake certain to bring the rain?"

"Could be, I guess. I don't know. It's news to me."