***SPOILERS*** Sort of. The story takes place around the end of BOTD (Book of the Dead) and the probable middle of WOD (Wheel of Darkness).

Now, as anyone friendly with Miss Swanson and the Lieutenant knows, there is profanity i.e. colorful and/or florid verbage, in moderation. Also, I believe I Looney Tunes’d them all out, but if there are stragglers, ego paenitet.

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child created Pendergast. I, quite simply, am merely borrowing him in adoration of his perfection. However, the poem ‘Oh Death’ in chapter four is mine, written for the purpose of inclusion.

All right. It may not be literary award material, but here goes-Bon apetit!




( 1 )

D’Agosta groaned audibly, his body quivering with the unspent tremor of boredom that was rushing through his veins.

Some f*ck was making a scene at the airport...his airport, today. Probably some payback for Southampton...Why did they always send him on the local rabble sh*t jobs? He was a police officer, not a bellboy. He was Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta.

The ruckus had started when an old lady with a lethal-looking handbag had dragged this deathly, coat-cocooned guy with obscenely pale, feather-fine, oddly mussed hair through the turnstiles and...oh sh*t. Sh*t on a stick. Sh*t Kebabs. His lips mouthed the word multiple times, as though kissing a lover, when at last it dawned on him just who the guy was. Doubtless it was a certain acquaintance of his, a very good acquaintance, most assuredly the best kind of acquaintance. But as he ambled toward the crowd, absently smoothing his stock Hawaiian shirt across the abs he’d acquired after their recent trip to Italy, he realized, rather abruptly, that said acquaintance didn’t look so hot...Christ. The usually impeccable, crisp figure of his friend, normally so stark, so clean and well-kempt, was disheveled now, white shirt hanging half-open, buttons dangling from the torn, unrelieved black suit...he looked so ill D’Agosta hadn’t even recognized him. Acid concern welled, catching in his throat as he strained to listen.

“Sir!” The droning plea of the attendant, a weedy little stick of a man whose tag said Nicholas, went up in a, by now, familiar refrain. “Please don’t make this difficult. We are asking you to remove yourself because we feel your...condition is a threat to the other passengers.”

“Really? Now that’s odd, because I have documentation right here that says otherwise, as I’ve been explaining to you for the past fifteen minutes. Just a mild pneumonia, after all, not the avian flu. I’m in rather urgent need of rest however, and I need to sit down, or I fear I won’t be standing in a moment. Would you mind overmuch if I ignored your...protestations...for the present, and found myself a chair?” He made a weak flourish with a deceptively delicate wrist, perfectly oblivious to the sour faces pervading the crowded entryway.

That did it. Christ. D’Agosta moved through the crowd toward Pendergast, calling out to the man as he did so. “Aloysius, you’re the most unlucky bugger I’ve ever met! What are you doing back so soon, looking like that? And you!” He turned to the guard and flashed his badge. “If the man says he has pneumonia, he d*mn sure has it! He’s an FBI Special Agent for chrissakes! Do you want me to show you his wallet too? No? Good! Now quit hassling my friend here and go sh*t on someone else’s day.”

That certainly cleared up matters. The papers were immediately seen to, and the overzealous attendant soon realized his Mistake.

Looking wan but pleased in his nest of coats, Pendergast decided to verbalize his relief with a lengthy greeting.

“Why hello, dear Vincent!” He began, smoothing the rumples from his clothes as if his pallid complexion wasn’t at all reminiscent of a lightless sewer refugee. Then his hand rested gingerly for the slightest of instants on D’Agosta’s shoulder. “I see you finally found occasion to don that horrendously garish Hawaiian ensemble. As I am not in the best health of late, I’m afraid I failed to recognize you at first, having mistaken you for our dear William on account of your...colorful choice of clothing this fine morning. Honestly, I do pity the man, him being married to our charming Nora and all. But those two are, shall we say, made for each other?” He stopped and bent over with a chuckle, suddenly heaving and out of breath.

D’Agosta led the bemused albino to a small corner of the lobby and thrust his finger at the line of plastic chairs.

“Heh. Stop laughing, Mayor Whitey. You don’t look so great. Keep your scrawny a*s in that chair or I’ll arrest it and drag you through customs myself. You look like boiled p*ss. In fact, you look worse.” D’Agosta grinned at him, but it was an effort to remain in high spirits before the telltale shadows flickering across the agent’s gaunt features. “Now what’s this I’m hearing about pneumonia?”

“Heh. Needless to say, I...caught a...a nasty little chill upon leaving Bhutan after a...certain incident.” The pile of heavy coats said vaguely, the languid voice dripping like the crawl of thick sap. “But...” He trailed off, grey eyes gleaming beneath his slitted eyelids for a breath or two before his pale blonde head lolled back abruptly and snuffed them out. “...not to worry, Vincent. Thanks to your intervention, I am now reclining here in the lobby of this...fine upstanding establishment, rather than the local lockup, courtesy of our dear friend Nicholas’s sudden abundance of understanding. And, somehow I doubt I’ll be moving much in the next few minutes.”

God, was he really that exhausted? The stress must have really done a number on him... “What? Pendergast, are you completely gone? You look like the walking dead! More than normal, anyway. We ought to get you to a hospital!” D’Agosta stared at the agent for a long while, memorizing the features of the man who had scraped his fat from the fire too many times to count. Pendergast was grey, and more drawn than D’Agosta had ever seen him.

“...I fervently disagree. But, let me just...doze here a moment longer...” The reply was almost a whisper, and D’Agosta found himself shivering despite the summer heat. On a sudden whim, he whipped out his cell and dialed covertly.

“Aloysius?” He ventured as he pocketed the phone, pressing his sweating hands to the man’s high forehead. “Jesus Christ, that fever’s a b*tch! Pneumonia can’t fry somebody this fast! What’s going on with you?” When he didn’t get a response, he grabbed Pendergast’s shoulders and started shaking him gingerly.

“It can, and it does, Vincent. Now, would you please stop...jostling my person? Fevers of this magnitude tend to cause discomfort.”

D’Agosta almost cried with relief. “Uh, yeah...sure. Listen, about the hospital...” He paused to watch as Pendergast held pale white fingers to his pale white neck and then held them to his wrist, double-checking the rhythm of his heartbeats.

