Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

and shrewish, and she wanted him in her bed with her more than anything, to hold and rock and caress and nurture and help. She was so, so sorry.

She grabbed the phone and called. And got the machine. And didn't leave a message. And called again, and did leave a message.

When she stood up, she almost toppled over again. She needed some coffee, at least. The night before the morning after had ripped her up and spit her out. She had to sort it out; she'd make it up to both of them.

He was waiting for her in the living room, and her heart leapt at the sight of him. Until he didn't move.

'Andy?'

His naked body was huddled in front of the fireplace… motionless… cold… dead. She ran to kneel in front of him, and her knee skidded across the gelatinous curdling puddle of his midnight blood. He was impaled on one of the andirons… a cold satay, skewered from behind, basted in his own blood. Horrified, she slid back against the wall, urging down her bile as she remembered the night's events… the fight, the Xanax, the hurt and anger…

And the Dream.

Her Dream.

Her taste of the Power.

'I don't want it!' she screamed. 'No more fucking dreams!'

DeVICE Stephen Gallagher

I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to hear this. I mean, it is pretty disgusting.

But I was sitting there in the corner of Flanagan's bar on Christmas Eve, on my own and starting to realize that I wasn't going to be meeting up with anyone that I knew after all, when this expensive coat with a bony old guy rattling around in it — he must have been at least seventy, and he was as white and frail as a scrap of rice paper — sat down across from me and, without even a hello or an introduction, said, 'How would you like to make a thousand dollars for one night's work?'

I sighed and looked around the place. Christmas Eve seemed to be losers' night at Flanagan's; I mean, let's face it, nobody was going to be here if they had somewhere real to go.

And I said, 'Thanks, but I don't do that kind of thing.'

My friend Colin, he used to do that kind of thing. Colin was the one who told me the story about how he'd gone from this very bar to the hotel room of a visiting Japanese businessman, where for once all that he'd had to do had been to lie there without the guy even laying a finger on him. Apparently the man had used chopsticks. A wank, Colin would say, is just too coarse a word for it. I used to like Colin but we don't see much of him around, anymore. These days he spends a lot of his time checking for skin blemishes in a magnifying mirror and wondering if he'll ever be able to get up the nerve to go for a blood test.

But this big-money Methuselah said, 'You don't understand,' and, with the air of a man satisfied that he'd at last found the one he'd been looking for, he started to unbutton his coat. My heart sank, the way that it does when you open the door and realize that it's somebody who wants to talk about your salvation and you just lost the option of hiding behind the furniture until he goes away.

'I'm sorry,' I said, 'but I'm really not interested.'

'A thousand before and a thousand on completion,' he said. 'And I'll guarantee that it'll involve nothing that affects you in any direct or personal way.'

'And it doesn't involve chopsticks?' I said suspiciously, but he didn't understand.

Listen, I've got my pride.

But Christmas Eve is no time to be broke.

We went out to his car. It was a big Mercedes, and it had a driver in a uniform. The driver didn't even look at me as I got in. I sat there uneasily. The old man sat alongside, dropping back gratefully into the upholstery as if the evening so far had been something of a physical ordeal for him. Our arrangement was that I was going to hear him out, look the job over and then, if I didn't like the setup, I could walk and I'd still have five hundred for my trouble. It was all so painless, I hardly realized I was being carried along with it until I looked back and saw the Flanagan's neon disappearing into the night.

There was rain on the car's window. I was spending my Christmas Eve sitting in a strange car on my way to hear about a job which I just knew was going to be something dubious, at best. It made me feel pretty low.

But the thought of the money made me feel a little better.

He had a big house on the hill above town, with a big wall around it and gates on the driveway that opened at a signal. I looked back and saw them closing again behind us and the man said, 'I can see you're nervous. But please don't be.' And I tried to look as if I wasn't.

I mean, you hear things. I reckon I can take care of myself, but that driver — he looked as if he wouldn't have seemed out of place in a bloodstained apron with a beef carcass under each arm. And who could say what else was going to be waiting on the other side of that big door under a vast stone portico where only a single light burned?

We went up the steps. The car headed off around behind the house somewhere. The door was open before we reached it. The old guy held back and gestured me in, smiling, like I was some honored guest instead of a hireling that he'd picked up in a dive. There was a maid waiting in the hallway, and she offered to take my jacket, but I kept it on. She wore a uniform, too. One of those with a little hat and an apron. It might have been quite sexy if she hadn't been almost the same age as her employer. She didn't seem at all surprised to see me.

'Please,' the old man said. 'Follow Elspeth up to the library. Make yourself comfortable. I'll join you in just a few moments.'

The library? I was moving up in the world. Most of the time I tended to reckon that I was in a cultured household if there was a book in it somewhere, even if it was only holding up a table leg. But this place didn't just have books, it had a library.

And it looked like one, too. It was all polished wood and red velvet and deep leather chairs with buttons on them. The books lined every wall and even went across the top of the door, and there wasn't a paperback among them. The maid asked me if I wanted anything to drink, and I said I'd like a beer, and she brought it to me a few minutes later on a silver tray with what I guessed had to be a crystal glass. After that she withdrew and left me alone. The old boy seemed loaded, all right.

But given that I'd told him how I was nobody's idea of rough trade, I still couldn't guess what he might need from little old me.

Nothing happened for a while and so I went over to look at the shelves. Most of the titles were foreign; I recognized some German, but most of the others I didn't recognize at all. I took one down and flicked through the pages. It was a picture book.

But, the pictures. .

I mean, I thought I'd been around. But as soon as I saw the one with the donkey I realized that I hadn't — at least, not as much as some of these people, and it was no great matter for regret. Just to give you an example, there was this woman and this man and they were… well, I've got my own idea of what constitutes a hot lunch, and that isn't it.

I never heard him coming in. When he cleared his throat, I slammed the book shut and I could feel my face burning redder than a desert sunset. As I fumbled it back into its place on the shelf, he was smiling. His eyes were a very pale blue, the palest blue I've ever seen. His weariness seemed to have vanished, and I wondered if he'd been off to take a shot of something. I think he might have been wearing makeup, just a hint. I didn't want to get close enough to be sure.

'My collection,' he said. 'I can see you've been getting acquainted with it.'

'Strictly as an outsider,' I said. 'I'm not into that kind of stuff.'

'Don't worry,' he said. 'Don't worry. All I'm proposing for you is a half-hour's wait around followed by a cab