Worlds Without End

19

Once, a human discovered what I was.

Like most curious men, he thought that the knowl- edge would gain him something. As though knowl- edge is a safe thing. Inert and powerless on its own.

It was 1998.

Fin de siecle fever was at an all-time high. There were riots and hysterical sightings of UFOs, messi- ahs, and dead celebrities. I'd bought my home in Scotland a few years earlier for an obscenely cheap price. An earldom, no less. Imagine, me a countess. It was to laugh.

I had settled into a smaller house on this property. The castle held no interest for me, being large and 'hard to maintain. I'd acquired quite a large fortune over my many eons. I could afford to take the, uh, long view on investments. There are some uses to being immortal-even if they're only financial.

It was from this vantage point that I was watching everything happening around me with great interest.

The signs were beginning. I knew it wouldn't be long before the magic returned.

So I began to gather together the things I would need to be prepared. For many centuries I'd hidden artifacts away, waiting for this time. It was on one such trip that I noticed him,

I'd just arrived from Scotland. The United States was still whole back then. The turmoil that would rip it apart was years away. Though I had spent many years in America over the last two centuries, I tried to stay away from the politics of the place. They seemed entirely too messy to me. But that's al- ways been the nature of freedom.

As I ran to catch my connecting flight to New Or- leans, I saw him. He was leaning against one of the pillars that lined the concourse in O'Hare. He wore a black T-shirt and faded blue jeans. A scuffed duf- fel bag lay at his feet like a lazy dog.

There was a look of intense concentration on his face, as though he were looking not at how I ap- peared, but at what was inside me. I didn't like it.

This was before the Awakening, and there was no way he could know what I really was for I'd found ways to disguise my true form. Oh, I appeared hu- man, for the most part. My features were more del- icate, perhaps, than most. And I was very thin. But my skin was as black as it ever was, and my hair was dark then, too. Some of the developments in the twenty-first century weren't all bad. I'd seen that blondes really don't have more fun, and I found that auburn really didn't suit me.

As I passed, the light reflected off his glasses, obscuring his eyes from me. I noticed that he had straw-colored hair sprinkled with a little gray. His beard was clipped neat and close, giving him an al- most scholarly look. But then I could see his eyes again and once more I had the sensation of being looked through.

Frowning, I turned and hurried on down the corri- dor. I wouldn't have given him another thought, ex- cept that he boarded my plane not more than fifteen minutes later.

He was the last passenger on, probably flying stand-by. But why was he on this flight? And why had he been standing there in the corridor, as though he were waiting for me?

But he passed by me, not even making eye con- tact. What an imagination I had, I thought. The idea that he was following me. It was nothing. A chance meeting of the eyes, nothing more.

Despite the air conditioning, the air was hot and soupy. The smell of beignets hit me as I walked through the airport. One of the charms of the New Orleans airport was the immediate realization that this place was like none other in the United States. That Puritan priggishness was utterly cast aside here.

Maybe it was the weather, or perhaps the strong hold the French had placed upon the place centuries before, but here there was no hand-wringing over drinking, or gambling, or eating. In short, it was heaven, of a sort.

I caught a cab to the Fairmont Hotel, a gorgeous place with nine-meter-high ceilings in the foyer, crystal chandeliers, thick rugs, and the almost phys- ical sensation of decadence. They also made the most fabulous pecan pie there. A southern confec- tion that I've never liked anywhere else.

As the elevator was closing to take me up to my room, I thought I caught a glimpse of Black T-shirt through the milling hotel guests, but I knew it must be my imagination.

The French Quarter was a five-minute walk from the hotel. New York was the only other place in America where history butts up so closely with the present. I went down Chartres Street, then cut over to Royal. The heavy smell of the olive trees in bloom sweetened the air and almost masked the odor of the river.