The agent looked at him then, grey eyes intent, if a bit dull from fever. “Which one would you suggest? The last one I had the pleasure of visiting didn’t exactly appreciate my...unique...requirements. During the Surgeon case, if you recall, I had a most unfortunate run-in with the UnSub. Fairhaven wouldn’t have missed my heart by that one inch if I hadn’t guided his hand. But my poor, dear Patrick...” He held his head for a few breaths, blinking away what could have been dizziness, or... “All the better that I have such a high tolerance for discomfort. However, I’m beginning to feel weary again. Vincent...help me with these.” He slipped off first one coat, then the other, revealing the remains of his shirt and very nearly baring his smooth, pallid trunk to the air. The thin scar from Fairhaven’s scalpel, along with several other gruesome marks, was clearly visible between shreds of white fabric in the brightness of the lobby lights.

D’Agosta helped him out of the lobby and out into the huge grey parking lot. “If you can make it to the wraith without collapsing, I’ll consider rescinding the officer down I called in while you were out of it.”

“Fair enough.” A shaky white hand slid into a pocket, pulled out a sleek black fold-up cell. The fingers dialed, pressing buttons in a blur. “Procter?” He murmured, drizzling his usual honeyed slur into the phone as if it were a graham cracker, that touch of harried exhaustion cool and whipped like a dollop of crème freche...some though surely not all for D’Agosta’s benefit, no doubt. “Front left terminal. Do hurry. Vincent seems to think I require a...hospital stay, and has radioed accordingly. A fair possibility at worst, but at best a most unpleasant prospect, considering the circumstances.”

Despite that signature, insufferably devilish genteel grin, Pendergast’s face looked grayer still, and D’Agosta began to sweat that little promise, along with the gourmet cheeseburger he’d shared with Laura earlier that afternoon. Of course, just the shock of seeing Pendergast like...like that, in the mad thong of plane-goers, had probably shaved five years off. But...maybe there really was something else, the way he was avoiding the hospitals...

“What is it, Aloysius? You look like the poster child for the dictionary definition of zombie.” Something changed, just then, for suddenly Pendergast’s finely cut features took on a darkness D’Agosta had never seen. Was it something he had said? He stared at the agent as the silver wraith strolled up to the curb. The sleek door popped open, Procter was out of the driver’s seat in seconds, hands around Pendergast’s slim shoulders as he practically shoved the ailing man into the passenger accommodation. D’Agosta slid in after the agent had eased himself against the seat back, and then the wraith sped off breakneck out of the exit and down the road.


( 2 )

“Are you still conscious, sir?” Procter asked calmly as they skirted the streets of New York. They weren’t, however, heading for the Dakota, at least that wasn’t the direction they seemed to be going... The Agent rasped a dubious yes, the sound barely audible even in the near-total silence cushioning the wraith’s luxurious innards. “Very well, sir. I apologize for the rough handling, but I had to make certain there were no bugs planted on you.”

“Thank you, Procter.”

“Amen to that. But, uh, what’s going on here?” D’Agosta quipped, glancing over at Pendergast, who was slit-eyed and glacial with fatigue. “If you wanted secrecy, why have Procter bring the wraith?”

“Ahah-hah.” A rasping breath followed, then another. “Because, my dear Vincent, I need my adversary to feel confident. I need them to...” He paused, pale, thin brows furrowing as his silver eyes rammed down hard against themselves, tightening with discomfort. It was not what D’Agosta had expected to see, even now as Pendergast lay back against the seat, his eyes taut with suffering, his face still gaunter, still tight-drawn with weakness. “Forgive me, Vincent.” He managed finally, not moving an inch from his precariously languid position against the seat back. “I am dangerously unwell, but I promise you there is a reason I cannot be seen at any of the hospitals...” Suddenly he collapsed onto the man’s lap, his fluttering eyes gleaming with a vibrant clarity D’Agosta had not glimpsed in the man since the Museum Murders. “There IS a reason, I am simply...” He paused to rest. “...simply too affected to reme...to remember what it is. That is what disturbs me more than anything. And the fact that I am not delirious is unsettling as well. Vincent, I will need your assistance to discover that reason...uhn.” And he slid partially onto the floor of the car, held up only by D’Agosta’s steady, desperate grasp. Strange, that hot tears of exertion were running down his high, fever-flushed cheeks now, though his skin was still as smooth and pale as milk. “In any case, I...don’t know what I’ve been slipped, and I need to find out before...someone else’s life is placed in...jeopardy...uhhhnn...” He blinked, and then...

“Hey!” D’Agosta barked, hands cradling Pendergast’s pale face as the agent labored for breath yet again. “You stubborn...just let me worry about everyone else and stop talking. You’re obviously under duress. No one would blame you if you fainted, least of all me! Just don’t do it.” The sound of the agent’s feeble laughter pervaded his ears, and for a moment there was quiet. After a few minutes had passed without incident, he eased his arm out from beneath Pendergast’s white-blonde hair, which was dripping with sweat, and pressed his hands to the pasty skin, recoiling from the sheer heat that emanated from his friend’s flesh. Turning slightly, he called out to the chauffeur, and felt the sense of urgency pervading the car begin to thicken almost tangibly. “Mr. Procter, his temperature must be 104 degrees by now. Wherever we’re going, we’d better get there soon.” In answer, the silver wraith lurched into a turn, pulling them up from the seat and down again in the space of a breath.

A rasp like frozen molasses clawed free of Pendergast’s dry, parched lips. “Ah, do forgive this,Vincent, but I feel myself growing nauseous...” Another pause for rest, and then he emptied his stomach onto the floor of the car. “Ugh. Much more of this, and I‘ll be forced to replace the upholstery.”

“Aloysius?” D’Agosta muttered as he mopped at the man’s mouth. “Shut up and lie back. And nod if you know where we’re going.” The slightest of nods ensued, followed by another round of vomiting.

“Very well, Vincent.” Came the weak, lolling snicker.

Two more lurching turns, a screech and a forward slide later, the wraith had stopped. Proctor popped the door and took his employer’s arm, offering him aid while D’Agosta took the other. Together, they managed between them to ease Pendergast up a small metal staircase and into a small alcove before the chauffeur was off again, speeding away in the sleek silver vision.

D’Agosta reached for the knob on the only door, an old, rust-hinged thing covered in peeling red paint. Upon finding it to be unlocked, he rapped lightly once, then proceeded to guide Pendergast into the little apartment, shutting it behind them.

