Davette wore a khaki blouse and a khaki skirt and a light blue scarf Annabelle had found for her somewhere that highlighted her blond hair and rich golden skin. Felix was, quite simply, unable to look at her.
He was afraid of what he might say to her.
He was afraid of what he might do to her.
He was mostly afraid of the vampires, though, and it didn't matter if she had just lately come on board and it didn't matter that she was, technically, still a reporter doing a story - all that had long been forgotten. She was part of Team Crow now, sure-as hell. Team Crow was home.
He was afraid of what he might do for her.
So now, nine hours into a most un-Team-like victory party, he sat in the lone chair in the far corner of what passed for a suite in the cheap motel the ladies had found and did his drinking and chain-smoking alone.
Because Jack Crow was wrong.
This deal would not play anymore. Not like this.
Not with me.
Fuck 'em.
Everyone noticed, of course. They could hardly help it.
When their gunman was planted so hard in that one chair. When he smoked so incessantly, drank so ferociously. When he would brood so hard he seemed to strobe...
Sometimes it seemed that chair of his, that whole corner of the room, really, seemed to corridor away into the distance.
Sooner or later, it was going to get ugly. It had been heading for it since the last pile of ashes.
Felix rode with Cat in the motorhome on the way to the rendezvous with the women. He rode in silence, ignoring what little Cat had to say, until Cat finally turned in the driver's seat and looked at him.
Is he relieved? Cat wondered. Stunned? Maybe he's in shock or...
No! he realized suddenly. That's anger! He's furious.
And just then Felix had turned and looked at him and those dead eyes had bored deeply for just a moment. Then the gunman climbed out of his seat and disappeared into the back until they reached the motel.
Even for Annabelle, who was used to the endless waiting, this had been a tough one. Her tears of joy were a little brighter this time, her hugs of welcome a little tighter, her voice a little more strident. Davette, on the other hand, seemed possessed by a surreal glow of happiness at their survival. She took turns with Annabelle hugging everyone and blushing furiously when Cat, with a wicked grin, hauled off and gave her a long, wet, sloppy one.
All save Felix. He stood at the edge of it all, nodding curtly to the women and asking for his room key and mumbling something about wanting to take a shower right away.
He got his key and a tense moment before Father Adam announced that he wanted to have special services immediately - while everyone was still sober enough to pray, ha ha.
And Felix took part in this but the way he knelt and rocked and prayed, so fiercely radiating anger and fear... By the time the priest could quickly break it up they all felt sprayed.
Then there was a knock on the door and Sheriff Hattoy and Kirk and a few other deputies appeared for a little celebrating and Jack brought out glasses and their special schnapps and instructed the newcomers on the toast: "Here's to the great ones..." began Jack.
"There's damn few of us left!" finished the others and they all downed the schnapps and all, but Felix, laughed and asked for more. The gunman went to his room, taking a bottle of his scotch with him.
They partied without him, while the women desperately tried to whip up enough food fast enough to absorb just enough of the alcohol to make Annabelle's hypnotic debriefing possible later on. It was going to be close. Even for Team Crow, the boozing was heavy. The sheriff excused himself early. There had been a good reason why he had been late to their troubles, and that reason still existed. He had more work to do. He exchanged a quick private smile with Kirk before leaving his best deputy behind, as everyone had known would happen.
They partied gamely along some more and no one said anything about Felix not being there. And when the food was ready and he called from behind his locked motel room door that he wasn't hungry, no one said anything about that, either.
But everyone noticed. Everyone, that is, except Jack Crow. Jack refused to notice, thought Cat. Or maybe he's just too high on Felix to care. Jack perched on the edge of the sink while they ate and, master storyteller that he was, relayed every detail of the miracles his gunman had wrought. Carl had been outside during the fighting and the women hadn't been there at all and the three of them listened raptly to every word.
About the woman with the stakes in her, streaking and screeching about in the darkness with Felix's split-second marksmanship on her all the way.
About him, the way he seemed to levitate out of the elevator and stroll so casually toward them, about his catching the fired crossbow bolt, about his looking right at Felix and warning him about the gun.
"And Felix shot him anyway?" Carl asked.
Jack sipped from his wine and nodded. "Three shots. Hit 'im twice that I saw. Then it was just a blur until he grabbed the gun."
"And crushed it?" Annabelle wanted to know. "Really?"
Jack nodded again. "With one hand. That's when Carl here opened the door and it turned toward the light for a second. By the time he had turned back around Felix had drawn his other automatic, left-handed, and he shot him right through the center of his goddamned forehead."
Jack paused, lit a cigarette. "I think he would have killed at least a couple of us if it weren't for that. Hell, he could do that on his way past us out of the light. But not after that shot.
"Carl, our shooter is everything we could ever have wanted."
And everything Davette had wanted him to be. She sat there, in the silence that followed, with her eyes welling happy, happy tears. She could not explain her joy, her sense of hope, any more than she could explain, or even fathom, this viselike hold he had on her.
But somehow, because he was so... so wonderful at this, it made it all seem okay. Even the jagged vibrations of his presence.
"Yep," said Jack Crow, staring deep into his wineglass, "everything we could ever have wanted."
Then he looked at the smiling Davette and grinned.
"Then how come," popped Cat from amidst the others' concerned looks, "we're not all happy?"
Jack shook his head. "Aw, Cherry, give it a rest. Felix is just..."
"Where is he, Jack?" demanded Annabelle. "Why is he in his room? Even when he's here, he just... He looked at me like he hated me! Hated us all! He's not eating. He's there in his room drinking alone. He..."
"Relax, woman!" Jack snapped. He stood up and towered over them. "Let me tell you kids a thing or two. Felix is..."
Then the door came open and Felix was there, cigarette in the corner of his mouth, scotch bottle in hand. He stepped inside and stopped and looked at them, all of them, for a heavy silent moment, then turned curtly away toward the chair in the corner of the suite and planted himself there and drank some more.
Under Jack's silent directions, they tried to party anyway. Jack whispered to Annabelle to drop the debriefing for tonight, concentrate on the celebration and the booze.
"Party, babe! You know!" he muttered grinning in her ear.
And they gave it a try, starting with the music. ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Roy Orbison, everyone in their tape library. It helped. They danced and laughed and giggled and drank too much and it went on for hours and hours and early on somebody in the next room complained, a trucker type in a bad sleepy mood, so Jack had the women haul his ass in through the doorway and drink a little drinkie and "Don't worry about being dressed, stranger," he insisted, looking down at his bare chest and feet. "We'll find you a shirt and all the rest of us will take our shoes off! Race!"
