It would be naive to speak lovingly of the Devil's Country without allowing that it had its share of horrors.

There were species in the forests, and the ravines and the black silent pools between the rocks, that had been invented by some benighted mind. There were terrible arenas, where monsters were goaded to perform acts of horrible violation upon women, and sometimes upon men and even children. But having viewed several of these spectacles herself, she could not deny that they were perversely arousing. Some had the rigor of ceremonies, others seemed to be simple arenas of cruelty, where anything might be viewed if it was paid for.

The point was that she'd seen so little, and that there was so much for her to see; a private wonderland where she and Todd could go adventuring whenever they tired of the Canyon. They could explore it to its very limits; and when they were weary and needed to sleep, they could simply step through the door and lock it, and retire to bed like any loving pair, and sleep peacefully in one another's arms.

But first she had to find him; and to find him she needed a chauffeur. Only one man fitted that bill: Jerry Brahms. They had known one another for so many years. That was why she'd sent out the dream-summons to him. He was loyal; he would come without fail. It was only a matter of time before he turned up at the house, ready to do her bidding. He was probably on his way up, even now.

It didn't take her long to dress. She had wardrobes full of gowns designed by some of the greatest names in Hollywood history, but they were all too showy for this modest adventure. So she chose conservatively: an immaculately-tailored black dress. She kept her hair simple and her makeup discreet.

She was all dressed and ready to go, but there was still no sign of Jerry. Thinking that perhaps he'd mistakenly assume she would wait for him in the big house, she decided to wander down through the twilight to look for him. If he hadn't arrived then she'd wait for him at the front gate, so that there'd be no chance of their missing one another.

It was a walk she'd taken countless times, of course; though the pathway rose and dipped, she could have done it in safety blind-folded.

The night wasn't as clear as it had been when she and Todd had come out walking; there were rainclouds banked in from the north, and the air was sultry. It was going to be one of those nights when you longed for a heaven-and-earth-shaking thunderstorm, the kind she remembered from her childhood. But such events were rare in Los Angeles. All the great storms she'd seen here had been cooked up by lighting men and rain-machines; pure artifice.

She knew she was being watched as she walked. There wasn't a movement she made in the open air that the ghosts or their half-breed children did not observe. They had even made spy-holes in the walls of her little house, she knew. They watched her at her toilette; they watched her as she read and day-dreamed; they watched her as she slept.

She'd several times attempted to stop them and punish their voyeurism; but every time Zeffer plugged up the holes more appeared, and finally she'd given up the game as fruitless. If they wanted to watch her while she slept, then let them go ahead. Indeed until Todd had come into her life the idea of having somebody to watch over her -- even if their motives were as hard to calculate as those of her voyeurs -- was close to comforting.

Needless to say there was also a measure of danger in the proximity of these revenants. Katya didn't doubt that there was amongst their number some who would gladly have seen her dead, blaming her for the fact that their afterlife in was a pitiful thing. Of course she didn't blame herself. If her guests hadn't been so hungry to taste the pleasures of the Devil's Country then they wouldn't be so obsessively drawn to it. But as long as they kept a respectful distance (why would they not, when she controlled the very thing they wanted for themselves?) then she would not persecute them.

They had their journey, she had hers.

She had reached the unkempt lawn, and paused there to take in the spectacle of the house. The wind-chimes rang on four or five balconies, lending their beauty to the grand facade. As she listened to their music she heard sounds from the thicket on the other side of the lawn.

She glanced back. There was still sufficient light in the evening sky to see the motion in the blossom-laden branches. There were several creatures following her, she guessed.

She watched the bushes for half a minute, until the motion died down. It wasn't unusual for creatures to follow her when she went out walking, but there was something different about this. Or was it that she was different? That tonight she was alive as she'd not been alive in many years, her heart quickened by love; and that they sensed a new vulnerability in her?

She didn't like that. The last thing she wanted was for them to imagine they could intimidate her, or somehow wrest a little power from her. Love might have made her step a little lighter, but she was still the Queen of Coldheart Canyon, and if they pushed her she would respond with her old severity.

As she watched the thicket, the last of the light went from the sky, and the darkness revealed several bright points of light in the bushes, where the revenants were standing, watching her. Even after all these years she could still be discomfited by a sight like this; by the fact that the dead were around her in such numbers.

Enough, she thought to herself, and turning on her heel hurried towards the stairs that led back up to the house.

As she did so she heard the swish of grass against swiftly running limbs. They were coming across the lawn in pursuit of her.

She picked up her pace, until she reached the relative safety of the stairs.

Behind her, a soft voice, sounding as though it came from a palate full of pulp and disease, said: "Let us in."

There was a moment's silence. Then another said. "We just want to come back into the house."

"We won't do any harm." said a third.

"Please, let us in ... "

She'd been wrong about the numbers of revenants assembled here, she slowly realized. She thought there'd been perhaps ten, but there were two or three times that number out there in the darkness. Whatever the decayed and corrupted condition of their palates, they all attempted to say the same thing:

"Let us in. Let us in. Let us in."

She would have ignored them, once upon a time: turned her back on their pleas and climbed the stairs. But she was changing. Katya the heart-breaker -- the woman who'd never given a damn for what anybody wanted but herself -- was rapidly becoming a thing of the past. If she was going to come back with Todd and live here, they couldn't live the idyllic life she had in mind while these hungry souls waited outside. Even with the five iron icons hammered into the threshold of each of the doors, and in the sills of even the smallest windows, their presence preventing the dead from ever setting foot in the house, the occupants were in a state of siege. It was no place to have a honeymoon.

She raised her hand to silence their murmuring.

"Listen to me," she said.

The chorus began to subside.

"I'm going to be leaving the house for a few hours," Katya said, her voice a little tentative at the beginning, but gaining strength as she proceeded. "But when I come back I intend to make some changes. I don't want you living in misery. That has to stop."

She started to turn away, intending to leave the statement there. But some of her congregation didn't want to let her go without hearing something more specific in her reply.

"What changes are you going to make?" someone demanded.

"Is that you, Roman?" Katya said, scanning the crowd.