“Agent Pendergast!” A young woman with striking purple-dyed hair started at their sudden presence. “Oh my god, what the hell happened to you?” She thrust her thin hands toward him, then pulled back again as she remembered their last meeting, offering her arm instead. Then the three of them made their way to the dorm-style bed in the corner.

“Ah! I feel I must apologize for this intrusion, Corrie dear,” The man murmured, pausing briefly to breathe. “...but it seems that some well-informed unfortunate slipped me something nasty on the return flight from Bhutan.”

“Aloysius...” D’Agosta said gently, squeezing the agent’s shoulder as they eased him onto the freshly made bed. “Are you sure that was wise?”

The man’s silver eyes widened in sudden realization and he paled, his albion skin shifting instantly to gray again. “Forgive me, Corrie.” He murmured gravely as he closed his eyes and sank into the pillow. “I didn’t mean to ‘loose the cat from the bag’, as it were.”

She gifted him with a deadpan glare, muttering a reply. “Oh please. I was your assistant once. And what was that, an idiom? Geez, you really are out of it!”

“Indeed.”

“Vinnie, what’s going on in here?” A familiar voice said, and then Laura Hayward stepped through the doorway.

“So, you did phone Laura in the lobby. How devious of you, Vincent!” Pendergast murmured in approval, his voice barely a whisper. But D’Agosta clamped a hand over the agent’s mouth, and after a slight tensing, Pendergast sighed and relaxed.

Corrie positioned herself between the bed and the door. “Close my door and lock it or I won’t tell you sh*t, Captain Hayward.” She smiled, then jerked her thumb at the peeling red door.

Frowning at her, Hayward slid her hand along the front of her cream suit-jacket and shrugged in cautious compliance. The door was soon locked, and then she made her way from the shadow of the corridor into the main room, where the girl and D’Agosta were staring at her hard. As she neared the bed she gave D’Agosta a sharp look, then turned to gaze at Pendergast, who was lying still as death atop the crisp sheets. “With your eyes closed like that,” She mused drily, “you look like the guest of honor at a funeral.” No response. “Pendergast?” She said again, watching him intently now. His shadowed eyelids were closed and fluttering, his mouth widening harshly every five seconds with the effort of breath. Hayward turned to D’Agosta and Corrie. “Is he doing that...memory-crossing thing?” She whispered, looking from them to him and back again. “Because he doesn’t look healthy.”

D’Agosta and Corrie looked down at him and shook their heads in unison. “No...” Corrie said finally. “I think he just crapped out. Besides, his breaths aren’t shallow enough.”

“Uh, sure...listen. I think we should loosen his clothes a little, to give him some air.” D’Agosta said, glancing at Corrie in mild surprise as they gingerly tackled the tie and suit. Next, they went to work on the stark white shirt, undoing the buttons carefully so as not to disturb him.

“Geez. This is awkward...” Corrie said suddenly as she busied herself with untying and removing his Oxfords. “Hey, D’Agosta. You know he’s going to kill us later for undressing him, right?”

“Be quiet and lift his legs.” Hayward griped, spreading a damp cloth over the agent’s high forehead. The white-blonde hair was in what amounted to wild disarray, sweat-dark and plastered to his fair skin. And worse, his flesh was still uncharacteristically warm, even in the mid-winter chill of the cheap air-conditioning.

“Jesus.” D’Agosta was staring at the intricate map of old wounds that crisscrossed Pendergast’s chest and sides. Yet the white of his slim upper torso was smooth despite the scarring, and bare to the touch, the subtle musculature taut and firm. “Jesus.” He said again, trying not to run his hand over the scars in horrified amazement as he remembered the last time he’d seen them. “Christ, Laura! Are you seeing these?” He whispered, awestruck. “How does he get up in the morning?”

Hayward simply stared, clearly feeling sympathetic though her dark eyes were schooled and icy.

“To be honest Vincent, I rise quite easily most days.” Pendergast breathed weakly, one eye revealing itself as a brilliant silver slit just long enough to observe the proceedings for a few moments, before it closed again. “Do be ever so careful of my suit as you remove it from my person.” The agent added with softness, managing a surprisingly audible laugh at D’Agosta’s expense. “There are hidden seams containing a vast assortment of concealable items, as dear Vincent well knows. Do not allow yourselves, or myself for that matter, to be in any way violated by whatever you might happen upon while feeding your curiosity.” He held a thickly swimming gaze, albeit while directing a lethal, honeyed grin at each of them, before settling back once more onto the bed for a nap. “And Laura, ma peche, I must ask you to go against your better judgment and refrain from confiscating my pharmacopoeia. It always seems to come in handy when my colleagues least expect it. And now, I’m
afraid I’ll have to leave you for a while.” The instant of utter exhaustion arrived at once, drawing him down into darkness as swiftly as if he had chosen it. Perhaps he had.

“Great.” Laura muttered.

“Yeah.” Corrie said under her breath. “He must keep all sorts of crap in there-ammo, forensic chemicals, drug paraphernalia, lock picks, centerfolds..”

The man and woman stopped in their doings and stared at her intently.

“Geez, I was screwing you about the centerfolds. You two really need to chill.” She cocked her head for a moment as though staring in mock soliloquy at some hidden camera, then looked down at the wraithlike figure of her former employer, who still seemed asleep. “Look, if I could handle my drunk-as-sh*t mother, I can take care of him. He’s just lying there. Besides, Proctor’s number is in my phone.” She held up a slim, metallic red thing. “Shoo already! Go find some old bag lady to harass. It’s not like you’re doing anything just standing there. Besides, I can do my research on the FBI from here, in case he...” She let it trail off, hoping they would leave.

“Research? On the Feds? Riiight. Though...I guess you are right, Corrie. We really aren’t helping him any just standing here gaping. But look-if sh*t happens, here are our cell phone numbers.” The cop in tourist digs reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen and paper, wrote something, then handed it to the raven-haired woman. He almost looked intelligent, but then again Pendergast had told her to trust this one and the woman explicitly, so Corrie decided not to mention the bright red shirt with too many pineapples. Or the fraying straw hat. Or the faded blue sandals.

Laura Hayward frowned, but nonetheless she scribbled something on the sheet of paper, which she held up for Corrie to see. “Fine. We can take a hint.” She turned to D’Agosta. “Vinnie, you check with airport security. Get the feed for the last ten hours or so. I’ve got to go downtown. Someone just called in a murder-suicide while I was getting out of my car. Probably a prank, due to the oddness of the call...something about an exploding catfish. Stupid, bizarre even, but I have to go.”