And they all laughed and fell to the floor and Annabelle was the first to get her shoes off - in like one half a second. And Cat was the last - it took him three minutes of concentrated effort before he gave up and put his drink down and tried with both hands.
Then it only took him another minute and a half.
The trucker loved it and wanted to know if he could call his buddies who were just down the hail and Jack said, "Hell, yes! Let's go git 'em!"
And they did go "git" 'em, all five of them. Plus Doris, the blond at the front desk, and her boyfriend Eddy Duane who, Cat felt sure, should have by God learned to play the guitar backward by now. They also gathered in a couple named Henderson, who had come into town for a funeral earlier in the day and said they could use a wake. About an hour later a skinny bald man in his seventies, who was easily six-foot-six, knocked on the door and asked to join the party.
He produced a business card: "Mr. Kite, Layman Activist, The Church of the Sub-Genius."
"It's the world's first industrial Church," he explained to Father Adam.
"Industrial?" asked the priest.
"Right. We pay taxes and everything," replied Mr. Kite.
"I'm not sure I understand. What is it you believe in?"
"Everything," said Mr. Kite with a smile. "But mostly the free-market economy."
So they all had another drink on that, for the benefit of Mr. Kite.
Felix sat stone still and staring throughout. He didn't speak, didn't get up, didn't acknowledge anyone. There was something so threatening about his somber posture that none of the strangers even tried to approach him. And inquires were put off by Team members.
Only Davette seemed unable to stay away. She got close enough to him to change his ashtray twice. And Annabelle thought she was going to speak to him a few times, almost on impulse. But she didn't and neither did anyone else.
But Jack seemed happy about it all. Weirdly content in fact. Occasionally the Team would spot him standing off to one side, catching his party breath and grinning at Felix's back.
Does he know something we don't know? wondered Cat. Or is he just blind?
By three thirty the party was running out of steam for those with nothing to celebrate. The Hendersons, who had been trying to teach two of the truckers to dance and sing, had finally given up. Their only decent pupil had been a barrel-chested old man with "Pop" on his uniform who had actually learned a few steps of soft shoe in his heavy boots before collapsing from alcohol and years. Once that last person was off his feet, the sleepies began to creep in on all non-Team members. They could have reinvigorated for more fun - Team Crow had its ways. But no one wanted them to stay.
Felix had started talking to himself.
Angrily, forcefully, furiously... but in total silence. His lips moved, his face warped in rage, the words spitting bitterly out, but not one sound came with them.
Jack gave Annabelle a look. She used her deft touch and less than five minutes later the revelers had been poured out and the door locked behind them. Then they stood, Cat and Carl, Annabelle and Davette, Adam and Kirk, and Jack Crow, and watched. It was eerie. The music still played softly. The cheap overhead lights of the motel room reached Felix's corner only in shadows that played oddly on his working silent face.
Annabelle stood next to Jack. She sounded more concerned than frightened. "Oh, Jack! How much has he had to drink?"
Jack smiled softly down at her. "He's not drunk."
"Not drunk? I find that hard to believe."
Jack shrugged. "Oh, he is drunk. But not drunk drunk. This isn't booze."
"What is it?"
Jack paused a moment, thinking.
He seems so confident, Annabelle thought, looking up at him.
"What is it?" she repeated.
"Claustrophobia."
"What?" Cat whispered suspiciously.
Jack laughed quietly, looked at them all. "C'mon, people. Let's all have a seat."
And except for Davette, they did. She stayed fussing idly in the kitchen while the rest of them found a seat on the floor or sprawled on the couches. Jack took the only other easy chair and drew it up to face Felix's, about six feet directly in front of him.
Felix saw him, knew he was there. His lips went still. But he didn't look directly at him or anyone else.
"Davette," Jack called out softly, "turn that off."
She eyed him nervously, then smiled and stepped over and turned off the music. Very quiet, all of a sudden.
Then Jack leaned forward in his chair, propping his elbows on his knees and smiling pleasantly into his drink.
"Okay..." he said.
It took a couple of beats. Then the gunman's eyes riveted onto Jack's. Still staring, Felix took a sip from his bottle, lit a cigarette, leaned back in his chair, and spoke. Drunk as he was, his words were clear. Very cold, like very sharp ice.
But clear.
"You're out of this, Crow. It's blown. They know who you are. They know what you do. They know your name."
"So?"
"So. Change your name, change what you do. Quit. Or every job from now on will be another trap."
"What about the Team?"
"Same as before. But as the hunters again. Not the hunted."
Jack grinned and leaned back in his chair. "You think I can do that now?"
Felix's smile was scary. "One of us can. Now."
"So that's it. One of us."
"That's it."
Jack glanced at the others. "If they don't follow you... Form your own Team?"
Felix looked surprised. He frowned. "I hadn't thought about that."
Jack's voice was hard. "I didn't think you had."
"What the hell is..." began Carl angrily.
"Quiet!" snapped Crow without looking at him. Then he relaxed, eyed Felix for a moment.
"Did it ever occur to you that we've finally got them on the run?"
Felix sneered. "Ever occur to you that you're not cutting it anymore?"
Jack held up a hand before any of the others could protest. He lit a cigarette, leaned forward in his chair once more.
"Yes," he said simply. "Yes it has. I can admit that. Can you admit running out on the job you were born to do?"
"I'm not running out on..."
"Like hell you aren't!" snapped Jack. He stood up angrily, began to pace back and forth in front of Felix's chair.
"This is the game, Felix. This is it. I can't quit because I'm the symbol. They know my name. You can't because you're the best there is and that's the part you don't like!"
"Bullshit, Crow!"
"Is it? Is it? Hadn't thought about your own team, had you? Hell, no. If you had thought, which you by God didn't want to do, you'd have realized they wouldn't leave me and you would have to do it on your own. But you don't want to do that. You don't want to do it at all!"
Felix was out of his chair in a flash.
"You calling me a coward?"
And Davette couldn't take it anymore. Suddenly she was there, standing beside the two heaving chests, her voice that of a small child, a small doll.
"Don't..." she whispered, the tears already starting to pour, "... don't... please, don't."
"I don't know what I'm calling you, Felix!" yelled Crow. "Because I don't know what the fuck you are!"
