Kirsty scanned the facade of the house, but it was blank; the windows were either empty or curtained. Yet the feeling of being watched persisted; indeed it was so strong she turned away in embarrassment.

The rain started again as she walked along Lodovico Street, and she welcomed it. It cooled her blushes, and gave cover to tears that would be postponed no longer.

3

Julia had gone back upstairs trembling, and found White Tie at the door. Or rather, his head. This time, either out of an excess of greed or malice, Frank had dismembered the corpse. Pieces of bones and dried meat lay scattered about the room.

There was no sign of the gourmet himself.

She turned back toward the door, and he was there, blocking her path. Mere minutes had passed since she'd seen him bending to drain energy from the dead man. In that brief time he had changed out of all recognition. Where there had been withered cartilage, there was not ripening muscle; the map of his arteries and veins was being drawn anew: they pulsed with stolen life. There was even a sprouting of hair, somewhat premature perhaps given his absence of skin, on the raw ball of his head.

None of this sweetened his appearance a jot. Indeed in many ways it worsened it. Previously there had been scarcely anything recognizable about him, but now there were scraps of humanity everywhere, throwing into yet greater relief the catastrophic nature of his wounding.

There was worse to come. He spoke, and when he spoke it was with a voice that was indisputably

Frank's. The broken syllables had gone.

"I feel pain," he said.

His browless, half-lidded eyes were watching her every response. She tried to conceal the queasiness she felt, but knew the disguise inadequate.

"My nerves are working again," he was telling her, "and they hurt."

"What can I do about it?" she asked him.

"Maybe...maybe some bandages."

"Bandages?"

"Help me bind myself together."

"If that's what you want."

"But I need more than that, Julia. I need another body."

"Another?" she said. Was there no end to this?

"What's to lose?" he replied, moving closer to her. At his sudden proximity she became very anxious. Reading the fear in her face, he stopped his advance.

"I'll be whole soon..." he promised her, "and when I am..."

"I'd better clear up," she said, averting her gaze from him.

"When I am, sweet Julia..."

"Rory will be home soon."

"Rory!" He spat the name out. "My darling brother! How in God's name did you come to marry such a dullard?"

She felt a spasm of anger toward Frank. "I loved him," she said. And then, after a moment's pondering, corrected herself. "I thought I loved him."

His laugh only made his dreadful nakedness more apparent. "How can you have believed that?" he said.

"He's a slug. Always was. Always will be. Never had any sense of adventure."

"Unlike you."

"Unlike me."

She looked down at the floor; a dead man's hand lay between them. For an instant she was almost overwhelmed by self-revulsion. All that she had done, and dreamed of doing, in the last few days rose up in front of her: a parade of seductions that had ended in death-all for this death that she had hoped so fervently would end in seduction. She was as damned as he, she thought; no fouler ambition could nest in his head than presently cooed and fluttered in hers.

Well...it was done.

"Heal me," he whispered to her. The harshness had gone from his voice. He spoke like a lover. "Heal me...please."

"I will," she said. "I promise you I will."

"And then we'll be together."

She frowned.

"What about Rory?"

"We're brothers, under the skin," Frank said. "I'll make him see the wisdom of this, the miracle of it. You don't belong to him Julia. Not anymore."

"No," she said. It was true.

"We belong to each other. That's what you want isn't it?"

"It's what I want."

"You know I think if I'd had you I wouldn't have despaired," he said to her. "Wouldn't have given away my body and soul so cheaply."

"Cheaply?"

"For pleasure. For mere sensuality. In you..." here he moved toward her again. This time his words held her; she didn't retreat. "In you I might have discovered some reason to live."

"I'm here," she said. Without thinking, she reached across and touched him. The body was hot, and damp. His pulse seemed to be everywhere. In every tender bud of nerve, in each burgeoning sinew. The contact excited her. It was as if, until this moment, she had never quite believed him to be real. Now it was incontestable. She had made this man, or remade him, used her wit and her cunning to give him substance. The thrill she felt, touching this too vulnerable body, was the thrill of ownership.

"This is the most dangerous time," he told her. "Before now, I could hide myself. I was practically nothing at all. But not anymore.

"No. I've thought of that."

"We must be done with it quickly. I must be strong and whole, at whatever cost. You agree?"

"Of course."

"After that there'll be an end to the waiting, Julia."

The pulse in him seemed to quicken at the thought.

Then he was kneeling in front of her. His unfinished hands were at her hips, then his mouth.

Forsaking the dregs of her distaste, she put her hand upon his head, and felt the hair-silken, like a baby's-and the shell of his skull beneath. He had learned nothing of delicacy since last he'd held her. But despair had taught her the fine art of squeezing blood from stones; with time she would have love from this hateful thing, or know the reason why.

EIGHT

1

There was thunder that night. A storm without rain, which made the air smell of steel.

Kirsty had never slept well. Even as a child, though her mother had known lullabies enough to pacify nations, the girl had never found slumber easy. It wasn't that she had bad dreams; or at least none that lingered until morning. It was that sleep itself-the act of closing the eyes and relinquishing control of her consciousness-was something she was temperamentally unsuited to.

Tonight, with the thunder so loud and the lightning so bright, she was happy. She had an excuse to forsake her tangled bed, and drink tea, and watch the spectacle from her window.

It gave her time to think, as well-time to turn over the problem that had vexed her since leaving the house on Lodovico Street. But she was still no nearer an answer.

One particular doubt nagged. Suppose she was wrong about what she'd seen? Suppose she'd misconstrued the evidence, and Julia had a perfectly good explanation? She would lose Rory at a stroke.

And yet, how could she remain silent? She couldn't bear to think of the woman laughing behind his back, exploiting his gentility, his naïveté. The thought made her blood boil.

The only other option was to wait and watch, to see if she could gain some incontrovertible evidence. If her worst suppositions were then confirmed, she would have no choice but to tell Rory all she'd seen.

Yes. That was the answer. Wait and watch, watch and wait.

The thunder rolled around for long hours, denying her sleep until nearly four. When, finally, she did sleep, it was the slumber of a watcher and waiter. Light, and full of sighs.

2

The storm made a ghost train of the house. Julia sat downstairs, and counted the beats between the flash and the fury that came on its heels. She had never liked thunder. She, a murderess; she, a consorter with the living dead. It was another paradox to add to the thousand she'd found at work in herself of late. She thought more than once of going upstairs, and taking some comfort with the prodigy, but knew that it would be unwise. Rory might return at any moment from his office party. He would be drunk, on past experience, and full of unwelcome fondness.