"Oh, we"ll make use of you. Now," and she pointed to the column of names and picked up the feather pen. "I want you to sign your name here, and then we"ll have Oskar find you a room. Hmm?" I looked at the Peter Lorre dude, who I supposed was Oskar, and he slyly winked at me. I paused. Everything seemed like some weird, crafty game. But the idea of a room sounded really nice. I was exhausted and hungry. This crazy pad would be far more comfortable and entertaining than anything I"ve been used to these past few years. What the h.e.l.l? I moved my hand toward the pen, which the woman moved to my finger. Swiftly, the sharp point of the pen"s tip nicked my flesh. I watched a drop of blood spill onto the feather pen"s tip. With smooth dexterity the woman dipped the stained point into the wee container of ink, then placed the feather into my hand. My little drip of blood smeared her fingernail, which she tapped onto the yellowed paper.

"Your name, young man." I signed, then returned the pen to her. "Thank you . . . Hank," she said, examining my signature. "You won"t mind if I call you Henry."

"That"s cool," I told her, sensing that it wasn"t a request. Suddenly quite weary, I yawned. The fellow named Oskar touched my shoulder. Rising, I followed him out into the antechamber and up the flight of stairs.

*he room into which I was led was cosy, small yet quite exquisitely furnished with antiques. Sitting on the bed, I found it quite comfortable, and I smiled as Oskar moved to an end table on which were various decanters of booze. Standing, I went to join him and poured some excellent corn whiskey into one of the small heavy tumblers. I held the bottle to my guest.

"No, thank you. I prefer a little of this." He took up a bottle of sherry and filled his gla.s.s, then sipped quietly. I examined the room once more, until my eyes fell upon the painting above the bedstead. Going to it, I touched the unfinished work. "Ah," Oskar sighed, "your painting."

"This is none of mine-it"s revolting!" It was an original work by an artist with whom I was unfamiliar. Of moderate size, the majority was a background of etching and under-painting, dreary in tone and subject. The setting was a wood, and from the st.u.r.dy branch of one tree a woman"s form hanged from a length of rope, its snug slipknot taut around her broken neck. A length of dark hair entoiled her face. Beneath there stood three dark forms, indistinct and faded, mere specters of ink and wash.

But it was the cacodemonic thing leering prominently in the foreground that riveted my eyes to the canvas. I had never known a work of art to produce a sense of fear, but when I gawked at the painted thing, I trembled with fright. I suppose what terrified me was the absolute realism with which the ghoul had been conveyed; one could feel in the pit of one"s soul the unholy appet.i.te that smoldered in the rapacious eyes. The wide face had a kind of leathery texture, and the scraggly hair was clotted with dirt. Beneath the green eyes flared a wide, flat nose. Thick lips twisted so to reveal strong square teeth. This was the only figure in the work that had been fully painted, with such lifelike detail that one could almost imagine it to be a study from life.

"It"s one of his unfinished works," Oskar informed me.

"His?"

"Richard Upton Pickman, of Boston. An obscure artist, but one who has attained a spectacular underground reputation. A majority of his works were destroyed by his father, just before the old man"s suicide in 1937. This is one of the incomplete pieces that were discovered in an old section of Boston that was razed and used as a site for warehouses. One of the antique dwellings was apparently used by Pickman as a secret studio." Draining his gla.s.s, Oskar set it on top of an antique dressing table that served as bedside stand, and opening the table"s single drawer he took from it an old sketchbook. "I found these and the painting in a shop in Salem some years ago."

We sat on the bed and I took hold of the ratty sketchbook. "So you"re one of his fans?" Oskar shrugged. I slowly flipped through the pages of sketchings. Pickman had a fine sense of line, but his subjects were nauseating, just as disturbing as the abhorrent painting. "Ugh," I moaned, "the guy was really obsessed with that image of the hanged woman. But it"s weird, because in all these other sketches he"s drawn a semicircle of jackal things that resemble the freak in the foreground. There"s no working sketch showing the three, whatever they are."

Oskar took the booklet from me and spoke in a cautious kind of way. "Yes, I think the Three Sisters, as I call them, are original to this one unfinished painting. The one completed oil is hanging in a bookshop in a valley town in the Northwest, and it"s magnificent. It shows the semicircle of that dingo brood."