Felix's voice was stone. "Then try something."
And they all thought the fight would start then and it should have, really. But a piece of Jack was also shouting at him. Leadership, goddammit!
And so he took a breath and backed off a bit and tried again.
"Felix, I can't quit just because they know my name. Is the next guy gonna do the same? That's all it takes. They know if they can find out who we are they can run us off? We can't. We're it. This is the game!
"Look. I'm sorry if this comes at a bad time in your life, Felix. But it always does, dammit!" And then Crow felt the anger spurt out and he lost it again.
"You're just gonna have to see if you're man enough to face it!"
And Felix barked, "Fuck off!" He turned to the others. "Fuck you all..."
And Davette's baby voice sighed, "No... no no...
And for a second they stopped and looked at her. But then Felix shook it off. He reached down and picked up his cigarettes and stuffed them in his pocket and stalked toward the door.
"Die, then!" he shouted at the room. "Die if you want to! Die for his ego or senility or whatever..."
Davette was chasing him, her arms held out. "Please please..."
"Forget it!" he stormed at her. "All of you, forget it!"
"You can't..." she pleaded and the sobs shook her tiny form.
But he could. He could do what everyone had known for hours he was going to do.
"I quit," said Felix.
And Davette's voice came out strong and full and she cried out, "You can't! You don't know what they can do to people! You don't know what it's like... You..."
And Felix and Jack Crow looked at her together and together they said: "Whaat..."
Davette looked at the two of them, back and forth quickly. She hung her head. Then she reached down to the hem of her khaki skirt and took it in her fist and raised it up, exposing the perfect silken lines of her golden legs and the sharp heartache contrast of yellow panties... and there, there high on her left inner thigh... Like the bite of a monstrous spider.
It could be no other kind of wound.
"Help me," she whispered.
"Help me..."
Fourth Interlude: The Victim
The Team stood stunned and staring at her and she tried to get it all out at once, all of it that she had wanted to tell them from the beginning, about what had happened to her and how she had really come to see them that day in California - but it just came out as sputtering tears.
It was Felix, of all people, who rescued her, taking her gently in his arms and speaking soft, soothing nothings. He led her to his chair and sat her carefully down and dragged up a chair for himself, all the time still murmuring reassuringly to her.
The others unfroze at last, Annabelle hip enough to fetch Kleenex and a glass of water, the men moving slowly, still more or less in shock, into seats of their own to listen. And it was kind of like the Inquisition, with them all circling about her suspicious and staring but she didn't mind. She deserved this. She deserved it for what she had done to them - or almost had done to them.
Because she hadn't come to do a story on them.
She had come to bring their killer.
She had left him in the trunk of that car she had been driving.
He was the fiend they had just slain, the one with the headband.
The little god.
His name was Ross Stewart and she had known him for ten years, since she was eleven and had taken Miss Findley's Dance Class for Young Ladies and Gentlemen.
Ross had been in the class. But he hadn't been a gentleman even then.
She started sputtering again. Felix leaned forward and took her hands in his and told her to relax, to relax and take deep breaths and start from the beginning. And she knew he was right, knew he made sense, knew she should do it that way, but now, looking into his eyes, closer to him than she'd ever been, she wanted to skip all that and...
And get right to the meat.
Get right to the shame.
She felt compelled - obsessed, really - as she had from the very first time she had seen him, to tell him this. To have him know all about what she had done and what she had been made to do.
She wanted him to know everything. Every nasty detail. But she did what he said. She tried again from the beginning. Not the very beginning, when she was young, but from when it had really started. Last spring. Easter vacation. Religious holiday.
Her Aunt Victoria had planned a wonderful party for her.
Aunt Vicky's house was the best-kept secret in north Dallas, a tiny, nondescript entrance on Inwood Road exploded, once inside the driveway, into a miraculous vision of a graystone mansion with multileveled terraces sprawling throughout the sculptured gardens and running brooks and towering trees that had tiny colored lights way up high in them, where the stars were. The party had spilled out over all the terraces and there was a band playing and people dancing and everyone was there, simply everyone she had grown up with, glittering and beautiful, the Sons and daughters of wealth and private schools, and you just knew by looking at them that it wasn't just the fortunes of the past represented here but the fortunes of the future certain to be made.
And Davette was the princess.
Because she really was beautiful, she knew that, and tall and blond and smart, too, editor of the university newspaper, and she laughed and talked and gloried in the attention, warm with friends when she wanted and unapproachable whenever she felt like it because Aunt Vicky had taught her that. You didn't really have to have that same conversation with every man.
But there were two details wrong and they nagged her. Her best friend, Kitty, had yet to show up. And Aunt Vicky was still abed.
Anyone else would still be "in" bed. But not Aunt Victoria, not in that huge three-hundred-year-old canopied bed in that immense bedroom full of all those beautiful chairs and settees and intricate knickknacks her brother, Uncle Harley, had brought home from around the world. The whole house was a treasure, but it was always this room, Davette had realized, that meant her aunt to her, meant romance and glory, which to Davette had always been one and the same.
She missed her mommy and daddy sometimes, so long dead now, but with Aunt Vicky and her brother, Uncle Harley, her rearing had been just as warm and loving - and a lot more fun. Uncle Harley, decorator to royalty, had shown her the world. And Aunt Victoria had shown her the ways of... the lady. Ways that made men sit up straight and turn their language soft and clean when she entered the room. A certain regal air - never haughty, exactly, but definitely, inevitably, superior. Reluctantly superior, as Aunt Victoria once confided to her.
Aunt Victoria had that look about her that made hard men wish for dragons to slay for her. Just for want of that twinkling smile.
But now she was ill and those beautiful lace bedclothes only made her seem more pale and less strong. She had received a few people, close friends who wished to look in on her, but she wouldn't leave her bed, wouldn't come to the party.
"Don't worry, dear," she had cooed to her niece. "Have a good time, be a lady," Then there was that twinkle. "Then come back and tell me every single detail."
And they had laughed and kissed and Davette had gone back to her rooms, where she found Kitty, who was staying with her, sitting naked on the side of her bathtub and crying.
Over Ross Stewart.
Davette couldn't believe it. Ross Stewart? No-Class Ross, as she and Kitty had dubbed him and the name had stuck with him from sixth grade to high school graduation because it fit! It really fit!
"I can't believe it!" she blurted, shaking her head before catching herself and realizing how she must sound.