D’Agosta nodded his agreement and turned back to Corrie. “You heard the captain. If anything goes down, be on that phone.” Corrie flipped the red phone open, then punched the two numbers in. “Yeah, yeah. He looks like he needs to be petted. The G-Man here called me on the plane and asked me to look up something. Now go scour the airport security video and enjoy your donuts. I’ve got work to do.”

As she watched them leave, Corrie Swanson leaned down close to the bed and whispered into the agent’s ear. “God. Those two were so ‘The Godfather’ meets ‘Xena’. Do all your friends follow you around like cute little animals? They’re gone now, so you can do whatever it is you’re doing in peace and quiet. I won’t bother you.” There was no answer, but Corrie had expected that. With a sigh of unease she slid into the chair beside the bed, as much to pass the time as ponder the unaccustomed laboring of his breaths. Why was she worried? It wasn’t as if he would never wake up...


( 3 )

The fat man had been upset once. He had been humiliated. His life was over, his brilliant career steeped in mire, all because of one self-absorbed, fork-tongued, catfish-eating, pretty-as-a-woman prick. It had been his earnest wish to see the bastard rot in Herkmoor’s solitary confinement, but that had not been in the cards. That son of a bitch D’Agosta and the indomitable Eli Glinn had seen to that, them and that sanctimonious harpy Hayward. This time, he had taken care to personally see it through. And he would finish it tonight. There would be no mistakes, no...clumsy little incidents like at the Museum. This wouldn’t be like Waco...no. This time Spencer Coffey would not cave.

A smile rose on his fleshy, sun-reddened face as he considered his accomplishment. He held his masterpiece, a long envelope with a single stamp, up to the penlight’s pissy little beam. The stamp was of a fish, a slick, spotted cat with long whiskers swaying beneath swamp water and weeds. But the picture, while it was of no small value as a personal amusement, was not so extraordinary as the stamp itself. No, the stamp was an especially contrived present for the prick, Coffey’s secret baby those long years in Waco. Illegal activity pursued toward the right cause could be so rewarding, especially for your own peace of mind. The man was dangerous, a goddamn criminal genius, no matter that the charges had been dropped. This stamp would ensure that he would no longer be a problem.

And his surveillance had been right on the money. Aptly so, for it was himself, dolled up to resemble a derelict, who had been camped in the back of a rusted tan sedan parked down the street not thirty feet away from the Swanson girl’s door. Pendergast was holed up in there with her, she having been an assistant of his from a case he’d worked on unofficially in Medicine Creek, Kansas. Amazing how not-quite-official channels could open up whole new worlds of privacy infringement. Equally astonishing, too, that he had managed to keep his unmarked car from getting noticed by Pendergast’s pet toady Procter. D’Agosta he didn’t include, because the man was a complete wash-up, a non-entity. Well. Fancy that. It had really been too easy bumping into the prick on the plane... drugging him with some souped-up coke called Zombie. That...that had been brazen. He looked up at the fish-shaped air-freshener and smiled. Yes, they would have to know who had done it. His fingers reached for the fish-shape and he fondled it again for the last time, making sure his prints and DNA were all over its slightly greasy rubber surface. Then he crunched his hand around it, crushing it in his palm. The car was keyed to the stamp. The stamp was wired to explode. Once the stamp exploded, the envelope, packed with a special explosive powder and soaked in alcohol, would follow suit, compounding matters. The local Keystones would find him parked down the street, charred to sh*t and happily unable to account for what the squeaky prick had forced him to. His only regret would, of course, be in missing the look on Pendergast’s face when he came to the realization. He would already be back in the sedan by then, setting the switch that would blow their collective a*ses to fish-scented smithereens. How nice that their mutual acquaintance despised the prick as much as Coffey did, and he’d even gone so far as to supply the uber-crack. Good connections made life so much simpler.

Scratching himself, Coffey brushed the crumbs of a day-old McRonalds breakfast sandwich from his dirty trench coat and sipped leisurely at cold coffee. Shortly he would exit the vehicle and make for the peeling red door, letter in hand, the slim missive ready and waiting to be slid beneath the gaping crack in the jamb. And then, then it would be time to pay the postman.


( 4 )

“Mother...oh mother!” Came the soft, plaintive murmur from the bed. “Incitatus, he...Diogenes has...”

Corrie almost sobbed at this new cry, but at least she had heard it, for each time the drugged moan seemed somehow less, each more weak and drowned and desperate than the last. Gingerly her fingers reached to pull the soft, damp cloth from Pendergast’s forehead, then replaced it with a cooler, fresh one. She wondered if she should call someone, Procter or D’Agosta maybe, because his pulse wasn’t that great, and his color still wasn’t returning. Mechanically she removed the rag, setting it down beside her on the small dime store nightstand. But as she reached for another wet cloth to soak up the sweat still pouring from his pale brows, an idea struck and so she ran with it, filled with a sudden desire to comfort the ailing, heartsick man who slumbered deeply, though not restfully, before her. She traced her fingers sweetly across his smooth skin, trying in vain to entice the fever from him. With her hands she caressed the high, fevered cheeks, the delicate chin, the
lineless forehead hot with uncouth flush. And yet, Agent Pendergast didn’t look any better, despite all her efforts. Finally, she bent toward him, whispering. “Pendergast, please wake up. Please? I need to know if you’re okay.”

Fear coursed through her then, wild and inexplicable, for there had come a soft knock at the door. It was an unrecognized noise against the newly-fallen night, bright and maddening. She looked around, her eyes catching a glimpse of white at the bottom of the door. A long envelope with a stamp, and heavy footsteps cranking down the metal steps, away from her. “A long envelope with a fish stamp? W-what the hell is that there for? Whatever. I’m not scared.” But still she was unnerved, for the sound of his breathing had stilled to nearly nothing in the pensive silence. “I...I got an A in my English class! H-here’s my poem. I memorized it for you.” Slowly she recalled the words for him, and they rose like footholds in the darkness of her ungiven fear.

“Oh death!
Your silent trumpet blares
Shattering the precipice
As powdered dust it
Tumbles low and shorn
To be eaten by ants
But flowing water
Rhymes beneath the salty earth
Raising it up again
Before the eyes of clouds.”