I stood again and studied the painted ghoul. "I"ve never seen such nauseous colors in oil. They"re ghastly. How the h.e.l.l am I supposed to sleep with that thing drooling over me?"

"You must admit that it"s unique, Hank. Pickman followed the now discarded tradition of composing his own pigments. The effects are startling, I agree."

He was flipping through the sketchbook when a photograph that had been wedged between two leaves escaped and fell to the floor. I picked it up and studied the cuss"s ugly mug. "Is that him?"

My new friend nodded. "Taken just before he vanished."

I whistled. "d.a.m.n, he looks just as creepy as his artwork. He must have toyed with trick photography, no one could really look like that. What was his family background?"

Oskar took the photograph and admired it. "I once went to a showing of his work that was held at a disabled asylum in Arkham. The brochure mentioned that Pickman came from old Salem stock and supposedly had a witch ancestor hanged on Gallow"s Hill in 1692."

"Ah, that explains his idee fixe. idee fixe. The hanged wretch is his greatgreat-granny." I watched as Oskar placed the photo back into the booklet and then return that volume to its drawer. Suddenly quite sleepy, I yawned. The hanged wretch is his greatgreat-granny." I watched as Oskar placed the photo back into the booklet and then return that volume to its drawer. Suddenly quite sleepy, I yawned.

"You"re exhausted. You"ll find some pajamas in that chiffonier. Pleasant dreams." Mischief played upon his sickly face, and I lightly laughed as he turned to cross to the door. He hesitated for a moment, as if there was something else he wanted to express; but he must have thought better of it, for he quietly opened the door and slipped from the room.

I went to the high and narrow chest of drawers and found a pair of bright yellow sleepwear. Whistling nonchalantly, I undressed, threw my clothes over a chair, and put on the very comfortable cotton nightclothes. The song of windstorm drew me to the room"s one window, and going to it I peered at an eerie sight. The grove across the roadway was bathed in tinted moon light. High above it a pale band of illumination arched above the woodland, resembling the scene that had been crafted in the painting I had observed in the sitting room. I scratched at the window pane with fingernails, certain that the lunar bow had been painted onto the gla.s.s; but no flakes of paint rubbed off, nor was the surface rough with artistry. Wind raged just outside the window, and beneath its ululation I could just detect the irregular squawking of distant crows, such as I had heard earlier when Jesus had discovered me beneath the oak.

I yawned once more, found the switch that shut out the room"s dim light, then climbed into bed. Looking up, I could just make out the dark shape of the ghoul in the feeble light that filtered through the window. "If I see you in my dreams I"ll rip you to shreds," I promised the bogey, pulling the covers over me.

*awakened to a sound that I took to be the moaning of the wind, until I realized that it was coming from the hallway outside my door. Had I in fact heard such a noise, or was it a revenant of dreaming? No matter. I had to p.i.s.s, and so got out of bed and wandered into the shadowed hallway, hoping that there was a toilet on this floor. Spying a pale light coming from one narrow door, I went to it and saw that it was indeed a water closet. The toilet was a relic, and to flush it one pulled a hanging chain. I ran cool water over my hands and wiped those hands on my face and through my hair. Feeling refreshed, I re-entered the hallway, and seeing another door that was partially ajar, I sneaked to it and paused to listen. Someone inside was happily humming, and a smacking sound suggested feeding. I was hungry, and so I pushed the door with my toe and gazed at the room beyond.

The chamber was smaller than my own, with a modic.u.m of furniture. Most of the walls were covered with wallpaper designed in black and red squares, but I saw that the wall s.p.a.ce directly behind the bed had been painted red, except for one large black rectangle just above the headboard, where in every other room I had seen had hung a painting. In one corner, standing before a credenza, stood a tall figure with a shock of wild gray hair. He was bent over what looked like an antique ca.s.serole dish, from which he was plating a repast. When he turned to smile at me, I saw that it was the guy from the photo that copied Friedrich"s Raven Tree. Raven Tree.

"Enter, Hank Foster," he sang in a high nasal tone. "You must be famished. Here, take this, and I"ll fill another plate for myself."

