Dead Mans Hand

10:00 P.M.

"Bring me my cloak," Blaise said.

The boy's mouth still glistened from Ezili's juices. Ti Malice, his eyes alive and avid, clung to his neck, talking with his tongue. When it grew quiet, you could hear a faint sucking sound, like an infant nursing at its mother's tit.

Hiram came forward with the cloak. It was heavy purple felt, the inside lined with black satin. He helped Blaise into it, fussing with the drape the way he sometimes fussed with Jay's suits. The cloak was too long for Blaise; the end of it trailed in the dirt. Hiram made adjustments. Then he lifted the voluminous hood, pulling it forward over the boy's head, concealing the bright red hair and the thing riding on his back. With the ties knotted around his throat, his face shadowed, Blaise looked like a hunchback.

"I will ride this mount into the world," Ti Malice announced through Blaise. "Ezili, you will accompany me. Dress."

Ezili rose from the mattress, sleek and lazy as a cat. Her smooth, coffee-colored skin was still spattered with blood. She saw Jay watching her, smiled, and ran a tongue across her lips as she bent to pick up her dress.

"Hiram," Jay said, begging, "please." The thought of Blaise wandering through the streets of Atlanta, with his awesome mind-control powers at the disposal of Ti Malice, frightened him witless. "You don't realize how powerful Blaise is. You don't know what you're turning loose."

Ezili laughed as she slipped into her dress, pulled it down around her breasts. "Are you sure of that, little one?" Hiram didn't hear a word. "When will you return?"

"When I grow bored with the new mount," Ti Malice replied in the boy's familiar voice. Blaise reached up, touched Hiram's beard, gently stroked his cheek. "You shall not want for my kiss," he promised. Hiram smiled.

"What about Ackroyd, master?" Sascha asked.

Blaise turned his body. The boy's violet eyes stared at Jay, and he could almost feel the other eyes on him, the ones hidden in the blackness beneath the hood. "I will try the other mount when I return," Blaise said. "Keep it safe for me."

Jay tried once more. "Hiram!" he yelled.

Hiram opened the cellar door. Blaise swirled his cloak around him as he turned, and climbed up into the Atlanta night.

Monday July 25, 1988