All at once the silence quickened, and Corrie held to Pendergast like a clinging child, tiny and alone. But she was not frightened for herself, no. No longer. She was frightened for him. The man on the bed. He had not moved since he had entered into her apartment, since he had lain on her bed and slept. Her pulse raced. Perhaps the man was-no. That was unacceptable. That was sh*t. Enraged at herself, Corrie stared at the letter that had come under her door. Her red phone was still there on the table...

She never saw the sparkling eyes behind her widening in abject disgust at the fish on the stamp, barely noticed the hand that coolly dropped and pushed her down beneath the bed. His feet were on the ground now, his silver gaze thick with fatigue, yet trained like the sights of a predatory bird upon the letter. But Corrie was under the bed, numb with shock. Pendergast. When had he...? What? The softest of clicks hammered through the stillness, and suddenly he was shielding her beneath the bulk of the bed, weak though he was, staring at the stamp with all of nature’s grimness in his face, clutching a pillow to his chest. “Never believe that you are worthless, Corrie.” He murmured back over his shoulder with a warming smile, turning his head to her as he pulled the covers down over the edge of the bed and onto the floor, obscuring her vision.


( 5 )

Levering himself placidly against the side of the bed, Pendergast dialed a number into his cell phone, raised it to his lips. Taking pains to keep his voice calm and even, he breathed a name into it, paused, then flung the pillow toward the envelope in a desperate effort to control what was coming. As soon as he had seen the stamp, he had known. At least Corrie would be safe beneath the thick mattress, shielded by his body, the bedclothes and the deflecting pillow. He considered this as he watched the fluffy projectile fly in a tight arc toward its target. Perhaps, he mused, he ought to cover his face to provide the coroner with a means of identification in case he...

The pillow struck the letter dead-on, as he had intended, and the bruised snap of a small-explosives blast deafened his hypersensitive ears. Soon after, a faint smile played over his lips, lingering even as vertigo shook him in a vice-grip, and awareness dissolved by degrees into blinding little points of pain.


( 6 )

Vincent D’Agosta had found something, hiding in the next-to-last security feed from one of the lobby cameras. A large man in a shabby coat had been standing in the crowd staring at Pendergast while every other eye had been swiveling about, looking for exits, food, companions who had been on the flight. That one man...the flabby face looked familiar. He had seen it, but where? The features seemed somehow different than before, perhaps a disguise...no. He wasn’t making enough of an effort to disguise himself, not baring his tubby red face like-

Suddenly D’Agosta’s cell went off, trembling hotly at his back. He reached for it, raised it to his ear. “Vinnie.” It was Laura, but her smoky, no-nonsense voice was grim and close, almost upon him. He wheeled about in the swivel chair and met her. She was standing there in the doorway of the camera room, her clothes mussed and sweaty. “Vinnie. There’s been an incident. You know that crank call I told you about back at Corrie Swanson’s apartment?”

He nodded, feeling the blood drain from his face as all the dark possibilities flooded his brain.

“It wasn’t a crank. Some nut job remote-rigged his car to a letter bomb and then slipped it underneath the door. The f*ck flash-fried himself inside, so nothing there. But there was a fish-shaped air-freshener lying outside on the pavement. That rat-sh*t even called it in beforehand, the details, the location, everything. Corrie’s fine, but Agent Pendergast suffered some kind of head trauma and was rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital.” Her shoulders sagged as she hesitated, staring at him, the dejection clear in her body language. “From what she could remember, we understand that he shoved her under the bed and shielded her with his body, using a pillow and the bed sheets to deflect the worst of the blast. Vinnie, he’s...”

D’Agosta choked, clapped a hand to her mouth. “Don’t say it, Laura.” He muttered harshly, hands clutching the recording he’d been perusing. He didn’t remember taking it out of the player. “We are going to leave here, Laura.” D’Agosta breathed the words so carefully, almost lovingly. “We are going to leave this room and go down to the car. I refuse to believe that slippery bastard’s scrawny white *ss is gonna be sleeping on some frozen slab tonight.”

“They’re calling him a hero, Vinnie.” She said, her voice thick with distress.

Their eyes held each other for a moment before they squeezed hands, making for the official escort car down a flight or so of stairs. “About d*mn time. Even if he doesn’t make it, I have to see him, to tell him about the guy on this recording...”

“Huh? Vinnie, wait!” She grabbed his arm mid-step, her face suddenly flushed as though unaccustomed to hesitation. “Who’s going to tell Constance and Viola?”


( 7 )

After exiting the silver wraith, a pale and elegant shadow drapes its way around the sidewalk, wrapped in tremulous layers of crinoline and aged lace. One delicate hand, entwined with its twin and clothed in long black gloves buttoned to the upper elbow, bears steadfast, stiff and proper as a mannequin’s limb in the dim light of the lamps, holding tight to a carefully sealed, antique syringe. The old-style hypodermic is filled with a clear, thin liquid, a special, temperamental substance the significance of which was known only to herself and one other. Of all the lives in the world, that one other was perhaps the most deservant of the needle’s kiss, though doubtless he would have rightly refused the opportunity. The image of a gothic bride, the deathly darling flickers in and out against the stretch of streetlights, her black, laced-to-the-knee booted footfalls courtly and silent against the pavement, her gait serene and purposed. Long brown hair filters the damp moonlight like a veil across her face, carving a cool, grim mask of flawless ivory. The thickness of old, grand fabric rustles about her well-turned calves, swaying with each movement as she passes between breaths along the street, heading for the grassy knoll beside the parking lot. Soon she would be inside. Soon she would be slipping past the ambulance, past the emergency room doctors, into the winding wings full of souls.

She is near the building now. It has begun to rain. Like a deranged marionette she swings her head up to the pouring water and the darkness, crying silently into it as though the rain were a curtain and she the doll about to dance on stage. Her risen violet eyes find the room, one dim light against many breaking up the blinking hospital wall in the deep and humid night. Ah, yes. The rain was a fitting backdrop, for what she planned. She had prepared for just such an occasion as this down to the letter. Now it was time to act, for only she could hope to accomplish this duty. She alone could and would save him from himself. Indeed, for such a man as he was more than worthy of this offering. But first, she needed to gain entrance to the fortress that was Lenox Hill Hospital.


( 8 )

Aloysius X. L. Pendergast, FBI Special Agent. Deceased. Decedent expired at 12:45 pm of involuntary drug-overdose, compounded by moderate concussion resulting in coma and death. Autopsy delayed until further notice.