"Thank you," I said, taking the plate and examining the webbed meat and potatoes smothered with a kind of bechamel. The funny old guy motioned to a small table and two chairs, where two settings of sterling silver and napkins had been a.s.sembled. When my host sat down to join me I saw that his wide eyes were lined with red. Either he was a lunatic or flying some delectable high. Or a combination of both. Taking up fork and knife, he sliced his food with dainty precision, in continental fashion. Lowering my nose to the food, I took in its rich aroma. Gingerly, I cut into a piece of meat and popped it into my mouth. It was delicious, and suddenly famished I began to chomp. "This is great."

""Tis our daily staple, so it"s a good thing you like it. You"ll get little else during your stay."

I didn"t feel the need to correct his presumption of my staying around. Truth to tell, I hadn"t given the outside world much thought since I arrived at this cuckoo nest. As if to qualify my thoughts, a cuckoo clock across the room struck five. "Is that the time?"

"Almost dawn. Sleep well?"

"Like a log."

"No dreams? No? Ah, lovely oblivion." He happily goggled at me, and I couldn"t refrain from asking: "Dude, what are you on?"

He hooted laughter. "What exuberant light shines in your eyes.

Ha, ha!" He raised a finger, floated out of his chair, and went to a small kitchenette with which his room had been equipped. Opening a cupboard, he took out a gla.s.s, which he filled with water at the small sink. "Rinse away your food, and then place this beneath your tongue." From his shirt pocket he produced a little tin, which he opened and from which he took out a small red tablet. Taking the gla.s.s, I did as he instructed. The tablet had no flavor, and I was amazed how quickly it dissolved.

"You"ll want to catch a bit more sleep, I dare say. Do you like your room?"

"It"s nice enough. That d.a.m.n painting is a bit offensive." He merely smiled, not moving. I got up and went to investigate the wall behind his bed. The black rectangle kind of got to me. I thought I could detect subdued motion within its opacity. The little red pill was kicking in. "My Mom taught art at college. She died ten years ago."

"And you"re all alone in the world."

"Yeah. It sucks," I bitterly replied. "I was so p.i.s.sed at her dying on me that I rejected my fine upbringing, my stalwart tutelage. I thought I was so cool and daring, hanging with hoods and living on the edge." My voice grew quiet with self-pity. "I didn"t know it would turn into this." I gazed into the blackness on the wall, at the liquid crimson that surrounded it. I could feel the wall drawing me forward. I tilted toward it and touched its surface, and laughed as my hand seemed to sink into the satanic shades. "Dude, this is some good s.h.i.t."

"Let"s return you to your chamber."

I took my hand from the wall and put my arm around his neck. "You freaks remind me of some of the cats that came to Mom"s parties. You know, those eccentric arty types. Kind of makes me feel at home here."

He guided me to the door and out into the hallway. When we reached my room, I stopped and pushed my companion from me. "You should return to bed," he told me.

"No thanks. Don"t want to look at that ugly mug in the painting."

"But it"s your painting, Henry." I stopped and looked at him. My mother had been the only one to call me that name. To be so addressed by a stranger weirded me out. "What"s your name, bud?"

"I am Pieter."

"Yeah. Well, listen, bro, I"m gonna go outside for a while and get some air. No, it"s cool, I can see my own way out. Thanks for the grub." His face wore such a strange expression that, laughing, I patted it with my hand, then carefully found my way down the stairs, to the foyer or whatever the h.e.l.l it was. Noticing that a light was on in the sitting room, I stepped into it to see if pretty Pera was there. Perhaps I could coax her into walking with me.

The room was vacant. I liked the way the dim light seemed to swim along the walls; but when I felt a sudden lightheadedness I decided to sit down for a spell on the comfortable little sofa, and seeing the shiny red alb.u.m on the table, I grabbed it and set it on my lap. I opened it at the middle at sighed at the sight before me. The image was one with which I was familiar, for my mother used to have a print of it on her writing desk. The ghostly photograph copied Gustav Klimt"s allegorical drawing, Tragedy. Tragedy. I traced the woman"s outline with my finger. The original work had been composed with black crayon and pencil, white chalk and gold. The figure in the photograph duplicated exactly the pose of the drawing, of a woman holding a macabre mask. Everything in the photo, however, had blanched to a muted mauve and pale gray, blurry in outline. The one exception was the woman"s spectral face, its whiteness quite luminous. I could just make out the woman"s bouffant hairstyle and languid demi-mode deportment. I traced the woman"s outline with my finger. The original work had been composed with black crayon and pencil, white chalk and gold. The figure in the photograph duplicated exactly the pose of the drawing, of a woman holding a macabre mask. Everything in the photo, however, had blanched to a muted mauve and pale gray, blurry in outline. The one exception was the woman"s spectral face, its whiteness quite luminous. I could just make out the woman"s bouffant hairstyle and languid demi-mode deportment.