Lined in antique shops and small art houses, Royal was my favorite street in the Vieux Carre. Bourbon may have been more famous, but the smell of vomit every few steps always put me off. There were some beautiful homes at the eastern end of Bourbon, but they hardly made up for the foul smells and lingering air of dissipation.

I slipped into one of the antique galleries: de Pouilly's. Over the years I'd made friends with the owners of many of these stores. They knew me as selective and willing to pay well for what I wanted. In return, I expected them to keep quiet about my | visits and to let me… wander… in their shops. | The whole Quarter was rabbit-warrened. You might | enter an unpretentious storefront, only to discover a | maze of rooms that led you through any number of connected buildings. I doubt there was anyone who knew all the twists and turns in these places.

A middle-aged man approached me as I entered. He gave off the superior air of someone who just knew I wasn't the sort who could afford to buy here.

"May I help you?" he asked in a tone that let me know in no uncertain terms that he thought he couldn't.

I picked up a bronze piece (not a very good repro- duction at that) and turned it over as though considering.

"Tell Mr. Hyslop that Ms. Sluage is here," I said. I began fingering a porcelain bowl that looked to be an original Meissen. The clerk was obviously torn between telling me not to touch the pretties and trying to decide if I was, indeed, on speaking terms with his employer. Fear won out over officiousness, and he scuttled off like a cockroach.

A few minutes later (I was by now poking around in a large, intricately appointed armoire looking for secret doors), Mr. Hyslop appeared with the now very sweaty clerk in tow.

"Ms. Sluage," Mr. Hyslop said as he held out his hand. "It's so good to see you again. I trust you've been able to amuse yourself?"

As I backed out of the armoire and gave a little sneeze, Mr. Hyslop produced a handkerchief like a magician performing a trick.

"Bless you," he said as he pushed it into my hand. 'I always get the sneezes when I start looking into these old pieces. No matter how hard we try to keep up, they seem to bring the dust with them."

"That's quite all right," I said, taking the prof- fered hanky. "I was just investigating to see if I might want this piece."

"Take your time, take your time," Hyslop said as he waved his clerk away. The clerk slunk off to go harass a couple who'd just stepped inside from the sweltering October air.

"What I'd like to do is take a look at those items you've been keeping for me, and make some ar- rangements for their transport."

Hyslop looked a bit concerned. "Are you not sat- isfied with our arrangement?" he asked. "I thought that-"

"No, no," I said, cutting him off. "It's nothing like that. I've just finally settled down in one place and I'd like to spend some time enjoying the things I've bought."

"Of course," he replied. "How foolish of me. Please, this way."

I followed him through the shop into a series of dimly lit twisting and turning hallways. Then up three flights of narrow stairs painted over so many times there were lumpy bumps like Braille on the railing and walls. It was very quiet here. You couldn't hear any of the usual street noise that bub- bled through the Quarter day and night. He led me into his office, then fumbled around with his keys until he had the right one.

"Here we are," Hyslop said proudly as he flipped on the light switch.

The closet was small, but crammed to the top with arcana. Shelf after shelf with boxes labeled in a code we'd designed. One shelf held only boxes of books. Another, rare pottery. On yet another, articles of clothing. All had special significance. All were pre- cious only to those who knew what to look for.

I could feel the pull of the energy in that little closet.

"I doubt anyone has a better collection of oddities," Hyslop said. "I just recently added this." He pulled a small box from one of the shelves and opened it. Inside was a long white veil, the kind women wore for their weddings and first communions. "It is rumored to have belonged to Marie Laveau's daughter."

"I didn't know she had one," I said. "A daughter, that is."

Hyslop nodded vigorously. "She kept her hidden away. She was afraid that when she died, the whites might kill her to keep the Voodoo under control."

"More than likely to keep the people under con- trol," I said.

"That too, no doubt," Hyslop agreed.

"I'd like to look through these," I said, motioning to the closet.

"Of course," Hyslop said as he wiped his forehead with another clean white handkerchief. I wondered if he had a pocketful of them, magically pristine and freshly laundered.

