Excitement. A hundred arcane words and shapes hemmed me in, hammering on dark stone.

"Deeper in the cellar, the two dozen men and women—all children of the streets, the unnoticeables, the lost—knelt on a platform, bound within the machine which poised silver blades to their necks, holding them in the spell, directed toward a single instant and purpose." Cold, the edges kissed the back of my neck and the hair rose.

"They would know no pain nor the horror of watching their fellows die. I did not require torment, only death. Some had whimpered and moaned in distress as we entered, but they fell into enthralled silence when Edward passed them. Such has always been his power. We walked into the center of the room, to a place in the floor which was the focus of the machine and of the spell's power. All the symbols in the room led to it and from it and already it throbbed with the potential of magic."

I felt the humming of it in my bones, the sudden calm of the men and women smothering Carlos's anticipation and creeping unease.

"He stopped beside a rope which hung from the ceiling, well away from the machine, leaving me to stand at the focus.

"A few of the glyphs disturbed me—black things, like mourners at a wedding feast—but I had no time to protest.

" 'Begin! he commanded.

"I spoke and the threads of the spell wove together, ghostly, in need of power. I opened my arms to the machine and Edward pulled the rope."

Power thrummed and shook, then roared, and I felt the quick shock of the blades.

"Their heads tumbled and the hot, liquid force of their lives gouted forth, drenching me. My skin drank them, my body and mind absorbing them in life and death conjoined in that shocked instant. Their unvoiced gasp pushed into me and out my own mouth, staggering me, shivering through my flesh. The power of them flooded me and I reached into the spell, giving it their life through me."

I trembled with his memory, quivered with the orgasmic flow of life and death through a body that was and wasn't mine—then shocked into pain and despair.

"The ecstasy of their swift, clean deaths shattered as Edward drove a blade into my back. He spoke a word and flung the black blood which welled from my wound into the focus. The final, dark symbol flared and I fell to my knees.

"Edward stood above me and plunged his knive into my chest."

"I cried out and the newly murdered cried within me. He twisted the knife, ripping into my heart which beat with them." Agony. No way to scream. He continued.

"I screamed and died for them. Died each death at once, more horrible than they had died, each screaming, all screaming. Their blood, now my own, poured out again. And the power of their souls flashed like white fire, flooded into the cellar, blazed into the symbols, and the cellar erupted in the phosphor white burn of the spell, blinding me as it spent." Silence.

"I felt something break within my chest. Darkness shrouded me, but I heard him, moving, laughing. He knelt beside me and touched my head.

"'You have done very well, he said. Even blinded, I could see the fleeting nimbus of his stolen power pulsing around him.

"I reached for him, and agony tore through my chest. I fell to the floor like an injured babe, unable to move or speak.

" 'I shall always be in your heart. He laughed again and left me." The touch of his telling began receding, draining me as he finished.

"I was awakened by the earthquake and the pealing of La Giralda's bells as the tower shook. The sun had risen, shining through rents in walls and ceiling. I crawled to a niche in the basement to hide from the overwhelming fury our spell, powered by their deaths and my blood, had poured into the earth. It was far more, far worse, than I had meant. It was a grandiose and pointless rage of destruction fit to Edward's own spite. Lisbon collapsed beneath the earthquakes, flood, and fire that swept it. Sixty thousand of your kind and mine ceased. And all for naught. Those of our kind who remained in Lisbon left the city and Edward was king of nothing.

"He ripped the sweetness of their souls from me and used it for himself, bled me, then left me bound to die. The tip of his knife is still lodged in my heart. When I find a way to remove it, he will die those two dozen deaths for me. One by one."

He stopped speaking and I lurched up. I stumbled forward. He didn't touch me, but walked me to the shop door and to the edge of the street. He rolled his shoulders and settled back into his modern guise as he stood beside me.

"Feelin OK?" he inquired.

I choked on an answer, gulping in normality and trying not to throw up.

"You're resting your hand on your belly and I can tell you're not pregnant. Weak stomach?"

I stammered against the bile in my throat. "I'm not a horror-movie fan and I've got too good an imagination."

"You asked. You'll be all right?"

"Just peachy," I gritted.

"Good. You need anything, call me. I want to watch him writhing in agony, the same way he left me."

I stepped away and walked to the corner, crossing the street against the light. I wanted to rush, to run, but didn't dare until I could no longer see Carlos.

I hurried to the Rover and crawled in, locking the door behind me. My belly clenched with cramps and nausea, my limbs shook and my headache shrieked.

Halfway across the bridge to home, the cramps began to ease, but the rest stayed with me.

Once in bed, I slept hard, but not restfully: first too deeply, then tumbled by nightmares. I got up once to vomit, then collapsed into bed again until eleven.

I felt only a little better when I finally got up. I showered for a time under near-scalding water. Chaos looked into the tub, but chose not to join me. When I got out of the shower, she licked my feet ankles dry while dancing around me. The water is always sweeter off of someone else's feet, and I laughed at her antics, even though it made my abs and head hurt.

I finished dressing, feeling bruised, putting on a skirt when the restrictive touch of jeans reminded me of ropes and sweat-tight sheets. Chaos and I contested for my breakfast until I declared victory by putting her back into her cage before I left for my office.

Lenore Fabrette called at 3:12. She was waiting to drive onto a ferry in Bremerton and needed directions. I gave them and said I'd look forward to seeing her soon. She tapped on my door a few minutes before five.

She was a too-thin woman with straw hair, her shoulders hunched against routine cruelty.

I stood up and extended my hand. "Ms. Fabrette? I'm Harper Blaine. Please sit down."

She sagged into the client chair. "Can we just get this over with? I've been arguing with the navy all day and I just want to get home."

"Sure. Can I ask you a question?"

"Oh, sure. I guess."

"Do you remember anything unusual about the organ?"

She pinched her lower lip with nicotine-stained fingers. "Aside from how ugly it was? Not much but that it was god-awful and it used to give my boy nightmares."

"Nightmares? How old is your son?"

"He's twelve now. He was six when we moved in. And I just hope that museum isn't having any trouble with it. 'Cause I don't want it back." Fabrette picked at her lip. "So, do you want to see these papers or what?" she asked, laying her hand on her purse in her lap.

"Sure."

She pulled out an envelope and slapped it onto the desk.

"There. Take a look, then tell me what you think."

I pulled two sheets of photocopy from the envelope. One was an insurance appraisal, which put a value of twenty-five hundred dollars on the organ. The other sheet was the receipt for the donation of an organ with a description that seemed to match the one I had from Sergeyev.

"Damn," I snickered, staring at the letterhead on the donation receipt.