When she heard Kitty's sobbing "I can't either!" she knew they had a problem.
Davette sat down on the edge of the tub and put her arm around her best friend in the world and tried to... to what, to console her? Because Davette didn't really understand how this was even possible and all she could get out of Kitty was, yes, she was ashamed at being with Ross Stewart, but, no, she had no intention of leaving him.
"I can't help myself," she said, looking Davette straight in the eye.
And Davette had felt a cold, dark chill.
Now it was after ten P.M. and the party was in full swing and she still hadn't heard from Kitty and she was starting to fret. Maybe, she thought, Ross has changed. Maybe he really wasn't as bad as she had remembered. And she tried thinking back through her memories and images of him in a different light, in a more positive way.
But she wasn't having much luck. Ross Stewart had been just awful.
Good-looking, really, in a kind of decadent way. He had long black curly hair and he was tall and well built, she remembered. And smart, too, because he had made excellent grades and St. Mark's Prep, the brother school to her own Hockaday, was a very demanding place. No, Ross had no excuses for being the way he was, foul-mouthed and dirty-minded and totally without class. All the boys talked about sex all the time, of course. They were teenagers and that was practically their job. But Ross always talked about it a little too long, his jokes always a little more filthy, his leers always too damned piercing.
And the money, of course. Ross's family didn't have any, at least not the way most of the private school parents did. But that was no excuse, either. There were several students worse off than Ross and they were okay. At least they didn't go around so greedy all the time, talking about the prices of everything and dating the richest, most homely girls who had never before had such attention.
God, she remembered, he used to drive the girls' cars on dates! And once he even - "There you are, baby!" sounded a familiar voice. She sighed before turning around. She really wasn't up to this. But she was trapped. She turned around and smiled at her last high school boyfriend, football captain, senior class president, Taker of Her Virginity, Dale Boijock.
And also the most boring human being alive.
"How are you, Dale?" she said without enthusiasm. "I'm so glad you could come."
Dale stepped forward and flashed his perfect smile and said, in a voice rich with meaning, "I wouldn't have missed it."
And she thought she would die or run screaming from him or worse but she hung in there, talking small talk. She managed to get them walking toward the bar for some wine so she could keep running into other people and not be left alone to talk to Dale one-on-one.
Dale fought it, trying to get her off to one side to talk all alone. But he was getting quite a bit of attention, too, and enjoying it. Tall blond, beautiful blue eyes, a natural leader, a wonderful athlete - a Polish-American god was Dale Boijock. He had been the Catch of All Catches in high school but he was so boring and how could she ever have slept with him?
Curiosity, of course. She did not live in Aunt Vicky's era and almost all of her friends had "done it," many more than once, and here she was with the most eligible boyfriend around and she was just dying to know and it had been her suggestion.
He had been shocked. But he had come around.
At the motel he really was sweet and tender, treating her like a porcelain doll, and she had to face it, some parts of it were pretty interesting.
But somehow Dale had managed to make even those dull. And she knew, as he drove home, that she simply could not bear to be with him ever, ever again but she couldn't think of a graceful way to...
And then she had turned in the car seat and told him he was the best lover she had ever had.
He had laughed at that at first, of course. Then he had looked at her and saw she was serious and that tanned blond face had frowned and he had pulled the car over and the questioning had begun.
Looking back, she decided she had handled it just about perfectly.
Did he know him?
Who?
The other guy.
Well, she knew Dale knew some of them.
Some of them? There was more than one?
Well, yes.
Who?
Dale, I don't really think I could - How many, then?
How many? What difference could that possibly - She had taken a positively wicked joy in bashing his pride. After she had strung it out a good half hour, she allowed him to force her to tell him the "truth," that there had been somewhere between fifteen and an even dozen. She couldn't remember exactly.
Then he had leaned across her and opened the passenger door and ordered her to get out.
Trying desperately to keep a straight face, she had climbed meekly out of his car, closed the door behind her, and stood there, head down, her hands together in front of her, until the car screeched off.
On the way back home she had giggled quite a lot.
It really was a perfect solution. His pride wouldn't let him tell others about her and even if he did no one would believe it of Princess Davette anyway. And best of all, she would never be bothered by Dale Boijock again. And she hadn't been, for four long-years.
Until tonight. And this was looking grim. After four years of the Ivy League's worldly ways, she knew his attitudes had changed. She could tell by that look on his face. It could only mean one thing, his insistence at getting her alone to talk: He was going to, God help him, forgive her.
And she really didn't think she could handle that with a straight face.
She just had to get away beforehand.
"Dale? Would you excuse me just a minute?" she asked sweetly, then fled.
That's how she ended up hiding out on the terrace, in a metal chair behind an enormous plant.
And that's where she was when she heard the Voice.
It wasn't a deep voice. It wasn't rich and melodious. In fact, it was rather dry and thin. But it was so... smooth. Smooth and clear and it really carried, cutting through the other voices with it.
She had been aware, in the few minutes she'd spent in her little hideout - on the lookout for Dale - of a conversation going on on the terrace a few feet away. But she hadn't really been paying attention. Now, with that voice, she began to.
Sex. They were talking about sex. About the difference between men and women. About what each needed. What women needed. What women craved. What they had to have. Release. Abandon. Wantonness. Penetration.
Looking around at the faces in the motel room... Looking at Felix's face now so close to her, his eyes gentle but so acute...
She just didn't know.
Should she tell them? Should she tell them all - tell Felix - what exactly had been said? What words? What sweet, forbidden, pornographic...
She didn't know.
She didn't know if she could describe what it had been like, sitting there on the terrace and bearing those awful dirty words cutting through the night toward her. Surrounding her. Caressing her. Prodding her. The words he used were so filthy and his descriptions so graphic. No one else was talking but him, now, the entire terrace alive with electricity because it was arousing. She couldn't believe it. Never in her life had anyone spoken such things in her presence. Oh, she knew the words. She knew what they meant - every schoolgirl knew the words. But to hear them used, to feel them scything in her direction.
And to have them so erotic. To see what he described so clearly. To understand it so well.
Ladies and whores, he talked about. About the difference. About the need for ladies to be both. About what the right man knew to do with his lady behind the bedroom door, free her from her ladyship, from her courtly demeanor. Give her the chance to wallow and grovel and glow.