Hearing a noise, I looked up and saw Pera wheeling Eblis into the room. The gnome wore a sleeveless shirt, and I cringed at the sight of his too-thin arms, limbs that resembled those of some gaunt Auschwitz survivor. Closing the alb.u.m, I staggered to my feet and skipped toward them. The dwarf"s eyes were sickly yellow and red-rimmed. Blue and purple veins lined his expanded face with its bulbous nose. Cradled in his lap was a small oblong box.

I fell to my knees before him. "Yo, what"s your trip?" Blinking fevered eyes, he tapped the wooden box with the black stump of what should have been a left hand. I looked at his malformed flesh, at the nub that looked as if it had been melted in some combustion. Reaching to the box, I opened it and took out one of the brown-black joints with which the box was stuffed. From his shirt pocket the little man produced a wooden match, held tightly between two stubby fingers. Swiftly, he struck it against the box and held the flame to me. I placed the reefer into my mouth and tilted toward the amber flame. I sucked, holding the inhalation for a minute and then let it slip slowly through nose and mouth.

The light in the room took on a golden hue. Trying to stand straight, I suffered a moment"s vertigo and stumbled backward, colliding with the veiled and silent Pera, to whom I clung and with whom I crashed onto the floor. My face nestled in her hair. My nostrils took in the scent of her etiolated flesh. She offered no resistance as I held her down, and I fancied that I could hear her purring. My mouth pressed against her delectable neck, and my hand reached to pull the veil from her face. Savagely, Eblis flew from his chair and landed on me. A ragged nail from one malformed, sullied finger pierced my face, just below the right eye, slicing downward.

Cursing, I swung at the dwarf and screamed in rage, then tried to raise myself on hands and knees. A smell of blood a.s.sailed my nostrils, and a coppery taste slipped into my mouth. My hands reached out and clutched the beast"s wild hair, and with all the force that I could muster I hurled him off me. The sound of his whimpering made me laugh and spit. The room was spinning, and so was I. Trying to stand, I fell on my a.s.s. A shadow loomed above me, a scented phantom. It pressed its veiled face nearer to my own until I could taste the fabric. Underneath that veil I could feel the probing tongue that investigated the substance with which my face was stained.

*awakened in my bed, but how I had gotten there I could not recall. Whatever I had ingested from the withered gnome"s enigmatic weed, it had certainly had its effect. My throat still burned, as did my brain. Shades of eerie memory dimmed the recesses of my mind, specters that I could not mentally grasp. When I heard a peculiar sound from beyond my bedroom window, I pushed my numb body from the bed and staggered to peer out the windowpane. I saw the dark oaks of the distant grove, and thought that I could just make out a portion of the moonlit pool. I saw a dancing shadow. It was attired in some black flowing gown, but the naked arms and face seemed somehow to drink in the drenching moonlight. Cool air pushed against the pane, and so I opened the window and leaned my head out of it, toward the grove. Coldness brushed my new-made scar, and on that wind I thought that I could just detect the dancing figure"s lullaby. Was it Pera? Had she also partaken of the narcotic, and was she now out there in the chilly night, high and prancing recklessly in the growing storm? I felt drops of rain splash against my face, and so I found my jacket and went outside.

