Noah could smell carrion, the reek of her breath.
Abruptly, Lara sighed and fell back gracefully on to the floor.
'Lara,' Noah breathed, leaning over her. 'Lara. Are you all right?'
She laughed and wriggled her body on the rug. 'Oh, yes .' Without opening her eyes, she reached up for him, dragged him down. When he kissed her, he tasted brandy, the flame of it.
'Thank you,' she murmured, between kisses. 'Thank you.'
Her skin was hot beneath his hand, exuding the last warmth of her perfume. He made love to her where she lay, wondering if she was fully in this world or not. It didn't matter. She was a dream come to life, a woman who could walk alone into the dark and come back laughing and smelling of flowers.
Afterwards, she lay naked beside him, smoking a cigarette. 'What the hell was there to be scared of?' she said. 'Have I brought anything back with me? No. And believe me, I willed it.'
Noah lay on his side, stroking her taut belly. 'What did it — he — look like?'
She grimaced. 'Pretty much how you'd think. At first, he was crouched down, wrapped in this immense cloak of black feathers. It looked like it had been made from the whole wings of a single vulture. I could just see the slits of his eyes peering over the top. He looked like a vulture himself like a vampire! Although he was crouched down, I could tell he was a giant; magnificent, wise and savage.'
'That's pretty powerful imagery,' Noah said.
'Then he stood up and opened his cloak of wings. Beneath it, he was dressed in animal skins. His body was covered in some kind of paint, but it wasn't blood. There were patterns in it like primitive cave paintings. He did have bones in his hair and wore a necklace of bones. Bird bones, I think. You'll be pleased to know he had pointy teeth. All of them.'
'Filed down?'
'Probably.' She took a fierce draw of her cigarette. 'Oh, I don't know. Maybe I saw what I wanted to see, or was influenced by what you said earlier.'
'What about what he said through you?'
'I don't know. It was as if he'd known me before, obviously. He seemed to know you too, in a way. Lamech was the father of Noah in biblical myth, wasn't he?'
Noah nodded, uncomfortable with the idea that the entity might be aware of him.
'If the whole thing wasn't subjective,' Lara said, 'maybe I lived in his time once. Maybe we were lovers. I certainly felt really horny when I came out of it.'
'He doesn't sound very attractive!'
Lara stubbed out her cigarette and reached for Noah's crotch. 'Oh, but he was! Beautiful, in fact. His eyes were amazing, this deep piercing blue. Christ, I wanted him to possess me. Utterly. It was the archetypal thing.' She laughed huskily. 'I'd have been quite happy for him to sink his teeth into me.'
Noah leaned over and nipped the skin of her throat. 'Come on, let's go to bed. It's getting cold in here.'
They made love several more times. Noah felt euphoric, hardly daring to believe a woman such as this could come into his life. She was full of humour and warmth, serious about her ability yet amusingly irreverent. She was uninhibited, open, mysterious and fey. A witch woman. A priestess.
'Where have you been all my life?' Noah said.
'I bet you say that to all the girls,' she replied, and they giggled like children at the stupid cliches for several minutes.
About four o'clock, Lara said she was tired and turned on to her side in the bed. Noah studied her for some time, drinking in each detail of her smooth contours, the spill of dark hair upon the pillow. He passed his hand in the air above her body, and she squirmed and made a sound of pleasure as if she felt him stroking her aura.
'Beauty,' he whispered. 'Love.' He lay down to sleep, closing his eyes with the after-image of her white flesh burning in his mind.
Waking came with a shock in the grey of pre-dawn twilight.
He was aware at once of cold, and saw that the bed beside him was empty. A terrified pang of loss coursed through him, then he saw her clothes still draped on the pale wicker chair by the window and told himself she had gone to the bathroom, or else to get herself a drink.
He lay on his back and pulled the duvet over his chilled torso. A hiss in the corner of the room made him start.
'Lara?'
He sat up. Most of the room was still in shadow, but he thought he could make out a dark shape hunched in the corner near his clothes rail. 'Lara'
He reached to turn on the bedside lamp, but the switch did not respond. The bulb must have gone.
Again, a hiss, low and sibilant.
Something moved in the shadows, sidled forward. He saw the eyes clearly first: a deep piercing blue. She was naked and had covered herself in what looked like dark paint, which was possible because there were a few tins left in the garage. Her hair was wild and straw-like, filled with a sticky substance. Her tongue protruded unnaturally from her mouth, like that of the destroyer goddess, Kali. Her teeth could not possibly be pointed. There were no tools in his house she could have used to do that. She hissed and stamped with one foot.
'Lara.'
He got out of bed slowly. This was so different to the time before with Sarah. Lara wasn't screaming. She wasn't raving or weeping.