Putting down the chart, Nurse Gertrude Hoffman stared at the still-warm body on the gurney. It was a slight-bodied male, late-thirties/early-forties, albinoid/caucasian with white-blond hair and pale silver-blue eyes. At least, they would have been blue, had they been open. And those taut, splendid abdominals! Such a shame. With a last sigh of reverence she tugged the sheet down over his head and turned to wheel him into the main holding area when she noticed something peculiar. There was a young woman in period dress standing in the corner. “I’m his daughter. May I have a moment of privacy?” The girl said softly, and a chill gripped Gertrude’s spine. It was 12:57.

Gertrude nodded, feeling suddenly conspicuous beneath the young woman’s gaze. “Oh, certainly. It’s almost after hours though, so don’t take too long to say your goodbyes, okay hon?” She gave a quick, thin-lipped smile and scurried off to wait for her outside the double doors, glad to be out from under the woman’s quirky, weighing gaze.

As the nurse moved out of sight, the girl stared after her for a moment, unblinking. Then, producing an antique syringe from somewhere on her person she turned her attention to the gurney. Off came the sheet, down to the man’s tightly-muscled waist, and her slender arm lifted, raising the needle high above the pale, hairless chest. With an air of melodrama, hand grasped hypo, plunging down with the precision of long practice, and one hook of a delicate thumb was all it took to empty the glass cavity and send the liquid rushing forth into the man’s heart.

In a matter of seconds the hypo was cleansed fastidiously with bleach and water from the stainless steel sink, then put away back into concealment within the folds of white fabric.

Briefly she paused to caress the man’s high cheekbone with her knuckles and then she replaced her gloves, buttoned them up, then tugged them both back into place and...

“Ma’am!” Gertrude Hoffman decided it was time to come back in now, because it was really very late, and she had other, living patients to attend to, hers being the night shift. “Ma’am?” She called again, but as she pushed open the double doors the girl was nowhere in sight. Odd cookie, she thought to herself as she reached to pull the sheets back over the handsome albino. But as she took one last lingering look at his oddly pleasing features, she noticed something else. His hand was squeezing her wrist, so gently that she hadn’t even felt him take it. “Gertrude...” He rasped calmly, pale blue eyes flitting from her ID tag to her face. Then abruptly he seized, falling limp in her arms. With a supreme effort, Gertrude fought the climbing urge to scream. Instead, she reached for the intercom button and called it in. “This is the morgue! Code Blue! I repeat, Code Blue! Get somebody down...”


( 9 )

The woman held tight to the man’s hand, brown eyes ticking off the doors as she gazed down the drab, endless length of white hospital hallway.

“Room three-fourteen.” The man said, smoothing his cowlick as they began walking again. “It ‘s supposed to be right here, down this hall. I heard stories that they reserve a room for him, up at Feversham...”

“Bill...” She said, setting a finger to his lips. “Please, don’t.”

The door they stopped in front of was like all the others, except that it was closed, sectioned off. The two stared at it for a moment, listening for sounds from inside before one of them, the man, reached for the handle and...

“I know, I know, Vinnie.” A woman’s voice murmured from inside. “He’s...” Quiet, spirited cursing in Neopolitan Italian echoed the woman’s softnesses, wavering for an instant just as the man’s fingers grasped the chrome knob. He turned it slowly in his grasp, considering. But then it retreated, and a figure stepped into view. It was a violet-eyed young woman of about 20, wearing black knee-boots, black elbow gloves, and a long, frilly white dress that perfectly suited her slim figure. In her hand was an antique syringe, emptied of its contents. She held it up so the man and the woman could see. Then, mechanically she smiled and handed it to them, her long brown locks curling slightly with her movement as she slipped past them and moved to stare down the hall.

“Hello, Nora. William.” The girl said softly, inclining her head in an empty little bow. “I am Constance Greene. Would you leave this with Aloysius, as a fondness from me? Oh, and William, I wouldn’t bother testing it, as I made sure to give it a thorough bleaching.” Then she was gone, melting like a ghost into the suddenly crowded corridor.

Nora stared after her, unable to process what she had just witnessed. “Bill.” She said, taking him by the shoulders. “Do you realize who that...what she...?”

He gaggled at her, mouth open, his eyes widening like gleaming saucers in the bright white of the hallway. “The...” He said, stammering helplessly with excitement. She nodded, holding his gaze as she turned to the door again and slammed it open. “Vincent! Laura!”

Hayward and D’Agosta started at the suddenness of their presence, but just then the hospital intercom came on, blaring: “This is the morgue! Code Blue! I repeat, Code Blue! We need somebody with a crash-cart down here, stat!”

Soon the four of them were running down the hall, past the nurses’ station. A radiant, bleary-eyed woman in open sandals, a cream tank top and dark cargo shorts, Lady Maskelene? was holding the elevator door open for them, one hand balled into a resolute fist. The four reached the door, but then just as they were stepping through a screech rang through the corridor. “Hey! Not without me, you sh*ts! I gotta see this!” Suddenly a Goth girl in black shorts and a dark green tee that read: ‘Bite Me’ came careening past the nurses’ station from the opposite end, arms flailing, purple hair piercing the air as it flew back in her wake. It was Corrie Swanson.

Peeling Viola Maskelene’s tanned fingers from the steel-lined frame, Bill Smithback waved Corrie toward them, stuffing himself between the wall and the retracting doors. “Bill! Be careful!” Nora called just as Corrie ducked in, and Smithback moved to let the elevator slide shut behind him as he rejoined Nora and the rest.

“Whew, thanks old man!” Corrie quipped as the elevator sped downward.

Viola looked at her for a moment, then began to laugh softly to herself as tears ran down her high, sculpted cheekbones, making tracks in the sand smears. “Constance said he called her. It must have happened right after that...I just got here...She called ahead to secure him that private room, the one you were waiting in, when...oh God. Oh God. Oh God.”

D’Agosta touched her arm, steadying her. “Viola. You should go and see him first. He would want that, I think.”

Before she could reply, the elevator dinged, its overhead counter swaying to a stop above them. The doors slipped open and Viola swayed into motion, streaming past them toward the cluster of white coats stuffing the double-doors, her ruddy-brown hair cascading behind her like a veil of autumn leaves.

“Aloysius!” She cried out above the clamor of scrambling hospital staff, and all motion stopped as each flushed and harried face turned to gape at her. “This way, ma’am!” A tall, impossibly young male nurse with a large bandage on one side of his face called out to her in a low, rasping voice, then brushed forward to take her arm. Briefly, he turned to the quintet stepping off the elevator and smiled. “Are all of you with Lady Maskelene? I’m terribly sorry, but you’ll have to wait out here. They’re only admitting immediates...you know, children, spouses...” Then the two of them pushed through the hospital morgue’s double-doors and disappeared.