Crossing the quiet roadway, I walked into the grove and toward the dancing woman. At first I could not understand what was wrong with her face, and then I realized that she wore a mask, one that had been held by the woman in the photo I had seen based on Klimt"s drawing, Tragedy. Tragedy. Gold encircled her throat and arms, flesh that was semi-transparent. Beneath the sound of wind and rain I could hear her soft chanting to a tune that reminded me of Mahler, one of Mother"s favorite composers. Storm clouds occluded the earlier moonlight, and yet I could see amazingly well, and it struck me as odd that the woman"s clothing had not grown sopping wet, nor did water drip from the death-white mask. Seeming to sense that I was watching her, the figure stopped moving and stood very still, facing me, her hands now clutching at her crotch. Gold encircled her throat and arms, flesh that was semi-transparent. Beneath the sound of wind and rain I could hear her soft chanting to a tune that reminded me of Mahler, one of Mother"s favorite composers. Storm clouds occluded the earlier moonlight, and yet I could see amazingly well, and it struck me as odd that the woman"s clothing had not grown sopping wet, nor did water drip from the death-white mask. Seeming to sense that I was watching her, the figure stopped moving and stood very still, facing me, her hands now clutching at her crotch.

I advanced toward her, my eyes glued to her mask, which seemed the only substantial thing about her. I did not understand how I could vaguely see the trees and bushes that were behind her, could see through through her. I was now very close to her, and I reached out to touch the mask, its bulging eyes and wide round mouth. A smooth limpid hand joined mine and seemed to blend its texture with my skin. Together, we touched the edge of the mask and lifted. I shut my eyes as something firm yet fleshy encased my face. her. I was now very close to her, and I reached out to touch the mask, its bulging eyes and wide round mouth. A smooth limpid hand joined mine and seemed to blend its texture with my skin. Together, we touched the edge of the mask and lifted. I shut my eyes as something firm yet fleshy encased my face.

A violent force pulled the mask from my face. Jesus stood before me, frowning, the mask in his left hand. "Philippe," I said, remembering his actual name, and then I looked about us. "Where"s Pera?"

"Inside, where you should be. We do not enter the wooded place at night."

"Nonsense, she was just here, wearing that thing."

"No." He tossed the mask into the pool. It floated for a moment, and then was gone. "Come, take my hand."

"Uh, that"s cool, dude."

"My hand," he commanded, holding it to me. I reached out and took hold of his hand, wincing as his fingers tightened like a clamp. I wanted to stop and look into the pool, but my captor forcefully yanked me after him, out of the grove, into rain, across the road and inside the old motel. We stood scowling at each other. "Go to bed, Henry."

"Aren"t you going to go fetch Pera? She"ll catch her death out there. You must have seen her, she was standing right in front of me, beside the pool."

"That was Alma. Now, to bed."

"f.u.c.k you, you"re not my mother. Who"s Alma?" Ignoring me, he turned and went into the parlor. I followed. "Who is Alma? I want to meet her."

"She"s faded. Now, go to bed."

"What do you mean, faded? Like her photograph?" I stomped to the table and picked up the photo alb.u.m. Turning to the image that copied Klimt, I studied the girl pictured, that very young creature. "Are you telling me that I saw a ghost? Is that your game, freak boy? I didn"t imagine that stupid mask. Take me to her room."

Philippe sighed. "You grow tedious."

"Yeah? Well, I don"t like your little game. Okay, don"t show me. I"ll find it myself." Again he sighed, then held out his hand. "Forget it, Mary. Just show me the way."

Did he slightly smile? He shut his eyes for one moment, then turned and walked to the door that led to the hallway. I followed him to the end of the hallway, where he stopped before two doors, opened one of them, and entered a tiny room. I walked to the small bed and looked at the wall behind it. "There"s no picture. Come on, I"ve figured a few things out. Every room I"ve been in has had a picture above the bed. Except this one. Where is Alma"s picture, the copy of Klimt?"

"It"s been taken to the catacombs, of course."

"Show me."

Again, his subtle smile. We exited the room and he opened the neighboring door. Crossing the threshold, we came to a flight of small stone steps. Philippe reached for a lantern that sat in a cavity cut into the wall, took a lighter from his pocket, and nonchalantly lit the wick. Saying nothing, he descended. The place to which he led me was like some ancient religious grotto, but here it was art that was divine. Framed pictures hung on walls like objects of adoration. As Philippe began to light various candles, I went to a stone pillar on which there sat a small framed copy of Klimt"s piece, beautifully copied in full color.

I looked around me, and the place seemed to contract, as if eaten by spreading shadow. My breathing became labored, and I cringed as blackness seemed to seep hungrily toward me. Gasping, I hurried to the steps and scrambled up them. Philippe eventually joined me and shut the door behind him. Removing a handkerchief from a pocket, he patted at the perspiration on my brow. Annoyed, I took the piece of cloth from him and roughly wiped my face.