"Alone," I said in a firm but kind voice. After all, I would need Hyslop and his unusual connections for some time to come.

"Of course," Hyslop said as he pocketed his hand- kerchief. "Just let me know when you're finished."

I smiled at him then, and he gave me a surprised smile back. I suppose I don't do that often. Smile, that is.

It took me the better part of the afternoon to go through the boxes. Most of the items were shams. The bones of some shamanistic practitioner, pur- ported to have special curative powers. Shrunken heads, embalmed monkey remains, fossilized eggs. Books supposedly written in Crowley's own hand detailing his cabalistic findings.

I'd taken care to hide my most precious finds among these harmless trifles. They would be over- looked with all the other folderol. One hopelessly obscure book of cabalistic writings revealed com- plexities of such an esoteric nature that even I had trouble following it. The challenge of it excited me.

There were other items as well: suspicious bones, the source of which I knew only too well. How had they come to this place again? And so obviously long ago.

There was also a small painting depicting a crea- ture I knew for a fact had not walked the face of this planet for at least seven thousand years. Yet here it was depicted in a piece that could not have been more than fifty years old.

I wrapped my treasures carefully and returned them to their innocuous hiding places.

I felt grimy and hungry all at once. It was almost five by Hyslop's grandfather clock. I pulled the chain to the light, then shut the closet door. It had an automatic lock, but I still jiggled the doorknob to see if it would open. It didn't.

On the whole, things were going well. I would have Hyslop crate everything up and ship it to my estate in Scotland. I'd already made the necessary arrangements with Customs^ so there would be little delay in my receiving them once I was back home. I felt quite smug and pleased with myself and de- cided that I needed a decadent dinner to celebrate. I picked up the phone on Hyslop's desk and made a reservation for one at Antoine's for eight o'clock. I would feast tonight.

Walking back to the Fairmont, I noticed a van parked on a comer of one of the side streets I passed. It was painted dull black and had reflector stick-on numbers on the back window: 666. I glanced inside the van as I passed. A man, about forty-five or — six with a scraggly beard, sat in the passenger-side seat. He had a large potbelly barely covered by a faded- gray T-shirt. Around his neck he wore a pentagram. I had obviously just seen-Satan's Van.

Uh oh, I thought. I better watch out because someone is going to come and carry me off in… Satan's Van. The Armageddon starts tonight be- cause-Satan's Van is in town. Oh, you better watch out, you better not cry, 'cause Satan's got his Van to- night. Satan's Van is coming to town.

I really needed dinner.

Antoine's was unchanged. I'd been coming there for years whenever I was in New Orleans. I knew it was a bit touristy, but I couldn't help myself. They had the most marvelous Baked Alaska.

The elderly maitre d' seated me at a small table in the front room. Like the rest of the buildings in the Quarter, Antoine's was made up of many rooms. People came through the front doors and disap- peared like they were going down Alice's rabbit hole. There was even a hidden door or two in the place.

I'd just ordered and was admiring myself in the mirror over my table when I saw him. The black T-shirt from the airport. Only he wasn't wearing a black T-shirt now. He never would have been al- lowed inside in that. He wore a black jacket over a white shirt and muddy green tie. The jeans had been set aside for dark trousers.

I didn't take my eyes away from his image in the mirror as he talked to the mattre d' for a moment, then walked toward me. I couldn't believe his brass.

"Dinner for one?" he asked. "That seems a lonely proposition."

"I like it," I said as I turned toward him. "And who the hell are you?"

"Ah," he said. "Well that's not as interesting as «who the hell you are."

"Look," I said, beginning to get impatient. "I don't know anything about you except that I saw you at O'Hare-and now you pop up here acting as though you know me. I don't like mysteries or peo- ple who think they're being clever when in fact they're just annoying."

He pulled out a chair and sat down opposite me.

"You haven't been invited," I said, frowning. "Go away."