She could not understand how such talk could affect her so. But it had. It had. She had sat there - perched there, really - on the edge of her little chair, panting, chest heaving... Because she seemed to understand it. She seemed to understand just what release, just what euphoric abandon he meant. And when he went on and on spinning his pictures and images she saw her own skin glowing, her own fingers grasping, her own thighs wide and receptive and -
God help me! What is happening?
She didn't tell the details to the Team. She didn't. She glazed over it and hurried past it and she knew she wasn't meeting their eyes - his eyes - so she forced herself to look up and his gaze was steady and she believed he knew she had left something out.
And she believed he knew what it was.
It was when she decided she could simply hear no more that everything began to happen, that things began to whizz and spiral about her, that her life began to ricochet...
That her soul began its twist in the vise.
The Voice had stopped for the time being and she had risen, spontaneously, from her chair, jerked herself up and forward and away from this madness and the heavy air left by the silence and taken a step around the plant toward the sliding glass door to the library - she could do this! Just step around and through and no one would see her or even know she had been there...
And the other voice suddenly perked up and it was a voice she knew, knew well - had always known - and she couldn't help herself. She turned as she stepped and leaned wrong and her heel caught and she just careened into that awful plant, banging the branches with her shoulder and leaves went everywhere and by the time she had regained her balance - barely, with ankles out and knees together and wineglass spilling - she was among them. A semicircle of faces she couldn't meet were staring surprised looks in her direction and she heard that voice she had recognized again saying, "Davette!"
And she looked up and saw it was... Kitty!
Kitty and other girls she had grown up with. There was Patty and Debra and... Oh God! The embarrassment, because it wasn't just crashing through the shrubbery, it was the looks on their faces, the steaming-dreamy looks because they had been listening to that Voice, too, and their faces were flushed and their chest heaving and she knew they could see her own flush..
And, Oh my God, if Kitty was here, that meant...
"Davette," said Kitty again, "you remember Ross Stewart."
And he was there, looming over her, his black curly hair and ivory-white skin and black eyes so deep and forever and he took her free hand in his and said, with a wicked curling smile, "Davette! How often I've thought of you."
And that was that. Her lights went out. She fainted dead away.
It took her some time before she figured out exactly what had happened next. Ross must have caught her as she fell.
And though she was only out for a second she managed to have what seemed an endless dream - nightmare - or running through some awful wet-stoned maze of tunnels with someone she never saw but knew to be Ross Stewart, walking briskly after her and laughing.
But when she woke up she hadn't even' reached the floor yet and Ross Stewart still held her in his arms with his eyes boring through her and she panicked and she flailed at his chest and arms and she screamed.
It was the sound of her own voice that shook her out of it, that and Kitty bending over her saying, "Davette! Honey!" And as Ross lifted her upright - so easily! - and she saw all the faces on the terrace turned to look at this crazy woman, she was so humiliated she wished she could just explode at will.
And then "Stewart! What do you think you're doing with her?" sounded out and she recognized the voice of Dale Boijock being macho and saw him shouldering his way toward her and she closed her eyes and wondered, Could this get any worse?
It could.
Ross, still supporting her - again, so easily! - transferred her to his left arm and turned and faced the oncoming Dale and said, "What I am doing with her, so far as it concerns you, is anything I damn well please."
It was meant to taunt him - all these people watching him - and it worked. Dale lurched forward, his right arm reaching out, and Davette whispered out, "Dale! No!" but she had no breath and her voice didn't carry and in any case it was too late.
Ross's right hand snapped out like a snake around Dale's wrist and held it fast and there was a pause as the two eyed one another and then she felt, rather than saw, Ross's smile as he began to squeeze and Davette had a chance to think how oddly beautiful were Ross's half-inch-long fingernails before Dale's wrist broke.
Ross released the wrist as Dale cried out with pain and jerked backward. Then came a beat or two as Dale stared, unbelieving, between Ross and his swelling wrist.
"It was easy, Dale," whispered Ross so that only the three of them could hear. "Want to see it again?"
Davette saw Dale's eyes go wide with surprise and growing fury and she saw it coming so clearly. Dale, who had probably never lost a fight in his life - and certainly not to that wimp-ass gigolo, Ross Stewart - simply could not help himself. And his roar was very leonine as he launched all six-foot-two-inches and two hundred thirty - odd pounds of muscle at his rival.
Ross's casual backhanded flick of his wrist swept, rather than knocked, Dale some three feet sideways through the air, through the terrace railing, and nine feet down into the gently rolling slope of the gardens below.
He wasn't really hurt. The slope was thick with rich ground cover and they could hear him moaning out in pain and shock. Within seconds others had reached him and pronounced him okay. But the fight was over. That was the point.
"I wish he hadn't made me do that," said Ross to the astonished onlookers and his sincerity seemed so real that Davette felt them collectively taking Ross's side of it.
"I'm terribly sorry about that," he then said to her, looking down.
Only then did she realize she was still in his arms and as she started to pull away he spoke again, but this time it was that Voice.
"I'm sure," he purred at her, "you've had enough excitement for one night. Let us take you upstairs before you fall asleep on your feet."
And she hadn't felt sleepy, had she? But now she had images of that soft bed and no voices or crowds or music, those cool sheets...
"Thank you," she whispered, nodding to both of them, for Kitty was back alongside her and the three of them left and took easy steady steps up the broad staircase and down the hallway to her rooms. Ross didn't seem to be there as Kitty helped the sleepwalker undress and climb into bed and lie down.
"He's really changed, hasn't he?" was the last thing Kitty said to her and Davette saw her friend's pleasure, as though the evening had redeemed her association with him.
But Davette was too tired to answer. She thought she managed to nod before drifting off.
She had no dreams.
She wasn't sure it was true sleep at all. She felt only light and floating and still and intermittently aware. She knew when the band stopped. She had a sense of the party finally ending and the great house becoming empty. Kitty always stayed in the adjoining bedroom, ever since junior high, and later she was sure she heard her in there talking to Ross and then there were other muffled noises and she pressed herself back into sleep so as not to hear.
Much later, toward dawn, she felt the weight on the edge of the bed and opened her eyes to protest once and for all. But she could not speak at first. His eyes seemed to shine at her. His skin was so creamy white and softly carved around his smile. His black curls glowed in the light coming through her open balcony.
"Could you hear me well enough through that plant?" he asked.
She had been lying flat on her back, without moving, the entire night. Now she sat straight up.
"You mean... you knew?"
