Incubi

the need, perhaps, to be free of the mansion’s walls, which reminded her of the walls she’d built around her life. The warm night’s open space took the edge off some of her comedown. Suddenly she felt like running, breaking free into the beautiful gulf of night. I’ll run forever, she thought. I’ll never stop. I’ll run to the end of the world.

The fantasy seemed nearly absolving.

“Over here.”

Amy glanced to the back of the yard. A figure in white stood by the fence beyond the pool. It seemed to hover in place, an illusion caused by the soft moonlight floating on the water.

“Run!” the figure bid. “Follow me!”

The figure disappeared through the open gate into the woods. It was just a game, Amy realized. She didn’t care. She ran after.

The dark path twisted through dense, tall trees. She felt blissful somehow, chasing a stranger through the woods. The moon lit the narrow path with dapples of light. As her feet propelled her forward, she thought of a steadicam scene in one of her movies. The determined protagonist in wistful pursuit of the truth. What a wonderful symbol! Chasing the pure white of revelation through darkness. To what would the mad chase lead?

The white figure blurred just ahead, vanishing around each bend. Who was he? Where was he taking her? These questions occurred to her but to no real significance. She was the protagonist, chasing truth. That’s all that mattered.

Around the next bend, the figure was gone.

Where could he be hiding? Behind the trees? Amy slowed to a cautious walk, peering ahead. Another twist in the story. Suddenly the truth evades the steadfast protagonist, leaving her to wander amid the darkness of her own uncertainly. She’d been led deliberately to the point of being lost; now she must find her own way out. The symbol of every woman’s plight: alone, in darkness.

She walked ahead one step at a time, watching, listening, her hands splayed as if feeling for trip wires. An owl hooted, and she nearly shrieked. Unseen animals rustled in the woods, sensing her presence. The protagonist as trespasser, delving into unknown terrains.

When she rounded the next bend, the kiosk appeared.

It looked like a latticework of crystal in the moonlight. Khoronos had shown it to her the morning she’d arrived. Was that who beckoned her now? Khoronos? The figure stood in wait of her, directly in the kiosk’s center.

The end of the chase, Amy pondered. The protagonist finds what she seeks at the end of her own darkness.

Herself.

She saw herself standing in the kiosk, beautiful and naked in the moonlight. Radiant. Pure. Her smile was bright, like the sun. it was the Amy Vandersteen of the past, not the present. The real woman, not the slave. The tranquility before the storm. The artist uncorrupted.

The words tolled like distant bells. Before you can love others, you must learn to love yourself.

This impossibility did not distract her. She shed her clothes as she crossed the kiosk’s wooden floor, until she was standing before herself.

“Come to me,” her past said to her present. The figure’s arms opened to her. “We must free ourselves.”

Was this a flashback? A hallucinotic jag triggered by years of drug abuse? She remained rooted in the moment’s image, and its meaning. Nothing could be so important. Nothing in the world.

The final scene. Close-up of protag’s face, eyes wide half in fear, half in wonder. She feels the summons, the space between them drawing in. This is the ultimate moment of self-awareness, where the woman of flesh becomes wed to the woman of spirit. At last the protagonist finds what she’s been looking for. Her perfect self. Her womanhood undefiled.

“Kiss me,” the image said.

Amy and Amy embraced. She felt a surge like electricity as her flesh made contact with her flesh. Her cheek brushed her cheek. Her hands caressed her buttocks, and her breasts pressed against her breasts.

“Save me,” she whispered into her own ear.

At last the protagonist makes love to herself.

Their embrace tightened. Amy closed her eyes—

pater terrae

and kissed—

per me

her own—

terram ambula

lips.

“Aorista,” the image croaked.

Amy’s eyes shot open. She gagged as the foot-long tongue slid down her throat, and the penis, even longer, opened the moist rim of her sex and burrowed up straight into her womb. Her nerves pulsed like gorging veins, every muscle in her body flexing against the instantaneous avalanche of her own orgasms, and next she was lowered quickly to the kiosk’s moon-drenched floor, and her legs were pushed back as the penetration deepened in and out of her flesh, each thrust giving her a new climax which hammered the breath out of her chest with sensations of pleasure she could never even have conceived, and when her suitor’s own orgasm burst, endless cold gouts pumping into her loins, all she could see was the face of this unholy deception, this ruse of night—

Not her own face at all.

It was a devil’s face.

Chapter 29

“Jesus Christ!” Faye exclaimed. “Where have you been?”

Jack looked up from the kitchen table, startled. “I—”

“I’ve been sitting in that goddamn bar for hours.” She set her briefcase on the table, less than gracefully, and sat down. “We didn’t know where you were.”

“I just got back,” he said meaninglessly.

“From where? Another bar?”

“No,” was all he said.

Lay off, she thought. The last thing he needs right now is you yelling at him. “I was worried, that’s all,” she said more quietly. Did that sound trite? Did that sound girlie? “I heard about what happened, Jack. About the case. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.”

Jack shrugged. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. It doesn’t matter. I was burned-out and out of control, and they needed someone to blame the no-progress investigation on when the press got wind of the case. Two birds with one stone.”

“What are you going to do about—”

“About my drinking?” He smiled forlornly. “Quit. No choice. And, no, I haven’t had anything today.”

“I wasn’t going to ask that,” she said.

He held the odd, skewed smile and lit a cigarette. “There’s this snide chump named Noyle running the case now. He’ll probably abandon the ritual angle as a basis of the investigation.”

“In other words, I’m out of a job.”

“Looks that way. I’ll find out tomorrow. Just give everything you’ve got to him, and that’ll be it.”

That’ll be it. At least she’d gotten to do something different for a few days. “Craig said he saw Susan Lynn’s murderers.”

“Yeah,” Jack acknowledged, “and he must’ve also told you that they were in the bar several hours but no one remembers their faces.”