"Now, now," he said. His voice had the faint twinge of British lower-class to it. "Someone your age shouldn't get so excited. It might not be good for your health."

I looked around for the mattre d', but he was talk- ing to a new group who'd just arrived.

"I must say, you look awfully good for someone who's at least five hundred years old by my calcula- tions."

He had my attention.

I looked at him carefully. He was working far too hard at being nonchalant. There was a telltale shine to his upper lip, and I could hear the dry click of his throat as he swallowed. Whatever he knew, it wasn't as much as he wanted to let on.

The waiter came with my soup. Vichyssoise. Thick and heavy with cream. He looked inquiringly at my new companion.

"Be so kind as to bring my friend here the same," I said. The waiter nodded and went away.

"What's that?" Black T-shirt asked.

"Vichyssoise," I replied.

He looked blank.

"Cold potato soup," I said.

He wrinkled his nose.

"Beggars can't be choosers and neither can you." I leaned back and studied him. This seemed to make him preening and nervous at the same time. "What's your name?"

"John Mortimer."

"And what precisely is it you want of me, Mr. Mortimer?"

He leaned forward, I resisted the urge to do so also. Habits die hard.

"I want to know the secret," he said. "I want to know how to be immortal."

"What on earth makes you think I'm immortal?". I asked.

He got a big grin. It was toothy and surprisingly 1 | sweet. I almost liked him for that smile. |

"It started out by accident about four years ago," he began. "I was doing some research after reading] an article in the newspaper." He pulled a small, yel- lowed newspaper clipping from his pocket. The headline read: Mystery Buyer Purchases Earldom for $700,000. I glanced over the article. It pretty much gave the dry facts of my acquisition of the Earldom of Arran. Everything except my identity, which I'd had them keep quiet.

"What has this to do with me?" I asked, handin| the clipping back.

"You bought it," he said.

"And what makes you think that?"

"I like computers," he said. "I'm quite good wit them. Every aspect. Programming, hardware-yc name it. It's just this knack I have. Well, for son reason this article caught my attention. So I got c the Web and started trying to find out what I couM about this mystery buyer. But pretty much every-1 thing after you bought the place was under deep| wraps. Oh, I know all about the history of the place| That earldom was created in 1503 by King James IV | 154

The title is linked to the land instead of by blood. All that stuff. History is easy enough to find out.

"But about the new buyer-bloody nothing. That got me curious. Who would want so much privacy and why? So I started contacting other Net surfers in Scotland and eventually I came up with a few who knew all about the island. They were day workers hired to refurbish the house the new owner would be occupying.

"That's when I found out about you. It was quite a stir you being, well, not white. I even got along so well with my Scottish connection that they invited me for a visit. You were off on one of your myste- rious trips. Everyone who worked for you always talked about your trips.

"So I went to visit my friends, and they showed me around the castle and the grounds. You've done a wonderful job keeping up the place. By the way."

I snorted and went back to eating my soup. The waiter came and placed a bowl in front of him. He frowned slightly at it, then took up his spoon and gave the soup a small taste. Apparently it was to his liking, for I got no more of his tale until he had fin- ished the whole bowl.

"I never would have thought cold potato soup could taste so good," he said as he wiped his mouth.

"The things you leam every day," I murmured.

"So, as my hosts were showing me around, I began to notice a couple of things. There was all this °ld stuff around, but not all of it seemed to belong Asre, if you know what I mean. Not the usual rich collections of plates, clocks, and the like. No, your choices were so much more-peculiar.

"But the thing that got me most excited was this picture of you. A painting, I mean. Paul-that's the friend who I was staying with-had gone off to the bathroom and he left me alone in your study. There was a photo of you and some guy on your desk. Then noticed a stack of paintings against one wall. I flipped through them and came across this portrait.

"It was you. But it wasn't. I mean you looked just like you do now, only you were wearing some weird costume. Later, I learned it probably came from the Renaissance. I heard my friend in the hall and put the painting back. But, you know, that painting stayed with me."