“Speaking of, uh, children...” Smithback piped up, eyes puppy-dogging at the constant foot traffic in and out of the morgue. D’Agosta just stared forward, a frown materializing as he finished the reporter’s sentence for him. “...where’s Constance?”


( 10 )

“This way, Lady Maskelene...this way please.” The man murmured, gripping Viola’s hand and drawing her through the crowd of white-coated people streaming in and out from the double-doors. As they moved forward, she noticed that the metal drawers lining the walls were drawing her attention, for some reason. She turned to mention this to her guide, only to find that he had stopped for a moment and was leaning rather heavily on an abandoned surgical tray, breathing hard. Startled, she took a second look and reached out to touch his shoulder. “Are you all right, Mr...Kinsey?” Viola asked, glancing at his ID. It read, ‘Rupert Kinsey’.

Kinsey looked up at her, a small grin touching his thin lips. “Yes, ma’am. It’s just...it’s been a long shift, and I’ve always had trouble..sleeping. But we should get going. Your husband was just being examined when I left to come find you.” He straightened, then led her through another set of double-doors and into a small sea of anxious faces.

“Are you done screwing around, Mr. Kinsey?” A doctor griped, reaching for Viola’s arm.

Kinsey laughed harshly and reached up to his face. The ‘flesh’ tore away at his touch, revealing backward-curling lips, peeled-off eyelids, a twisted map of sinew. But that well-singed landscape of burns had once been a face. A face with bicolor eyes of milky blue and hazel... “Hello again, Viola.” The dry, parched voice croaked from Kinsey’s lips. He shook his wrist and a familiar ivory scalpel, twin to the one he had given Constance, fell into his gloved hand. He clutched at her, his grip clenching painfully on her arm as he lifted the scalpel to her jugular. “What...what a pity my brother is indisposed!” He cackled again, savoring the rabid fear that shone in their quivering faces. “That fool Coffey was a joke, but he certainly was useful, mutual connections, shall we say, especially after I provided him with means and opportunity to once again disrupt dear Aloysius’s boring little universe. You might say it was his last hurrah. The ingrate...”

Viola held her breath, stiffening instinctively in that deathly grasp, but then, as he spun her to face the stunned throng of doctors and nurses hanging motionless on his every action, she saw two white hands reach up, one angling for silent purchase among the wisps of singed hair that still clung to Diogenes’ charred, twisted flesh, the other easing slender fingers around the ruined neck...

“Diogenes.” Honeyed, soothing words flowed in the man’s ear, and his body relaxed involuntarily. “It’s time to go to sleep, now.” Diogenes Pendergast’s ruined eyes widened briefly, and then a sharp crack pervaded the crowded morgue. His face sank into oblivion then, slipping past the tremulous, pallid fingers that had frozen in place. The pristine scalpel slid with a clatter to the floor, its ivory handle shattering in polished fragments.

Minutes passed, and then Viola Maskelene looked from the body to the man behind it. He was trembling, staring at her with all the timeless melancholy of a statue. Shadows filled his gaunt face, and tears were running rampant down his paste-grey skin. Abruptly he sagged, his pale blue eyes shifting upward. He sank, but Viola held out a well-tanned arm to catch him, then another. “I’m here, I’m with you.” Again and again she said it, repeating it like a prayer as he collapsed against her. She eased him down to the floor, resting his head on her dirty knees as she caressed his delicate cheekbones with calloused hands. His eyes were closed. A balding man in a white uniform bent down at his side, checking for a pulse wherever he could find it. “He blacked out from the exertion, that’s all. Considering all that he’s gone through, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he slept through the night. For once. We’ll still need to keep him overnight for monitoring, of course, and then he can be transferred to Feversham in the morning...” At her vague smile, the doctor looked visibly relieved. Then he removed himself, motioning for the others to do the same. “Call for one of us when you’ve finished, Lady Maskelene. We need to do a physical on him, make sure he’s...”

But Viola merely shook her head. It was time, as it were, to put her sandaled, well-tanned foot down. “I’m sorry, doctor, but I don’t think I shall ever be finished with Aloysius. In fact, I wish to transfer him to Feversham tonight. I will arrange things here, as it simply won’t do for him to stay in this place a moment longer. Certainly not with such an...all-consuming piece of his...sordid past...lying there on the floor like that. I ask you, doctor...do not torture him so.” She caught at his arm, holding him with her eyes, much like the man sleeping in her lap might have done. “He’s given everything for me, and now he needs my undivided attention. Besides,” She ran her hands through Aloysius’ sweat-damp hair, smoothing the white-blonde locks with patient, careful movements. “-if I am to be saya to his ken, I ought to act the part.”


( 11 )

It must have been mid-day or later, because the curtains, drawn down over the windows now, were lit from behind. Idly, the man on the bed decided to test his stamina by curling and uncurling his fingers in the sheets, digit by digit, again and again. Severe exhaustion could be so very irritating, so time-consuming, so...

“Awake, are we?” A sweet, cheerful feminine voice warbled merrily. He recognized it from the last time he’d come here. If he wasn’t mistaken, and he wasn’t, it was the same nurse who had tended to Margo Green on his last visit...dear Margo. Absently he wondered how she was faring, as it had been some time since their last sojourn at Feversham. “It’s good to see you back amongst the living sir...relatively speaking. I’ll go get your wife, Lady Maskelene, the dear woman. She’s been taking such good care of you.” His eyes were still closed, or else he would have blinked in surprise. Viola? His...wife? That misinterpretation gave him pause, but only for the briefest of moments. A trifling concern, really, in light of other issues. Of course, such a notion was not exactly the unhappiest of prospects. Feeling somewhat more chipper than he had a moment ago, the man graduated to tapping, adding in parts with his other hand, ever so slowly, until he was beating out a steady rhythm
against the thick, comfortable mattress.

“See, here she is!” The nurse murmured, patting his shoulder as though he were a flu-stricken five-year-old snuffling after his mother. A pair of soft footsteps, sandaled and easy, flowed across the carpeted floor. Then they stopped, waiting for something.

“Indeed.” He managed flatly, but the woman just flicked his ear and smiled. “Now, now. Don’t be that way. She’s in here all the time with you. Truth be told, she spends hours in that chair just watching you breathe.”