"Of course," he replied softly and the Voice was back. "Kitty has heard me before. The others didn't matter at all." His hand reached out and caressed her cheek and there was nothing, dammit, she seemed to be able to do about it. "No," he continued, "it was all for you."
And the blood roared through her and her breath raced as sharp hissing pants and when his hand pulled back she all but cried out, What is happening to me! when she felt disappointment at the loss of his touch. And his smile curled, wide and full around his face, melding with her eyes, and his right hand came toward her again, with the fingernails of forefinger and thumb snapping together like a small animal... click... click... click
And she knew where, through her sheer nightgown, the little creature would bite her. But she could not stop this, either. She could not even stop the wanting of this. And when, matching the heaving rhythm of her chest, the two fingernails clamped with gentle pain on her left nipple, she fainted once more - but not before an orgasm of more exquisite agony than she could ever have imagined.
Sitting there in that cheap lime-green motel room and telling the Team - telling him - about that first night... it was the worst moment. It was not the worst part of her story - there were many crimes to come. But, still, it was the worst.
For now they knew what Ross could do to her, what he was always able to do to her, anytime he wanted. The... humiliation. The sense of being so simple and cheap. Of being used goods. Easy used goods.
Because the sexiness was still there. Even now, thinking back on it and thanking Sweet Jesus it was over, she felt the trembling passion of it all. And the others around her felt it also, it steamed from all the men save Father Adam, whose pious visage seemed struck in granite. But even Annabelle was affected.
And she tried to explain it to them. Tried, because she wasn't sure she understood it herself. But it had to do with the darker edge of a half-lie. Half-lie implying also a half-truth, yes, she knew that. And that was the vampire's secret.
What the vampire told you was true. He lied when he told you it was everything.
The day after the party had been one of the great days of Davette's life. Later, when she looked back on it, she knew it was because she had spent the day hiding from an impending sense of darkness; But at the time it was sweet, accustomed, familiar silliness.
The first days of every school vacation for years and years Davette had spent the same way: shopping with Kitty. Usually they went with Aunt Victoria in the limo and that was always fun because Aunt Victoria's entrance at the front door of some place like Neiman-Marcus prompted some truly amazing scurrying around on the part of the sales staff.
Aunt Vicky was too tired to come with them that day, but that didn't prevent her from rousing the girls up early like her usual imperial self and getting them "dressed and pressed and made-up for the table, ladies!"
And Davette loved it, being rousted out of bed, rushing around trying to get ready, with Aunt Vicky's voice carrying over everything, laughing and giggling with Kitty as they used, the adjoining bathroom.
Davette loved it because she didn't have to think.
Think about last night.
Or him.
Or herself.
Or...
Or whether or not she should tell Kitty. After all, Ross was her boyfriend. Lord, what would Kitty think of her if she told her that...
That what? What really happened?
Did anything really happen?
Maybe... Maybe it was just a weird dream. I mean, nobody can just reach out like that and make you... Can they?
And a tiny little voice answered back: Ross Stewart can. Anytime he wants to.
But she ignored it and giggled some more and then they were out there in the sunshine, checkbooks and credit cards with safeties off. And it was just as much fun as it always was. Shopping, SHOPPING, SHOPPING!
They laughed so hard and they laughed so long and they spent so much money!
It was great.
And they had lunch at the same place they always did shopping bags piled up high all around the table, and Luigi waited on them like he always did, making those awful snide little remarks about rich girls and "Come the Revolution" and they were just as snitty back and all involved loved it like they always had.
Kitty loved it as much as she did, maybe more. She seemed to relish the air and the sun, and Davette thought she could use more of each - she looked just a trifle pale - but that didn't matter right now because the day was so perfect and then tonight, like every other vacation, the three of them would sit in the formal dining room, the girls wearing their new loot, and talk and talk with Aunt Vicky. And then Kitty, in some chance remark, mentioned casually that Ross would be joining them for dinner that night.
And the planet froze. And slowed down. And wanted to... grind... to... a... stop.
Because it had always just been the three of them on those nights, sitting and eating, and Davette had counted on that safe picture of at least one night, tonight, without having to see him again or hear that Voice.
Davette started to say something about maybe Aunt Vicky not wanting to share their traditional post-shopping dinner with an extra person and Kitty beat her to it, telling her how Ross and Aunt Vicky had become such fast friends, talking long into the night about philosophy and what-all, sometimes until almost dawn because Ross simply hated the daytime. He said it was only for primitive man, who had good reason to fear the dark.
And the planet slowed further and the faces in the mall seemed more distant and it seemed suddenly terribly important to Davette that she not make a big deal about this, not object at all.
Not let anyone know how she feared.
So she kept walking and she kept shopping and she managed a hollow echo to Kitty's laugh that she felt sure she had gotten away with and then, abruptly, when they passed a restaurant they had always passed by before, Davette suggested they drop in and have a cocktail.
"Because we are twenty-one now, aren't we?" was all she would reply to Kitty's startled look.
She ordered a bloody mary and when Kitty ordered just mineral water Davette kidded her until Kitty said, "Ross says he doesn't like women who drink."
And Davette thought: good.
And ordered another.
And then another.
She wasn't exactly drunk when they finally got home. But she was certainly feeling it, feeling pretty good, in fact, because the fear seemed more distant somehow and the alcohol seemed a kind of talisman, maybe, to ward off evil spirits.
And she giggled to herself thinking that. Kitty, sitting beside her in the bathroom toweling her hair, gave her an odd look.
"Are you drunk?" she asked her.
And Davette shook her head firmly and that made her dizzy and that was so funny she spat the bobby pins out of her mouth laughing and Kitty looked at her funny again but then she started laughing, too, and all was fine for a long time.
And then Kitty began talking about Ross. About how intelligent he was. How witty. How exciting. How sexy. And Davette stared, shocked, at her because they had never discussed such things before.
But Kitty, standing up to go into her own room, just gave her a sly, wicked smile and said, "You should find out for yourself."
And then she was gone and Davette sat there for several minutes before she could manage to move.
So, to dinner.
In point of fact, she never could remember the dinner much. It all seemed to go by so fast! She remembered the table being so beautiful and Aunt Vicky so lovely, but frowning that special frown because Davette was drinking so much but she had to, she had to do something...
Because he was there, looming at her from his dark eyes and perfect skin and immaculate tuxedo and knowing, knowing, smile. Not that he was intrusive or mean or anything; he wasn't. He was charming and witty and friendly and funny and he didn't seem to mind her getting soused. If anything, he encouraged her, refilling her wineglass again and again.