"People have portraits done everyday," I said.

"But this one looked like hundreds of years old. The paint was dried and cracked. It felt old."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, I didn't realize that among your many talents you are also an art historian. Let me see, you're a crack computer wiz, a clever de- frauder of people's trust, and now you're an expert in dating paintings. What other talents do you have up your sleeve?" I asked.

His face flushed red, but he didn't answer me. The waiter came and took our dishes, then presented us with the pate. I broke off a bit of the French bread on the table and proceeded to smear a generous amount of my pate on it. I gestured to him to do likewise.

"Really," I said. "You must try your pate. It's marvelous."

"What is it?" he asked.

"Goose liver, butter, cognac, pepper, and cream, most likely," I said. "Do go on with your tale. It's so unusual to have such a fascinating dinner story."

He poked at the pate as if it would leap off the plate and attack him. Then he put the knife down. No guts, no glory.

"But see, the painting reminded me of another one I'd seen, in some class I'd had in school. So after I went to the library and started looking through books of artists…"

"Was this while you were still in Scotland?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied. "I was staying for a couple of weeks. Paul was glad to get me out of the house ev- ery now and again so he could have his girlfriend over. They were wanting to… well, you know."

"How touching."

"Anyway, I found the book I was looking for. It was on Rembrandt. It had all his paintings in it with little descriptions of what they were about and who owned them. But most of them are in museums. Ex- cept the one you have.

"But you obviously had all this money so I fig- ured you could buy a Rembrandt if you wanted, but you couldn't have a portrait of yourself by him un- less you'd'been there."

"I hate to interrupt your psychotic ramblings," I said. "But haven't you ever heard of copycat paint- ers?"

"Yeah, I heard about them when I was doing my research on you, but from what I came up with, that wasn't your style. You go for top-notch stuff if you bother with it at all."

"How flattering."

"Look, just stop trying to play like you don't know what I'm talking about. I've done research on you for the last four years. I know you've taken the identities of a number of other people. Graves are full of. the babies whose names you've used. You've passed yourself off as your own granddaughter, as missing cousins. You're very good, I'll grant you that. But I have the documentation to back up every- thing I've found."

He pulled an envelope from his inside pocket and dropped it on the table. A sick feeling nestled in my stomach.

"Go ahead," he said. "Look inside."

Slowly, I wiped my fingers on my napkin. Mov- ing slowly seemed to be a very good idea at the mo- ment. I pulled the envelope to me and slid the contents out. There were letters from registry offices in several countries, copies of birth and death certif- icates, copies of land purchases in the names of some of the pseudonyms I've used. There was even a photo of the Rembrandt.

"How did you get this?" I asked holding up the photo. I was getting angry, but I didn't let him know. This was too terrible to let a foolish burst of temper out.

"Paul had to go back to your house for some re- pairs while I was there on my visit. I came along and snuck up to your study to make some shots."

"What do you want?" I asked. I felt sick. "Money?"

He shook his head furiously. "No," he said. "That's not it at all. I want what you have. I want to be immortal."

"And what makes you think I can make you so?"

"Because that's how it works," he said. "Like vampires, only I don't think you're a vampire. At least not the blood-sucking kind. You've got some- thing and I want it. Why shouldn't I be like you? I figured out that you were immortal. I mean, shouldn't there be some kind of reward for that?"

I closed my eyes. Mortals. Humans. There were times when I thought Alachia's attitude toward them was dead on.

"And you think your reward should be that I make you into what I am?"

He smiled. "Yes, that's it exactly."

"Very well," I said. "Since you've asked so nicely."

I forced myself to choke down the rest of dinner. The lovely salmon, the delicate potato souffle, the oysters, the escargot, even the marvelous Baked Alaska were all like ashes in my mouth.

