Incubi

as a cop.”

I already am, he thought slowly. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and left the station.

I’ve failed, he thought. Myself, and everyone.

Chapter 26

Voices. Words.

White light like mist oozed through black like onyx.

Was she dreaming?

Transposition — You are not yet ready to transpose. — Imagine your passion. Which are you, Veronica? Real or fake? — Let the image transpose… Tainted-tainted-tainted…

Veronica roused. Aw, God. She’d fallen asleep at her work desk. Her mouth and eyes felt sealed shut; they opened stickily. She’d worked all day and all night, hadn’t she? Again she could not remember at first. After Khoronos’ guidance in the room of mirrors, she’d worked until 4:30 a.m. and had fallen asleep.

What strange dreams, if they’d been dreams at all. They’d been more like fragments of dreams tossed haphazardly into her head. Transposition. Awake or asleep, the word haunted her. Though she believed she understood its artistic meaning now, she couldn’t escape the suspicion that more of its meaning lay hidden, and that Khoronos wanted it that way. Why should she think such a thing, though? Khoronos had revived her, had given her a creative vision she hadn’t thought herself capable of. In three days she’d developed more as an artist than she had in the last three years.

Then the final mutterings of the dream idled back. Tainted-tainted-tainted. She is tainted. Who had Khoronos been talking about? Who was tainted?

Did he mean me?

She hadn’t dreamed of the burning man, though. Perhaps the vision had completed itself in the mirrored room, had shown itself fully, leaving her to paint it without distraction.

She rubbed her eyes, stood up. I’m a mess, she thought. She was flecked, spotted, and smudged with paint. She reeked of linseed oil. When she glanced down at her work, her breath froze.

The background was done. Every detail of the dreamscape lay before her on the tight, primed canvas. The grotto’s pits and rabbets, the rough curvature of its black rock walls. Each pointillistic feature melded to convey the background’s subterraneous dimension. Veronica could feel the transcension of the colors, and the image of the bottomless infinitude.

She’d never delved into such techniques before, utilizing impressionistic strokes and devices to communicate an expressionistic vision, an intercourse of opposites. Yet here she had used those opposites…perfectly.

Yes. This…is…perfect, she realized.

The rush of joy flooded her, exhilaration like soaring heavenward. Perfect denoted the unachievable, yet that’s what she felt she achieved. The background was perfect.

And now it was time to unleash the theme. It was time to paint herself in hand with the burning man.

As she sat back down to work, she felt as though she were being watched from above, or looked upon by gods.

* * *

Devils, Jack thought. It was not what the old man had said as much as how he’d said it. It just…bothered him, like a jag of deja vu. Why the hell should I care, anyway? he reminded himself. He was off the case.

“Shooter, Jack?”

“I’d love one,” Jack admitted, “but I’m through with booze, for good. How many times you heard guys say that?”

“Hundreds,” Craig said. Jack didn’t know if he was joking or serious. The Undercroft was empty in its post- happy-hour lull. Craig stacked glasses in the rack, whistling something by Elvis Costello. At this moment, just the two of them there, the bar felt haunted. Devils, Jack thought again.

“I got suspended today,” he finally said.

“Suspended?” Craig questioned. “Why?”

“Drinking. Fucking up the case.” He shrugged.

“Well, sometimes fucking up is the best thing we can do. When we see how stupid we can get, we keep ourselves in check.”

“Good point. Too bad I still want a drink.”

“Here you go.” Craig set down a shooter. “A virgin Mary. That’s tomato juice and vodka, without the vodka.”

Jack shot it back. “Thanks, I needed that.”

He thumbed through a local magazine called The Critique, one of several TSD had found in Susan Lynn’s bedroom. It contained a poem called “Love-Epitaph,” which seemed grimly fitting. It was the last poem Susan Lynn would ever have published.

“But I’ll tell you, Jack,” Craig continued. “A bar isn’t the place to be if you’re trying to quit.”

“The test of will is man’s ultimate power. It’s true, I read it on the bathroom wall the other night.”

“Try this.” Craig set down a brown bottle. “Drink like a killer, think like a killer.”

It was Patrizier, the nonalcoholic stuff that Susan Lynn’s murderers had ordered. “Not bad,” he said after a sip. “Know what it tastes like?”

“Beer without alcohol.”

“Right.”

Craig went down into the pit to load the reach-ins. Jack turned to the page of the magazine that carried Susan Lynn’s poem.

This bar is my grave and my power. Amid it even my own demons cower to these wan nights which slaver and devour like the strange faceless men who come and pluck me like a flower.

You hit a homer with this one, honey, Jack thought. Had she been writing about the Undercroft? Power. Demons. Faceless. He closed the magazine and slid it away.

“Would you cheer up!” Craig yelled, coming back up. “Every day above ground is a good day. It’s true, I read it on the bathroom wall.”

Jack knew he was putting off the question. Through his pants pocket he could feel the print of his HPCs. “I also read your phone number on the bathroom wall, didn’t I?”

“You must’ve put it there after the last time you fucked me.”

“I’m a cop, I fuck people every day. It’s my job,” Jack said. But it probably won’t be for long, he reminded himself. “Actually I need your advice. I need some more of that barkeeper’s wisdom.”

Craig flipped a Marlboro Light into the air and caught the filter end in his mouth. “Shoot.”

“When does an ethical person know when it’s time to do something unethical?”

“Since when are you ethical?”

“Funny.”

“Are we talking legal or illegal?”

“Let’s just say that my intentions do not fully conform to the parameters of the law.”

“I don’t know if I should hear this, Jack. Isn’t there a little something in the books about accessory foreknowledge? Failure to report the knowledge of a second party’s criminal intent?”

“Are you a bartender or a fucking lawyer? Call it creepery with intent to mope.”

“Is that anything like balling with intent to hold hands?”

Jack laughed. “Now you’ve got it.”

“Here’s the best advice I can give you.” Craig struck a book match one-handed and lit up. “Ready? This is deep.”