And with that thick cushion around her eyes the whole thing seemed less and less dangerous after a while.
And awhile after that, danger seemed kind of intriguing.
And just after that, she passed out.
She wasn't exactly unconscious. Not exactly. Her eyes were more or less open and she was able to recognize things. She just wasn't able to pick them up and hold them without dropping them.
They took her to bed with her weaving and slurring to Aunt Vicky that she was "so sorry! I'm just so sorry! I've spoiled everything!" And dear Aunt Vicky giving her that long cold look before finally, blessedly, relaxing and smiling and patting her on the cheek and saying that it was really all right, that anyone's entitled to a mistake in her own home and that just made Davette bawl some more because it was so sweet.
Ross excused himself while Kitty helped her struggle out of her clothes and into a nightgown and it felt great to just lie back and relax and she guessed the others went down to finish dinner because it was much later, after two A.M., when they came back and she woke up from that deep, deep sleep to see them sitting on the edge of the bed.
Why, she wondered, did I wake up?
But before she could think about that Ross leaned over her and asked, "Are you all right? Would you like to get sick?"
She had felt all right up until then. She hadn't felt nauseated, had she? Had she? But looking into his eyes she suddenly felt that alcohol vault and swirl within her and she lurched up tripping out of bed toward the bathroom and they both reached to help her.
But she didn't want their help, she thought. This was just too embarrassing. But ten seconds later she didn't care who saw her.
Ugggghhh!
She seemed to throw up for hours! She just couldn't stop, her bare knees hard on the tile on either side of the toilet, that awful wrenching in her tummy, those dreadful noises she kept making.
Once, hunched over with sweet Kitty murmuring gently and patting the back of her neck with that cool damp washcloth, she remembered thinking she was glad of at least one thing: she did not feel sexy.
In fact, she doubted she would ever feel sexy again.
But it happened.
She came to, more or less, curled up on the bathmat in front of the toilet seat, the nausea gone. She was dimly aware of being helped to her feet by someone gentle and very strong and she was almost to her bed before her beating heart allowed her to admit who it was. The top sheet and blanket had been rolled neatly to the foot of the bed and he lifted her up and carried her the last few steps, his hands cool and strong beneath her. She turned her head and swelled into his eyes as he put her down atop the broad empty bed.
He did not lay her down but, rather, sat her up against the headboard. And then he sat there beside her, boring his eyes and dreams of passion unknown to dull drab lives and fantasies of glorious ecstasy streamed into her when he smiled.
Her chest heaved. She panted and gasped and his face began to burn.
"Oops, I'm afraid you can't wear that anymore," he said.
He meant her nightgown, of course, and she did look down and she saw no stain...
But he wouldn't lie, would he?
"Better take it off," he said next.
And - God help me! - she did. She did, reaching up to the straps and pulling them slowly down off her shoulders and she knew just what she was doing.
And she did it anyway, slipped the nightgown down, exposed her breasts to the open air and to him and then...
Then his face was close to hers and tiny kisses all around her mouth as she slid backward, chest heaving, and then his hands were soft and cool and so strong on her shoulders and around her throat and the kisses slowly - too slowly - worked their way past her chin to her throbbing throat and across the top of her chest and to the breast the little creature had attacked the night before.
When he bit her the pleasure poured throughout her and arms shot out into the air and her fingers spread trembling and she moaned and cried and undulated wantonly beneath...
There! There at the foot of the bed, perched like a grinning cat, was Kitty! She couldn't believe it! Kitty! And she wanted, for just an instant, to throw him off and run away. But she knew she couldn't do that. She knew she couldn't stop him. She knew she didn't want him stopped. Ever.
And Kitty's grin went wider and she leaned forward and her smile was bright in the moonlight as she said, "See? Didn't I tell you?"
And it was too strange, too bizarre. But she couldn't care now. She shrieked her whisper and wrapped her bare arms around the black curly head and pressed it deeper into her soul.
She slept all through the daylight hours. She dreamed deep and hard, long, exhausting dreams of intricate twisting erotica. When she awoke the tall french doors to her terrace were open, spilling in moonlight and soft breezes through her ghostly curtains, and they were there, sitting on the edge of her bed and smiling down at her.
For a brief moment she felt an icy jolt of... of what? Fear? And disgust?
But then it was gone, for they were so beautiful, Kitty sitting naked with her thighs tucked under her and that lustrous brown hair tumbling about her shoulders and he with that billowy black silk shirt open at the chest. So beautiful. And the smiles were so warm and genuine and happy.
"Swim," said Kitty with a mischievous tilt to her face. "Come on."
Davette shook her head that she didn't understand and Kitty grinned some more and said that Aunt Vicky was asleep and the servants were all out of the way and the pool was beautiful in the moonlight and it really was a warm night for the spring and let's go!
"I'll meet you down there," said Ross, rising to his feet.
But before he left he stepped around to Davette's bedside and leaned down and caressed her cheek with his hand, boring gently now with his eyes. Then he bent and kissed her softly on the cheek. And then he was gone and Davette was once more full of tingles and catching her breath.
And when she remembered Kitty was still there and looked at her she blushed. But Kitty just laughed and Davette laughed, too, her cheeks red with embarrassment but also humor because Kitty was in the same boat and the laughter became schoolgirl giggles.
As she scrambled out of bed she felt a sharp pang from her left breast. She gasped and looked down and when she saw the swollen wound she gasped again.
"It won't last long," Kitty said, standing beside her.
Kitty was right. Davette worked the muscles of her chest and gently massaged the area and the pain seemed to stretch itself out. It still felt tender. But the sharp ache was gone.
It was then that she realized she was naked, that Kitty was also naked standing beside her. The two of them: rich girls, nice girls, ladies, standing naked in the moonlight of an open door about to walk downstairs and swim, skinny-dip, with a man who was down there waiting for them now and who was quite sure they would come.
It seemed to incredible that she should be doing this, that they both should be. But it seemed also so wickedly sexy, so decadent and wanton, and with her best friend it seemed a safe, dark secret and the two smiled and held hands and walked naked out onto the terrace.
She had been out on this terrace barefoot before and the possibility that anyone could climb over the walls and through the gardens and see her was remote. But it was still there. The wind caressed her bare thighs, rolling gently all around her as they descended the broad stone steps to the pool and Davette had never in her life felt so unclothed. So... available.