"Tight places," I explained. He nodded, with such a smug expression on his face that I wanted to hit him. Instead, I strode across the hallway, past Pera"s room and into the sitting room. Oskar was sitting on the sofa, placing a photograph into the leather alb.u.m. Sitting next to him, I examined the photo, which was of him posed as the Count in Kokoschka"s painting. I took the photograph, with which he was having difficulty, from his clumsy hands and slid it into one of the alb.u.m"s vacant sleeves. Then I took hold of the man"s hand and examined its sulfur-yellow pigment. His face had also grown more discolored, and his sad hazel eyes had submerged within dark hollows.

"What the h.e.l.l has happened to you?"

"The elder ones have worked their alchemy."

I was about to ask him more questions when he lifted his crippled hand and touched it to the scar on my face. My nostrils drank the sickened scent of his polluted flesh, the skin that reeked of death. Taking hold of that hand with both of mine, I pressed its fingers against my nose, my mouth. Something in its stench beguiled me.

"You look awful," he whispered as I touched his hand with my tongue. He took his hand from me. "Not sleeping well?"

Bitterly, I laughed. "Too many weird things are going on. Or so I imagine, although it could just be the freaky stuff that Eblis offered me last night. Or was it tonight? What day is it?"

He could not answer, for he suddenly jerked away, convulsed with hoa.r.s.e coughing. Producing a piece of yellow cloth, he covered his mouth with it until the attack subsided. When he removed the rag from his mouth I saw that it had been sprinkled with beads of blood. "What the h.e.l.l is wrong with you?"

Oskar waved away my inquiry. "You need not bother about me-take care of yourself." He stared into s.p.a.ce, frowning, and I sensed that he was deciding whether or not to confide in me, to let me into his world. But then he stood and smiled down on me. "Get some sleep, Hank. You look half-dead."

"Not so fast," I yelled, grabbing his arm. "d.a.m.n it, explain what"s going on in this G.o.dforsaken place. Look, I"m not an idiot. I can see the connections, the paintings in the rooms and the stills in that alb.u.m. Now, I"ve just had a really freaky experience with Jesus." Oskar threw me an odd look. "With Philippe," I corrected myself. "I need to understand what I"ve stumbled on. Explain."

"Explanations are tedious. Understanding comes with the pa.s.sage of time, but it won"t really explicate anything. I"ll tell you only this, that we have blurred the barrier betwixt art and nature, reality and dream. The outside world, the wretchedly bogus here and now, has no pertinence for us here. "That b.l.o.o.d.y tyrant, Time," scarcely touches us, and abhorrent modernity is utterly rejected. What was Pound"s dull dictum concerning art, "make it new"? Our aesthetic axiom is far more fascinating: "Make it you"!" The reprehension that I felt deep within me must have been evident on my face, for Oskar began to laugh and shake his head. "Get some sleep, Hank."

I watched him leave the room. His coaxing seemed to have had an effect, for my eyelids were suddenly heavy. I stretched out on the sofa and closed my eyes. The man was clearly ill. TB was often regarded a quaint disease largely conquered by modern medicine, but I remembered having read of recent epidemics in various regions of the globe. It was an old contagion, for traces of tubercles had been discovered in mummies dating to 2000 b.c. Wanting to observe his photograph one more time, I reached for the alb.u.m, propped it against my raised knees, and turned to Oskar"s image. The original painting had been inspired by Kokoschka"s stay at an inst.i.tute in Switzerland, where the artist had painted the portraits of some tubercular patients. Although my eyes grew heavier and my mind hazy, I tried to study the photograph, to understand its connection to the original painting, to discern the relationship with Oskar"s condition. My new friend had just hinted of a link, but what it was and how it existed was a mystery that I could not fathom.

I closed my eyes and began to sink toward slumber. As consciousness slipped from me, I remembered the sickly sweet aroma of Oskar"s tainted skin, his delicious smell of moribund mortality. I felt the drool that lightly gathered in my mouth, that began to drip as wakefulness evaporated.

*awakened in darkness and stretched on the comfortable sofa, and then I noticed movement in the room. Looking up, I whispered her name. "Pera." She lit a candle that leaned within a sconce, and then picked up the flaming thing and held it before her veiled face.

