"Open four-oh-eight… but let me knock first." He thrust the package at her, his voice rising, an edge of madness to it. "If she answers, tell her you've got a package. Let her see it. If you try to warn her, if you do anything to spook her, bitch cunt, I'll blow your motherfuckin' brains out…"

The thought that the maid might betray him gripped Shadow Love's stomach, and the black spot popped into his line of vision, obscuring her face. He forced it down, down, concentrating: Not this one; not yet.

The maid was terrified. She clutched at the package, holding it to her chest.

"Here," she squeaked.

The black spot was still there, smaller, floating like a mote in God's eye, but he could read the number on the door: 408. Shadow reached out and knocked, quietly. No answer. The killing rush was coming now, like cocaine, even better… He knocked again. No answer.

"Open it," he said. He pressed the gun against the woman's forehead. "If there's a noise, I'll fuckin' kill you, bitch. I'll blow your fuckin' brains all over the hall."

The woman slipped the key into the lock. There was a tiny metallic click and she flinched, and Shadow Love tapped her with the barrel. "No more," he whispered. "Open it."

She turned the key. There was another click and the door eased open.

Lily got out of the bathtub, steam rolling off her body; she felt languid and soft from the bath oils. She heard the knock and stopped toweling. It wasn't a maid's knock. It was too soft, too… furtive. She frowned, took a step toward the bathroom door, looked through the bedroom to the outer sitting room; it was dark. A lamp was on in the bedroom, as were the lights in the bathroom. There was another knock, a pause, then a click. Somebody coming in.

Lily looked around for her purse, with the gun in the concealed holster: outer room. Shit. She reached back, hit the bathroom light switch and started for the lamp.

Shadow Love pushed the maid forward. The door opened and the woman went through. There was little light, apparently coming from a bathroom… No. There's another room. Fuckin' rich bitch has a suite… The light suddenly went out, and they were in darkness, Shadow Love and the maid silhouetted against the light from the hallway.

Lily killed the lamp as the door opened. She felt a tiny surge of relief when she saw the small woman and the familiar colors on the package. She reached again for the wall switch, then saw the man behind the woman and what looked like a gun.

"Freeze, motherfucker," she screamed at the dark figures, dropping automatically into her Weaver stance, her hands empty. But the movement, in the dark, might be convincing…

The scream startled him. Shadow Love sensed the cop woman dropping into a shooter's stance, and swept the maid's feet from under her and went down on top of her. He could feel the woman moving sideways in the minimal light in the room, and he pivoted and kicked the outer door shut. The dark was complete.

"Got a woman, here, a maid," Shadow Love called. He pointed the gun toward where he thought the other door was, although he was disoriented and felt he might be off. But if she fired at him, he'd get her in the muzzle blast. "Come out and talk; I just want to talk about the Indians, about the Crows. I've worked with the police."

Bullshit. Shadow Love. Must be.

"Bullshit. You move, motherfucker, and I'll spread you around like spaghetti sauce."

Lily, nude, crawled across the bedroom floor in the dark, her hands sweeping from side to side, looking for a weapon. Anything. Nothing. Nothing. Back toward the bathroom, creeping in silence, waiting for the killing light… Into the bathroom. Groping. Up the walls. A towel rack. She tugged on it. It held. She put her full weight on it, bouncing frantically, and suddenly, explosively, it came free. She went flat again, frozen, waiting for the light, but nothing came. She went back to the floor and, with the towel bar in her hand, crawled out the bathroom door toward the front room.

There was a sudden, terrific clatter. Shadow Love started, put his face next to the maid's and whispered, "Move, bitch, and I'll slit your fuckin' throat." He could feel the woman trembling in her thin maid's uniform. "And I got the gun; if you go for the door, I'll shoot you."

He left her then, and crawled toward the spot where he thought the inner door was, feeling his way across the carpet in the dark.

What was the noise? What was she doing? Why hadn 't she-risked a light? She wouldn 't be any worse off…

The problem was, the first one to turn on a light would be most exposed…

"I'm not here to hurt anybody," he called.

His voice was a shock: he was so close. Two feet away, three. And now she could smell him: his breath. He'd been eating something spicy, sausage maybe, and his warm breath trick- led toward her over the carpet. Could he smell the bath oils on her? She thought she might be a yard from the door, and he was coming through. She rolled to one side, a slow, inching, agonizing movement, holding the towel bar between her breasts.

Where was she? Why wasn 't she answering? She could be standing over him, pointing a.45 at his skull, tightening on the trigger. The injustice of his death gripped him, and for a full beat, two beats, he waited for the crashing blow that would kill him. There was nothing. He reached ahead in the dark, feeling the baseboard on the wall ahead, sliding his hand to the right, finding the corner and the doorway. The bathroom… that noise she made, that sounded like it came out of a bathroom, the hollow-sharp sound you get from tile walls… What was she doing in there? Moving a few inches at a time, he crossed through the doorway, low-crawling toward the bathroom. Nothing from her. Nothing. Maybe she's not armed…

"Don't got no gun, bitch. That's it. Well, I'm putting my gun away, you know? You know why? 'Cause I'm getting my knife out. Cut open Larry Hart with it, you know? You know what I did then? After I cut him? You know?"

Where is she? Where is the bitch? He strained into the darkness. Got to scare her, got to make her move.

"I sucked the blood, that's what I did," Shadow Love called. "All hot. Better'n deer's blood. Sweeter… Bet yours'll be sweeter yet…"

Where the fuck is she?

There was a change in the darkness next to her, a movement through it. Shadow Love, on the floor next to her, not more than two feet away, low-crawling toward the bathroom. She couldn't see him, but she could sense him there, moving in the dark. Moving as slowly as he was, she pulled her feet under her and quietly stood up, her hand sliding up the woodwork along the edge of the door. She could no longer sense him-standing, she was quite literally too far away- but she figured he had to be through the door.

"You don't have a gun, do you, bitch?" Shadow Love screamed. The cry was as hard and sharp as a sliver of glass and Lily gasped involuntarily. He heard the gasp and froze. She was close by. He could feel it. Very close. Where? He swung an arm out to the right, then his gun hand to the left. And he touched her, raked the back of her calf with his gun hand as she went through the door, into the outer room, and he pivoted and fired the pistol once through the door…

No, she thought. He must have heard…

She took a fast step through the door, high, over him, in case his legs were still in the doorway, and was pushing off with her back leg when his hand struck her calf. Shit. She dodged sideways; there was a flash and a deafening crack, and she twisted sideways toward the television set, crawling…

"Noooo…" The scream clutched at Lily as she hit a body in the dark. Soft… woman… She had just registered the thought as the other woman, sobbing frantically, clubbed at her and she went down, twisting, back on her hands and knees, crawling toward the television, reaching out, sweeping the carpet for the purse…