Had she truly? Oh my... “May we have some time alone then?” He added, lifting his eyelids just long enough to glare at the nurse, who in all good humour glared back and then turned to go, leaving the two of them to their business. After a few heaving breaths, he forced his pale silver-blue eyes open again, suddenly wanting very much to gaze upon the face of his ‘wife’.

“Dearest Viola...one hears you are enamored of a certain convalescent Southerner...”

Lady Maskelene’s dark eyes flickered like embers, warming him through as she looked at him. “Aloysius...I’m so glad! I had hoped you’d be awake today.” The smile that crossed her lips was enough to cheer the frown right off his face, temporarily at least. “I brought some friends who want to see you...”

“Aloysius X. L. Pendergast, where the hell do you get off sleeping this late?” Vincent D’Agosta’s unique mode of entreaty was clearly unmistakable. “Come on, ladies. The man’s awake now, so we ought to pay our respects.” He swept his arm back, and three women, one in a wheelchair, a young girl with purple hair, and a scruffy man with a cowlick came into the room.

“So sorry to have kept y’all waiting.” Pendergast drawled, attempting, with the faintest of smiles, to will away the sheer exhaustion he felt at the number of people who had just invaded his room.

“Are you really all right?” Margo asked, bending forward a little in her wheelchair so she could touch his hand. “And don’t lie to me. I can’t stand liars. You look worse than I do.”

“I’m tired, Margo.” He answered ruefully, without the slightest trace of verbal flourish, and she actually blushed in the interval of quiet that pervaded the chamber. “How have you been since I last saw you?” Being the focus of unwanted attention was so discomfiting, especially when one was fatigued, and the mere thought of an extended conversation, even with these, his trusted compatriots, only served to exhaust him further.

She raised an eyebrow at him, and waved her hand in frustration, limp brown hair, I.V. and all. “I thought we were talking about you, Agent Pendergast. Since when were you one to avoid a difficult topic of discussion?” But she was smiling at him, a little bit sadly, so he blinked away another wave of weariness and forced himself to sit up, to meet her emerald gaze head on. “Point taken, my dear.”

“Aw, did the little baby get his wind back?” Corrie piped up, slapping a hand to her mouth to cover a snicker.

Abruptly he slid his slitted silver eyes toward her, quick as a snapping cayman, and she yelped.

He gave a soft laugh and then bent his head, suddenly dizzy from sitting upright, and then two more voices, Nora and Captain Hayward, joined in.

With a grin of mild concern, Viola, an autumn-haired revelation, floated to the edge of the bed and slid her hand against his chest, bracing him until he could raise up again. “Forgive me, all of you.” He managed, feeling a bit of the blush himself. “I haven’t been myself, these past few months.”

Corrie Swanson snorted loudly, then burst out laughing as though she were drunk. “Dude, like, duh!”

“I noticed, Miss Swanson, that you purposefully omitted your signature snipe about my clothing. A vast improvement, surely.” Pendergast licked his lips, slow and deliberate-like. “And I did so enjoy your poem. Might you read it for us later, at my brother’s...” He shook himself. “Eh. As I said, your language seemed much improved. But perhaps I have erred in my assumption...”

“Heh. Of course I’ll read it.” The girl quipped smoothly, trying to hide her concern as she looked his black silk nightclothes up and down. “About your nighty...gimme a sec. The day’s not over.”

He cringed in mock horror, then with a nod he turned his eyes to Nora and William, who were busy fiddling with each other’s clothing. “William. Nora. Have you two something to say before the sun sets?”

Nora Kelley and William Smithback both stared at him, flushed. Then Smithback slipped him something under the sheet, a small, cylindrical object wrapped in brown paper. “Uh, yeah actually…Constance said to give her regards to Viola.” He said, twisting his foot on the floor like a freshly reprimanded schoolboy. “When are you going to marry her?” Nora said, her gaze uncharacteristically freezing him in place.

Aloysius paled, fighting off ravenous butterflies for only the slightest of instants, and then he drew a breath, collected himself, answered. “Ah, yes. I’ve been meaning to remedy that little problem. Thank you so much for saving me the trouble of mentioning it in front of my intended.”

“Yeah right! You just hadn’t found the balls!” D’Agosta croaked, easing forward somewhat to conceal the changing of hands.

“Thank you, Vincent.” He muttered, looking up at Viola, who only smiled, eyes holding his gaze like a lovesick girl’s.

Everyone was laughing now, even Laura Hayward, who was usually so straightforward and stiff around him. “You okay, Pendergast? You look a little flustered.”

Aloysius closed his eyes and clutched his head again, feeling warmed by their good spirits in spite of himself. “Dear heavens! A wedding and a funeral. Just my good fortune I suppose...the chance to bear witness at my own railroading. What say you, Viola? Are three months enough time to plan for the big event?”

Her grin gleamed even brighter as she bent toward him and kissed his cheek. “Of course. Any time is fine with me! As long as you’re healthy. And you will be, after the...family processional...is over, and you’ve had a chance to rest.” Her face seemed aglow. “You will relax and let me handle things if you need to? I’d rather you not push yourself on my account.” She touched his cheek, and he cupped her hand in his, silent lips pressed against her palm in a reverent kiss. Viola smiled and brushed his hair back, taking in each inch of his brightening face before she spoke again. “Oh, Aloysius! Won’t Constance be lovely as a Maid of Honour?”

“I imagine she would.” Pendergast murmured, gazing at Viola for a moment before he cast his silver eyes around the room as if searching for a phone. “Ah, I should like to phone her with the good news, but my phone was, shall we say, burned to a crisp by a certain unmentionable?”

As Pendergast watched his visitors, a low cacaphony of scrunching and scrounging erupted amongst them and they busied themselves, stuffing hands into pockets and purses. Abruptly the noise ceased, and a motley number of phones turned up beneath his aquiline nose. He smiled, chose one, a shiny red metallic thing with a slightly singed exterior. “Much obliged, my dear.” He mused as he dialed, and then the phone rang. “Constance? Can you hear me now? Ah, good! After last night, I am doubly relieved to hear your voice. Now then, I have a special query for you...” His lips parted in a faint grin and his eyelids narrowed gleefully, half-closing above eyes like silver slivers that sparkled in the muted sunlight. “May one inquire as to the prospect of your attendance at a proper southern wedding?”


FIN

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