John Mortimer was having no such problem with his meal. He attacked the food like a hungry dog. When he didn't recognize a dish, he would look to- ward me inquiringly and I would oblige with the in- formation. Except with the escargot. I told him it was a rare kind of seafood, like oysters. Luckily, he knew what oysters were. The one culinary achievement of his previous life.

That's how he referred to it: His Previous Life. As though he'd already moved out of it and into a greater place. He rambled on about the places he would go, the things he would do, never once telling me how he might acquire the means to achieve all these tremendous feats. It had taken me centuries to establish my own fortune. And still more time to at- tend to it. Money is like any other profession. You had to look in on it, make sure no one else had de- cided they liked it better than you did and run off with it. I found such things boring and loathsome in the extreme. But I still had to do it. I just don't like to talk about it.

"… and then I thought you and I could…"

This jerked me back to my companion and his ramblings.

"You and I could what?" I asked.

"Well, I mean, I thought that… I just assumed that because you were going to make me like you that we would be together. I mean until, you know, whenever."

"Whenever what?"

"Whenever we got, you know, tired of each other. Or until I was ready to be out on my own."

"I see, so not only am I to… convert you to your immortality, but then I'm to be your nursemaid as well?"

He blushed. "Not nursemaid, exactly, but, well you know." He gave me quite a look then, and, had I not been furious, I would have found it a bit interesting. But that was neither here nor there.

"So, I'm to become your um, paramour, shall we say, and make you immortal. And what exactly is it that I'm supposed to achieve from this equation?"

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is, what's in it for me? Why should I make you, of all people, like me? Is it your charm- ing personality? Or perhaps it's your wit? Maybe your sexual prowess? Come now, why should I bother with you?"

He was red again, but not from embarrassment. I think I might have offended him. What a pity.

"You'll do it because I'll expose you if you don't."

"Expose me to whom? The Agency in Charge of Finding and Keeping Immortals? Or maybe you'll go to the police. 'I beg your pardon, but there's a woman I know who's immortal.' They'll laugh you out of the office. Your whole story is preposterous. There won't be a dry seat in the house."

"All I have to do is make one phone call to the nght sort of newspaper. They love this sort of thing. Only when they start digging, they'll find out it's true."

"They'll wet themselves laughing." "Do you really want to risk it?" The little maggot. I hadn't thought he had the brass for it.

"I thought not," he said. And smirked. He really shouldn't have smirked.

I paid for dinner and we began walking through the Quarter. I didn't want to lead him straight toward the hotel, though I suspected he already knew where I was staying. What to do with him? I wondered. The crowd was thicker now that it was getting on to- ward nine o'clock. Mostly there were badly dressed tourists in too tight T-shirts with cute sayings on them. Some carried plastic cups with drinks in them. The smell of beer and sticky-sweet Hurricanes was overpowering.

I led us toward Chartres Street, then on toward the riverwalk. The smell of the Mississippi was heavy and thick like new-cut earth. It blended with the sweet aroma of the olive trees. For some reason it gave me a stab of hope, this strange combination of odors. It reminded me of another time and place. But such pleasant memories would get in my way now. I needed to attend to the matter at hand.

We walked past the homeless people who were sleeping in the park and stepped over the ones who had simply lain down where they were. Every few paces or so, we were approached by someone asking for money. Most of the panhandlers had a ready patter, some hard-luck story about why they needed just another dollar. I gave to them willingly. Life presented us with enough indignities in just the living of it, so why make it worse if you could help?

"Why are you giving them money?" hissed John. He glanced around as though he expected someone to jump up at him and demand money.

"Because I have it. They need it. And I don't mind giving to them," I said. "Why do you care any- way? It isn't your money."

"You're just encouraging them," he said. "If no one gave them any money they'd have to get

job."

