“You’re ready now."

"You’re right,” she said.

LATER, IN the Prelude, cutting through the night. “Hunting is better than sex,” Loren said. “Don’t you think?”

“They’re almost the same,” Fairy said. “I can’t explain it.” Loren reached across in the dark, stroked the side of her face. His hands had gone cold again, an hour out of the shower, a half hour out of the bed. “I know what you mean. Exactly what you mean.”

They flashed over the LaFayette Bridge into St. Paul, the city brilliant on the bluff above the Mississippi; they took the wraparound exit onto I- 94 and headed west toward Minneapolis. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. She was involved.”

THE APARTMENT was dark. They sat in the street, waiting, their breath steaming the windows. They had been here four times; and three of those times, Patricia Shockley came back early, while Price stayed out late. Price was the lover and the dancer and the socializer. Shockley was the intellectual, the loner, who always left early and ostentatiously.

Fairy rubbed a circle in a steamed spot, watching. “Freak me out if she didn’t come.” Loren reached out and touched the radio dial, a golden- oldie station, and Roger Waters jumped out, Pink Floyd, wailing “One of My Turns.”

And after a while, six or eight or ten more songs, there she was, alone, wobbling along, a little drunk.

“Wait until she’s up; she’s going to have to buzz you in anyway, and we can see if anybody’s coming along behind. If Price is coming,” Loren said.

“My bigger worry is that Price is up there entertaining,” Fairy said, looking up at the dark windows.

Shockley turned into her house, fumbled out a key, pushed through; Loren watching her with lycanthropic eyes. “Ready?”

Fairy bobbed her head. “Talk is done with. Talking time is over.”

Loren said, “Go.”

SHE PUSHED the button, and Shockley came back on the intercom: “Who is it?”

“Patricia, this is… this is…” She had to grope for the name; so far down that she could barely recall it. “This is Alyssa Austin. I need to talk to you. I’ve just been talking to Lucas Davenport, and he told me some things… We need to talk.”

“Mrs. Austin… let me buzz you in.” She climbed the stairs, turning the knife in her hand. The talk was done. Strike and get out. Loren touched her on the back, just next to her spine, urging her on.

She knocked on Shockley’s door, heard soft footsteps inside, as though Shockley had taken off her shoes. The door latch turned, and the door opened four inches, a heavy chain across the gap. Shockley peered out, smiled.

“Mrs. Austin. Alyssa,” she said. “Let me get the chain.”SHE WAS still Fairy, and paid no attention to the words coming out of Shockley’s mouth. She simply smiled and when the door opened, walked through, dropped the knife from her jacket sleeve into her hand. The knife had a wooden handle, dry and warm. Shockley was talking, but she wasn’t listening, wasn’t hearing the words, nodding and smiling as Shockley closed the door and fixed the chain, then turned and Fairy stepped toward her and the knife drove up and into Shockley’s belly.

And Shockley flinched away at the last second, her eyes widening, and the point of the knife hit something hard and went sideways instead of in. Shockley said a syllable of some kind, a gahh or an unhh, but Fairy couldn’t hear it; she sensed it but didn’t hear it, and then Shockley swung something, a purse? A small black hand- sized purse? Fairy leaned outside the arc of the swing and went back in with the knife, but Shockley was a big woman with good reflexes and she swung again with one of her ham- hands and hit Fairy on the forehead, staggering her.

Fairy went in again, Shockley tripping backward and going down on her butt and screaming, once, loud, and Fairy tried to grab her hair and Shockley hit at her legs and Fairy went down as Shockley tried to roll over and get up, and the knife finally went in and went in and went in, Fairy riding her back and Shockley making an audible sound now, an ung- ung- ung, and then Fairy stood up and looked down and Shockley opened her mouth and said, “But I loved her. I loved Francie.”

The words threw Fairy out of herself, and Alyssa looked down at the dying woman and the first words through her mind were, Oh, my God, she’s hurt. She looked down at herself: she was wearing a black jacket over a blue wool jersey and black pants, and the jersey was dappled in black that when she brushed at it, came off in her hand as crimson-blood, in fact.

Then Fairy was back, like a blink, and she knelt and said, “You didn’t love her, I loved her,” and she drove the knife in under Shockley’s chin, and there was more blood and Shockley’s blue eyes rolled up and she was gone.

Fairy stood up and looked around and called, “Loren?” But Loren was gone, and Fairy felt herself fading, dropped the knife, picked it up, staggered back away from the dead woman, realized that the blood on her hands was showing, but she didn’t care; she went to the door, took a handkerchief from her jacket pocket and pulled the chain and opened the door and closed it behind her and ran down the steps and out.

Across the street to the car, got in the car: “Loren? Loren, where are you?” And she continued to fade, and this time she went: Alyssa found herself sitting behind the wheel of a strange car, and she shook her head, tried to understand it, fumbled in her pocket for a key, felt the dampness of the fresh blood, could smell it, got the key in the ignition and set off.

Then Fairy surged back, and with it the killing heat, and she hammered the little car down the street and out to I- 94, blood on her hands and face, racing down the highway, looking for sanctuary.

14

THE USUAL SCRUM of official cars were parked outside Shockley’s house, along with two remote TV crews. Lucas parked off a fire hydrant on a side street, tossed his ID card on the dash, and walked back in the dark, zipping his leather jacket against the cold night air. His leg hurt. Not the fire, anymore, but an ache, as if one of his thigh muscles were clenching into a fist. He ignored it.

He knew the uniform working the sidewalk, who said, “Hey, man,” and Lucas said, “Hey, Jerry.” The flash from a strobe reached out across the street at them, and Lucas blinked it away and said, “Looks like we got media.”

“Yeah. They’re asking about the other ones, too. Ford and Carter, like the presidents.”

“Shit.” There was a high- pitched whistle from across the street, the kind a movie New Yorker might use to hail a movie Yellow Cab. Lucas looked that way, and saw the Star Tribune crime reporter, Ruffe Ignace, drifting down the opposite sidewalk, looking at him, his cell phone to his ear.

Lucas turned away and asked the cop, “Is Harry Anson up there?"

"Yup. And the usual bunch.” On the way up the stairs, his cell phone rang and he took it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID: Weather. She said, “Ruffe called here one minute ago, and said he saw you going into this woman’s house, and he wants to know if the three stabbings are related to Frances Austin.”

“Ah, poop. What’d you tell him?"

"I told him I was going to bed and not to call back,” Weather said. “But he’s figured it out."

"Yes, he has. And good luck and good night.”

ANSON WAS leaning on a second- floor banister, overlooking the stairwell, talking to an ME’s investigator. He saw Lucas coming and said, “Help!”

“What the fuck happened?"

"Patricia Shockley, stabbed eight or ten times, bled out in place

Probably two hours ago. Found by her roommate… Leigh…” He flipped a page in his notebook.