Ross reclined on one of the sun loungers like a prince awaiting the court entertainment. He was turned over on one side, a knee propped up with a forearm propped on that. He had a half-smile on his face and the light seemed trapped between the moon and his eyes and the surface of the water and Davette thought: That's the color of his skin! Pale moonlight!
But she didn't think much. Instead, she blushed. For there was no way to avoid the pointed directness of his gaze or the fact that she continued to approach him. And she wondered once more which was more exciting - that she was behaving this way or that she knew what she was doing.
In any case, they continued to approach, still holding hands, until they came to a stop before him. He smiled at them. They smiled back at him. Then they looked at each other and giggled and turned and dove into the water and it was that, that flash of cold and clarity she felt in her icy spring swimming pool, that would come to haunt her later on.
It sobered her up. Immediately. What had been a gentle night of wicked secrets turned instantly into a cold, clammy, degrading sense of... cheapness. Of loss. What am I doing here? Was I drunk or drugged or what?
When she came to the surface she gasped in shame and turned and saw Kitty and she could tell from her shadowed gaze that she was feeling the same thing. The gritty stone on the side of the bank only added to the sense of shoddiness. She pushed her hair back away from her eyes and face, not looking at Ross, not even looking at Kitty.
I must look at him. I have to. She did.
And she cringed.
He looks like a pimp, she thought. Lounging there in those incredibly tacky tight - what are they? toreador? - pants, he looked not at all like what he had seemed. He looked more like...
How odd! He looks like an imitation of all of that!
How odd. But how degrading. She grasped the side of the pool and vaulted out of the water, shedding drops in all directions, and skipped toward the poolhouse toward warmth and composure. She wanted to try to cover herself with her hands and she started to. But then that seemed silly after all that had happened, and maybe, even rude, so her hands stopped halfway and then she saw that Ross was in front of her, between her and the poolhouse and holding up a towel.
How, she wondered, did he get all the way around the pool in front of her so fast?
He was there, though, which was the point. She didn't want to see him or talk to him or - God no! - have him touch her. But she couldn't really avoid the towel because that really would be rude. She stopped just short of him, arms clasped in front of her chest for warmth, and turned her back to allow him to drape the towel about her shoulders and... and as he draped the towel the side of his hand touched her shoulder and there was that tingle once more and the chill flashed on her skin...
And the towel seemed to... coil... about her.
Like a knowing glove.
"Davette!" he whispered.
There was no alternative but to turn and face him and when she did she faced his glowing eyes and they held her and swelled down within her and the heat, the trembling frenzy, the... wicked ache... returned.
And soon it seemed they were back inside - Kitty with them, really with them - and they were laughing and hugging as they walked on either side of him, both women naked once more.
Into the kitchen, because they were starving. For steak. A big, thick super-rare steak, that was the craving. They sat Ross at the little counter that ran the length of the great house's great kitchen while the two of them, still naked, prepared the meal.
Still naked. Bright kitchen lights and cold floor and no reason for it at all except to be... nasty and wanton and...
And as she talked to the Team she didn't describe the way the two of them, she and Kitty, danced around in front of him making that meal. How could she tell them about it... how could she ever have behaved that way? Stretching up high to reach this, reaching way across him to get that. Bending over farther than she needed to for something else... She crimsoned at just the memory of it, of how she and Kitty, carnal tension sputtering in the air, had competed to see who could act like the cheaper tramp.
No. She couldn't tell about that.
But she could tell them about the food.
"Ross never eats," Kitty said chidingly when he said he didn't want a steak.
Ross's face had gone hard and he had used that Voice when he replied that he had his own diet and the smile he gave as he spoke softened it not at all. Davette had almost jumped at the tone, had felt a brief shiver of fear.
But learned nothing. She merely resolved not to question him about so sensitive a topic again.
The erotic atmosphere had been restored to its original tightness by the time the meal was prepared. Davette sat down but knew she was far too excited to eat.
"But you must be hungry," whispered Ross, gazing deep through her eyes. "You haven't eaten in twenty-four hours. And look at that thick juicy steak. Just what you need."
And even as he spoke she felt her hunger rush back so strongly that nothing in the world seemed more tempting than the smell of that food. She fell upon the steak like a starving beast.
"All better?" he asked pleasantly when she had finished.
Davette looked up, surprised. She had forgotten he was there, forgotten anyone was there, forgotten everything but eating. She looked down and saw her plate was totally clean.
How weird, she had thought at the time. Like I was in some sort of a spell or something.
Of course she was in a spell. His spell. A spell he could twist and curl as it suited him. With a knowing smile, he gazed their passions back into them.
Seconds later the three of them ascended the steps to her room and there, in the utter darkness he insisted upon, Davette sought within her some sense of shame as she lay listening to the couple embrace beside her on her cool sheets. But she could find no sense of shame or jealousy or anything other than pounding, aching need for her turn to come soon.
Soon, it did, and with it a bizarre hope that her cries would be as loud and thrilling as Kitty's.
When Davette paused a moment and Felix leaned forward to hand her the glass of water, she felt the heavy silence of the motel room. She realized she had looked at nothing besides the floor and Felix's face for the past, two hours and she made herself look up and face their troubled expressions. They gazed uneasily back and she knew it was out of concern for her - she could read that. But she knew it was from embarrassment also. For the sexual charge was as heavy as the silence.
It's not your fault! she wanted to shout.
But she knew they wouldn't believe her. Not yet. They wouldn't understand that it was not them, it was a piece of them. A piece the magic had tainted her with and a piece she now passed on.
They wouldn't understand.
Still, she should try. And she did. She tried to tell them about the feeling of the bite, about the warping volcanic pleasure rolling through you, vibrating and caressing and powering you deep into your memory and far into your fantasies.
"Didn't it hurt?"
She stopped, looked around. It was Carl Joplin. His face softened and he smiled at her.
"I'm sorry, sugar. But we are talking about someone biting you."
"And sucking your blood out," added Cat.
Carl nodded, but his tone remained gentle. "And sucking your blood. It must - "
"But you don't know that!" insisted Davette. "You aren't aware. You don't know you're losing blood. There's so much else going on, you.
"You mean he's also..." whispered Annabelle before catching herself and blushing.
Davette's voice was harsh and bitter. "No. No sex. Vampires can't have sex. Oh, the women can... pretend. And they do. But it isn't real. It isn't life. They're dead."