"Let me see if I understand you," I said. "You think these people prefer to live meaner than any an- imal. That they are so unwilling to work that they would rather sleep on the ground in the cold, go without food, beg coin from strangers in the most humiliating way possible, and live in filthy rags? That is, of course, assuming that they are mentally stable enough to hold work or even have such rudi- mentary skills as reading, writing, or arithmetic. How silly of me to be so completely fooled by their clever charade.

"Of course, I'm in the company of someone who wouldn't sully his hands with something as vulgar as say, extortion."

"You know, you can be a real bitch," he said.

I touched my hand to my heart. "I'm mortally wounded," I said.

We walked down by the river for a while, until the sidewalk petered out and there was a sudden lack of street lights. John looked nervous, but I knew there was nothing to worry about, yet.

"So you want to become immortal," I said. "What if I told you I can't do it? That this is some- thing you're born with or not. That I can no more make you immortal than any stranger off the street could."

He frowned. "You're just trying to confuse me," he said. "You told me at the restaurant…"

"I told you that so you wouldn't make a scene. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't change you from what you are. I don't have that power. Why would I lie to you?"

"Is this a test?" he asked. I groaned. "No, it is not. It's the truth." "You just don't like me. That's why you're doing this. Well, it won't work. And it doesn't matter any- way. I figured out what you are, and that's worth something. Don't think you'll fool me the way you've fooled everyone else."

"Oh, no," I said. "I wouldn't dream of that." / think you're a special kind of fool, I thought. "You know, becoming immortal doesn't just hap- pen overnight. It takes a while for the process to work."

"But you can start it soon, can't you?" "Oh, yes," I said. "But first, I must make some preparations." I tossed him the key to my hotel room. "I'm in room 1650 at the Fairmont. I'll be back before midnight." "I'll be waiting," he said.

I didn't say anything, just turned and went back toward the Quarter.

I knocked on the door of my room at 11:45. The vid inside was loud enough for me to hear it through the door. Then the door swung open. I had half- hoped Mortimer might realize how foolish this whole thing was, but no, there he was, sans jacket, and barefoot. "Glad to see you've made yourself comfortable,"

I said.

"Yeah, well, given the circumstances, I didn't think you'd mind."

"Push that bed up against the wall," I said. As he did so, I also pushed every other piece of furniture in the room against the walls, making a nice-sized space in the center of the room.

"We're going to do it here?" he asked.

"Why not?" I asked. "This place has always had a great deal of magical energy. Besides, this is just the start of the process, and I know how anxious you are to embark on your new life."

"Yeah, well, I guess I thought I'd have more time."

"Time for what?"

"I don't know," he replied. "To say goodbye."

"You can't say goodbye, but you can go back and make some preparations," I said. "I'll explain every- thing after the ceremony."

I crouched down and poured out the contents of the bag I'd brought back with me. Luckily, Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo had just the sort of things that would help in my little charade. Candles, skulls, charms, unidentifiable bones, incense, and assorted effluvia tumbled onto the carpet. Feathers I'd picked up in the park came from my jacket pocket.

I shoved everything to one side. "Stand here," I instructed, pointing to the center of the room. I placed the candles around him in a rough circle, then lit them. The incense I lit and stuck in-between the drawers of the bureau. Then I switched off the lights and went over to the window and drew the drapes.

The effect was getting pretty good. Lots of sandal- wood smoke wafting through flickering candle light. I made him hold out his hands and dropped a skull into one and the strange bones into the other. Then I made him open his mouth and popped one of the charms inside. I almost started laughing at the face he made, but I knew that would break the spell.

The rest of the charms I placed in his pockets and down his shirt. Then I began to chant softly and wave my arms in front of him. In Sanskrit I told him what a complete imbecile he was and how his mother was probably a goat-herder who slept in cow dung for fun while she mated with snakes at the bottom of a cesspool.

From the expression on John Mortimer's face‹a I knew he thought he was being transported to| the next level of existence. And how close hell was.

