and a tuft of flame erupted. Lilith's face was in the circle of light, but that was impossible, because she was beside him. Her black dress made her body invisible, and for a moment her face and hands appeared to be floating unattached in the air. He let go of her hair, or whatever he was touching, and jumped back as she lit a candle.
'We should have a fire,' she whispered, her voice husky. Roth looked down at his hand and saw that it was covered with cobwebs. He yelped, then wiped his hand on his pants.
She giggled. 'Did that scare you, Mr. Roth?'
'I hate spiders, remember? Ever since I was nine and got one in me mouth when I was crawling around under the porch. Had nightmares for a week after.'
'Poor boy. You're safe with me.'
'I hope not too safe, eh? I live for danger, and you're looking pretty bleeding dangerous, love.'
As the candle caught and flared, he could make out the dim corners of the room, wondering if spiders lurked in the shadows. Six feet from anywhere, they said. As long as they stayed six feet away. He noticed an alcove that had another candle in it. How had she lit that one? He thought maybe the room led into another, but then saw Lilith's back and his own face. A mirror, as large as the bed beneath it, reflecting the room. Kinky bird.
He licked his lips and ran his tongue over his teeth. The room was small and the walls were stone masonry, so thick that no sound would escape. Maybe she liked to get in full voice while having a go. That was fine with Roth.
The room was empty of furniture besides the bed, and that bothered Roth for a moment. There were no blankets on the mattress, only an old linen sheet that looked like it could use a wash. The place was as dismal as a monk's cell. But he forgot all that when Lilith placed the candle on the hearth and sat on the bed, looking up at him with wanton eyes.
Black eyes. Deeper than a Newcastle coal shaft. He didn't see the things he wanted to see. He liked his birds to have a little fear, or at least a little performance anxiety. Made them try harder to please.
But he wasn't going to get particular. One was the same as another, when all was said and done. And her skin looked creamy enough. He would have thought she might blush a little, but she only smiled again, and something about the smile bothered him.
'You won't get in trouble, will you? Having it on with the guests?' he asked, more to break the suffocating silence than because he cared.
'Miss Mamie says guest satisfaction is the key to repeat business,' she said, and again that devilish smile was on her lips. For a moment, Roth felt like the seduced instead of the seducer. But that was ridiculous. It was his fame, his charm, his aura of power that had swayed her. His name on a thousand glossy photo credits.
His heart pounded harder and he moved across the room to the bed. She lay back on the sheet, spreading her arms, opening herself to him.
'Am I as pretty as a picture, Mr. Roth?'
He gulped. Maybe it was all that wine he'd tossed back, but he was getting aroused too fast. He felt like an idiot schoolboy looking at a girlie mag. He didn't like to lose control. No bird could play with his emotions that easily.
Her breasts had flattened out beneath the neckline of her dress, and she raised her knees so that her legs were spread. Her dress slid along her thighs, and Roth couldn't tear his gaze away from the shadowy space between her hips. He'd never been this turned on.
Or maybe it was the house, the odd tingle he'd felt in the back of his head since. he'd arrived. The tingle seemed to grow more intense and spread through his limbs. Fire, that's what it was. A mild flush of warmth expanding into a glow.
He knelt, wanting to touch her. He'd have to take it slow, or he'd become an animal. He didn't want to just have a slam, he wanted to go nice and easy. He liked that. He liked to hear them beg to be finished off.
But now he was afraid he was slipping, that the power and control had shifted, that she was the one calling the shots. His hands trembled as he reached for her, and he was suddenly angry with himself. He never trembled. He'd taken photos of charging rhinos from thirty feet, with a handheld camera, and they'd come out as clear and focused as an eye chart.
So he did what he always did when he wanted to prolong or deny his passion: he thought about his work. The batch of negatives he'd developed that afternoon. Something about them bothered him, but he couldn't remember at the moment. Definitely the wine had gotten him. And his anger at Spence had clouded his thoughts, too. Well, only one way to drive out the devil.
He put his hands on her bare lower thighs. Her skin was tepid, the same temperature as the room. Odd, but he'd warm her up soon enough. Nothing like a bit of friction for that. But not yet.
Roth climbed onto the bed, thought about removing his pants, then decided to wait. Lilith's hands were on his shoulders, around his neck, pulling his face to hers. What the hell, no use making her suffer any longer. For some reason, her lack of body heat excited him further. Maybe it was this blooming crypt of a room that chilled her. He took it as a personal challenge to stoke her fires.
His lips pressed against hers, her tongue uncertain in her mouth. For a bird with such a fast come-on, she was acting like she'd never kissed before. He hesitated, because something was wrong with the inside of her mouth.
Roth pressed himself down on top of Lilith, her body molding to his even through the dress. Her breasts compressed under him and he liked the feeling. But he was careful not to like it too much. Nice and easy was the ticket, even though his blood pounded hard through his flesh. What was it about the inside of her mouth?
It was just like the rest of her, a little too cool. What was the temperature under the ground, a constant fifty-six degrees or something? But surely her mouth should be hot, and not quite so dry. It was almost like shoving his tongue into a coat pocket. He hoped she wasn't this dry everywhere else.
Lilith moaned into his mouth. Didn't she have any juice?
She writhed under him, so he forgot about the awkwardness of her tongue. He reached out for the shoulder of her dress. He started to pull it lower, to expose more of her flesh to the candlelight.
'Yes,' she gasped.
'Yes,' came another voice.
Bloody hell?
Probably just an echo off the stone walls. A trick of the acoustics.
But the dead air of the room gobbled sound and swallowed it whole instead of bouncing it back and forth.
Roth caught a flicker of movement that distracted him from the blood rushing below his waist. Then he remembered the mirror and looked up at it. Maybe watching him and the lovely lass beneath him would rekindle his arousal.
In the mirror his face grew larger, as if he were watching himself through a fast-zooming lens. And why was that so wrong?
It was only a split second, but plenty of time for him to notice that the mirror was falling onto the bed, onto them, as if in slow motion. And that sheet of glass must weigh a hundred pounds. If it broke If it broke, he would be badly cut.
Badly.
But he couldn't move, Lilith had her limbs locked around him, and bloody hell, she was strong, he grunted as he tried to fight her off, but she had too many arms, too many, scratching and clutching at him, and he saw her reflection in the mirror and she wasn't Lilith, she was a black spider, squat and thick, pincers twitching near his lips, searching for a soul kiss.
Black widow, his mind screamed at him, she always eats her mate.
Looking up, he hardly recognized his reflection, eyes large, his mouth a black tunnel, the stems of Lilith's eight arms clasping him, the barbs of her fore-limbs in his flesh.
But before the pain could spin its web, the mirror was upon him, and as the glass shattered, it wasn't his face in the mirror, it was Korban's.
Then the silver shards sliced into his flesh and Lilith loosed her venom and he was in the long dark tunnel and Ephram Korban smiled at him, holding up a spoon that squirmed with the frantic scrabbling of spiders.
'Time for a spot of tea, Mr. Roth,' Korban said.
'How is our statue coming along?' Miss Mamie hoped her impatience was buried deep, just as all her