"You"re not sleeping in your bed. You need to do so. That"s the way it works."

Rising, I went to her and took the candlestick from her gloved hand. "The way what works?" I listened to her hiss of laughter, a sound that was not sane. Lightly, I touched her hair. "Why do you hide your face?"

She began to rock slightly, and I put a gentle hand to her waist. "It shields me from the world, the bright reality. The envious dark drifts to kiss my drab face, and I"ll be wedded to a death"s-head, with a bone in my mouth."

"This is crazy talk," I mumbled.

She stopped rocking and leaned her body against mine. I could smell the cool breath that washed my face. "You name me mad? Is this lunacy?" She slid her hand toward the candle"s flame and pinched the fire out, then knocked the holder to the floor. Funny, even without light I could see her clearly. The fabric of the veil tickled my face as she lifted it and smoothed it over her dark hair. I gazed at her face, with its skin that radiated like burnished porcelain. The unnatural pallor made me suspect that Pera was an a.r.s.enic eater, as society ladies were wont to be in distant eras. I had heard of dwellers in the mountains of southern Austria who consumed a.r.s.enic as a tonic, building up a tolerance for ingested amounts that would normally prove fatal. The world was filled with freaks, and I had stumbled into a realm of mutation, physical and mental. What worried me was that I was feeling more and more at home.

I pressed my nostrils against her temple and took in her mortal fragrance, never having smelled someone who aroused such odd longings within me. Her sudden deep laughter chilled me. "Pickman is a potent warlock. You"re already altered." Ignoring her senseless prattle, I moved my face to her throat and raised my hands so as to fondle her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her sheathed hands took hold of my face and raised it to her own. Oh, how ghostly pale she was, so much so that I fancied I could vaguely see beneath her lucent hide to the bone of her delicate cranium. Her hands wound into my hair and tightened. Her mouth exhaled into my eyes, and vision fogged. I let her go and rubbed my face with hands that trembled. When again I looked at her, the veil had been dropped. Her hands took hold of mine. "To bed, to bed. Come, come, come, give me your hands. What"s done cannot be undone. To bed."

I raised her hands to my mouth and kissed them. "Not yet. Show me some other rooms."

"Whatever for?" she asked, with an inflection that hinted of regained sanity. "Most of the rooms are vacant."

"Because their dwellers are faded?"

"Ah," she purred. She wouldn"t move, and I suddenly began to feel like a cat"s-paw. Disconnecting our hands, I walked into the foyer and up the stairs, the silent woman following me like some shadow. Reaching my floor, I went to try one of the many doors, but found it locked. The next door I tried yielded to my violence, and I entered an untenanted chamber. The painting over the bedstead was dimly lit by the rays of moonlight that drifted through the window. I went to it and touched the canvas. The dashingly handsome figure was familiar, and after a moment I remembered the original work that it copied, a t.i.tian showing a young man in black, one hand naked, the other gloved and holding the glove that had been removed.

Pera stood beside me, then she quietly climbed onto the bed and placed her hand to the necklace worn by the painted figure. "They wanted to put him down in the catacombs, but I said nay. He"ll not dwell in that darkened crypt, that place of death. Isn"t he beautiful? So young." She reached for a varnished box that sat upon a stand. Opening it, she took out a red necklace identical to that worn by the lad in the painting. Kissing it, Pera clutched it to her chest as she lowered into the bed and curled into a fetal position.

Silently, I slipped out of the room and went to my own. I undressed and got into bed, kneeling on the mattress and studying the Pickman. The fellow"s green canine eyes absurdly seemed to return my gaze. When at last I reclined, I saw those eyes in my dreams.

When my eyes opened to the glare of daylight streaming through the window, I heard from outside that window the song of laughter. Pushing the covers from me, I sat in bed and saw the plate of covered food on my bedside stand. I removed the cover and found some slices of the odd webbed meat that Pieter had offered me earlier. I wasn"t very hungry, but I picked up a slice and began to eat. Standing, I wobbled to the window and looked out toward the oak grove, which was filled with moving figures. Were the freaks having a picnic? I found the idea slightly sinister, and that rather attracted me, for I was feeling bored. I dressed and went to join in the fun.