Only now did she think of Niolopua. Oh Lord, he'd hurt Niolopua. She was suddenly sure of it. That was why he had that crazed look in his eye; he'd already tasted the pleasure of bloodshed. If her face betrayed this realization, he didn't see it. His gaze was still directed to the top of the stairs.

"I want you to stay here," he told her.

"Why don't we just leave," she suggested. "The two of us."

"In a minute."

"If this is such a bad place-"

"I told you: in a minute. Just let me go upstairs first."

"Don't, Mitch."

His eyes flickered in her direction. "Don't what?' he said. She held her breath, aware that his hand was tightening around the knife. "Don't hurt him? Is that what you were going to say?" He moved toward her. She flinched. "You don't want me to hurt lover-boy, is that it?"

"Mitch. I was there when his mother came to the mansion. I saw what she was capable of doing."

"I'm not frightened of any fucking Barbarossa." He cocked his head. "You see, that's the problem-"

As he spoke he jabbed the knife in Rachel's direction, pricking the air between them to make his point.

"-nobody's ever stood up to these people." He was suddenly all reason. "We just gave up our fucking women to that nigger up there, like he owned them. Well he doesn't own my wife. You understand me, baby? I'm not going to let him take you away from me."

His empty hand reached out toward her, and he stroked her face.

"Poor baby," he said. "I'm not blaming you. He fucked with your head. You didn't have any choice. But it's going to be okay now. I'm going to deal with it. That's what husbands are supposed to do. They're supposed to protect their wives. I haven't been very good at that. I haven't been a very good husband. I know that now, and I'm sorry. Honey, I'm sorry."

He leaned toward her, and like a nervous schoolboy gave her a peck of a kiss.

"It's going to be okay," he said again. "I'm going to do what I have to do, and then we're going to walk out of here. And we're going to start over." His fingers continued to graze her cheek. "Because honey, I love you. I always have and I always will. And I can't bear to be separated from you." His voice was small; almost pitiful. "I can't bear it, baby. It makes me crazy, not to have you. You understand me?"

She nodded. Somewhere at the back of her mind, behind the fear she felt-for Galilee, for herself-there was a little place in her where she'd kept enshrined the last remnants of what she'd once felt for her husband. Perhaps it hadn't been love; but it had been a beautiful dream, nonetheless. And hearing him speak now, even in this crazed state, she remembered it fondly. How he'd made her feel, in the first months of their knowing one another; his sweetness, his gentility. Gone now, of course, every scrap. There was only the curdled remains of the man he'd been.

Oh Lord, it made her sad. And it seemed he saw the sadness in her, because when he spoke again, all the rage had gone from his voice. And with it, the certainty.

"I didn't want it to be this way," he said. "I swear I didn't."

"I know."

"I don't know… how I got here…"

"It doesn't need to be this way," she said, softly, softly. "You don't have to hurt anybody to prove you love me."

"I do… love you."

"Then put the knife down, Mitch." His hand, which had continued to graze her cheek, stopped in midstroke. "Please, Mitch," she said. "Put it down."

He drew his hand away from her face, and his expression, which had mellowed as she spoke to him, grew severe.

"Oh no…" he murmured, "I know what you're doing…"

"Mitch-"

"You think you can sweet-talk me out of going up there." He shook his head. "No, baby. It's not happening. Sorry."

So saying, he stepped back from her and turned toward the stairs. There was a moment of almost hallucinatory precision, when Rachel seemed to see everything in play before her: the man with the knife-her husband, her sometime prince-moving away from her, stinking of sweat and hatred; her lover, lying in the bed above, lost in dreams; and in between, on the darkened stairs, on the landing, those spectral presences, whatever they were, which she could not name.

Mitch had reached the bottom of the stairs, and now, without another word to her, he began to ascend. He left her no choice. She went up after him, and before he could stop her slipped past him to block his passage. The air was busy up here. She could feel its agitation against her face. If Mitch was aware of anything out of the ordinary, his determination to get to Galilee blinded him to the fact. His face was fixed; like a mask, beaten to the form of his features; pallid and implacable. She didn't waste her breath on persuasion; he was beyond listening to anything she said. She simply stood in his way. If he wanted to harm Galilee he'd have to get past her to do so. He looked at her; his eyes the only living things in that dead face.

"Out of my way," he said.

She reached out to the left and right of her and caught hold of the banisters. She was horribly aware of how vulnerable she was, doing this; how her belly and her breasts were open to him, if he wanted to harm her. But she had no other choice, and she had to believe that despite the madness that had seized him he wouldn't harm her.

He stopped, one stair below her, and for a moment she dared hope she could still make him see reason. But then his hand was up at her face, at her hair, and with one jerk he pulled her back down the stairs. She lost her grip on the banisters and fell forward, reaching out to secure another hold, but failing, toppling. He held onto her hair, however, and her head jerked backward. She reached up to catch hold of his arm, a cry of pain escaping her. The world pivoted; she didn't know up from down. He pulled on her again, drawing her dose to him, then throwing her backward against the banister. This time she secured a hold, and stopped herself from falling any further, but before she could draw breath he struck her hard across the face, an open-palmed blow, but brutal for all that. Her legs gave way beneath her; she slipped sideways. He caught her a second blow, with sickening force, and then a third, which sent her into free fall down the stairs. She felt every thud and crack as her limbs, her shoulder, her head, connected with stairs and banister. Then she hit the floor at the bottom of the flight, striking it so hard that she momentarily lost consciousness. In the buzzing blackness in her head she struggled to put her thoughts in order, but the task was beyond her. It was all she could do to instruct her eyes to open. When she did she found herself looking at the stairs, from a sideways position. Mitch was staring down at her, grotesquely foreshortened, his head vestigial. He studied her for several seconds, just to be certain that he'd incapacitated her. Then, sure that she could not come between him and his intentions again, he turned his back on her and continued to ascend the stairs.

All she could do was watch; her body refused to move an inch. She could only lie there and watch while Mitch went to murder Galilee in his bed. She couldn't even call to him; her throat refused to work, her tongue refused to work. Even if she'd been able to make a sound, Galilee wouldn't have heard her. He was in his own private world; healing himself in the deepest of slumbers. She would not be able to rouse him.

Mitch was three or four steps from the top of the flight; in a few more seconds he would be out of sight. Oh God, she wanted to weep, in rage, in frustration. After all the grand endeavors of the recent past, would it all come down to this? Her lying at the bottom of a flight of stairs, unable to move, and he at the top, just as powerless, while a man with a little knife and a little soul cut the bond between them?