It took me a while to run through his entire familyS lineage back to his great-great-grandparents, but I | managed to think up appropriate comments for all ofi| them. Now it was time for the big finish. I distractedr| him as I tossed flash paper into one candle after an-1 other. He gave a little squeal and jumped.

"Ack," he said. "I've swallowed the charm."

"That's all right, you're supposed to," I said. "How do you feel?"

He looked down at himself as though he expected to see something different.

"The same. I'm getting a bit of a headache from all the incense," he said. "Are you sure it worked?"

"Oh, I almost forgot," I said. "The most important thing."

I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his fore- head. I held it there for a long time. I could see the weave of his life. Could feel the singsong of his blood as it raced through his veins. His delicate and vulnerable veins. Especially those in his brain. So thin. So easily stressed. It took a bit out of me, the subtlety of it, but I had no other choice.

He stepped back from me.

"What's this?" he asked, reaching out and touching my cheek.

There, suspended on the tip of his finger, was a single blood tear.

"The price of immortality," I said.

"I think I felt something," he said.

"I'm sure you did." I reached out and gently wiped the tear away.

The aneurysm killed him on his flight back to London. I had told him to go home and get his be- longings and meet me in Scotland. It being a slow news day, his death actually made the paper in a small item. Freak accident, the report said. A terrible tragedy for one so young.

November 21, 1998

Anna Sluage Earldom of Arran Arran Island, Scotland

Dear Countess,

It is my most embarrassing duty to tell you that my late client, one John Mortimer, had apparently become fixated on you during the last few years of his life. Upon his death, I was instructed to open a parcel he 'd left with me a few months ago. In this parcel were documents and writings of Mr. Mortimer claiming a tale as regards you, of the most fantastic sort. His instructions to me, as his solicitor, were that should he die under unusu- al circumstances I was to go to the media with this story.

Due to the nature of my client's death, I recognized these bizarre accusations as the demented ravings of a mentally ill man. It is a great sadness to his family that they did not realize how ill he was until his untimely de- mise.

Please rest assured that I have forwarded all these ma- terials to you for you to dispose of as you will. No copies have been made by me or my office. I can only hope that my client did not make himself a burden on you. Rest as- sured that this matter will go no further.

Sincerely yours, Mecham Bernard, Esq.

Several months later I received a note from John Mortimer's mother. She had gone to clean out his flat and had discovered his diary and a bulletin board covered with photos of me. In her letter, she said that she hoped her son had not bothered me. She explained that his obsession with me was no doubt caused by the same weakness in his brain that killed him.

She also told me that she had destroyed all the pa- pers and pictures of me she had found.

I wrote her back, thanking her for her concern, and assured her that her son had never bothered me in the slightest. We actually developed a bit of a cor- respondence, which lasted until her death in 2021.

She's traveling in a car. Or maybe it's a bus. She isn't sure, because it continually shifts shape and form. Caimbeui is driving. He is wearing that hor- rible makeup. Garish and clownlike. A hideous red gash of a mouth. Black diamonds over his eyes. Hair streaked with blond and orange. His usual garb is replaced with faded blue jeans, cowboy boots run down at the heels, and a washed-out T-shirt that says: Ninety percent of everything is drek.

"I was wondering when you 'd get here," Caimbeui says.

"Where is here?" she asks.

"You know, " he replies. "It's wherever you want it to be."

She glances out the window, which shows an end- less display of black night. The headlights occasion- ally catch a scrubby tree, then slide back over the broken road. Looking back at Caimbeui, she sees that the saying on the shirt has changed: I prefer the wicked to the foolish. The wicked sometimes rest.

"Didn't? Wasn't?" she asks.

"Oh," Caimbeui says looking down at his shirt and shrugging. "It's your dream. Don't ask me. I'm just along for the ride."

"You always did steal your best lines," she says.

He drops the car into overdrive. It surges ahead, the G-force slamming both of them back in their seats.

"Hang on," he shouts over the roar of the engine. "It's going to be a bumpy night."