Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

THREE

Katya had a little more of her story still to tell.

" 'My life is worth nothing,' the Duke had told the Devil's wife. He who had led armies and triumphed in his crusades against the infidel now found his life was at an end. And why? Because he had chased and killed what he took to be a goat?

" 'It was an accident!' he said, his fury at the injustice of this suddenly getting the better of him. 'I demand to be seen by some higher judge than you.'

" 'There is only one higher,' Lilith replied. And that's my husband.'

"The Duke met her cold gaze, the profundity of his terror paradoxically making him brave.

" 'There is a God in Heaven,' he said.

" 'Is there now?' said Lilith. Are you certain? I saw Him only once, the day He made me. Since then He has never shown His face. This is the Devil's Country, Goga. My Lord Lucifer rules here. Or in his absence, me. I doubt your God will stretch out His hand to save your soul.'

" 'Then I shall ride out of here,' the Duke replied.

"'You saw what happened to your comrade. I'll do the same to you, before you reach your horse. I'll have you wailing like a baby at my feet.'

"Goga wasn't a stupid man. He knew there was no use in contradicting the woman. He'd already seen one of his men horribly slaughtered by her. He would surely follow if he attempted to escape. All he could do was throw himself upon Lilith's mercy.

"He went down on his knees, and composing himself as best he could, he addressed her:

" 'Please, gentle lady, listen to me.'

" 'I'm listening.'

" 'I have lost children of my own, all six of them dead by the plague. And my wife the same way. I know the pain you are suffering, and I'm sick that I was its cause. But what's done is done. I made a mistake that I bitterly regret. But how can I take it back? Had I known I was on your husband's land I would not even have hunted here.'

"Lilith looked at him for a long while, assessing the worth of his appeal.

" 'Well, hereafter, my lord,' she said finally, 'it is my pleasure that you and your men will hunt here always.'

"Another bitter breath up out of Hell to accompany these words. The woman's long hair rose up around her body, a few of its strands grazing Goga's upturned face.

" 'Get back on your horses, hunters,' Lilith said. 'Return to your hunt. There are boar in the thicket, waiting to be driven out. There are birds in the trees, ready to be shot while they sing. Kill them at will, as it pleases you to do so. There will be no charge for your sport.'

"The Duke was astonished to hear this mild invitation, after all that had just taken place, and thinking perhaps his plea for clemency had carried some weight with Lilith, he very slowly got to his feet, thanking her.

" 'It's most kind of you,' he said, 'to invite me to hunt. And perhaps another day I will come back here and accept your invitation. But today my heart is heavy—'

" 'As well it might be,' the woman replied.

" 'So I think instead I will return to the Fortress and—'

" 'No,' she said, raising her hand. 'You will not return to the Fortress. You will hunt.'

" 'I could not, madam. Really, I could not.'

" 'Sir,' she replied, with a little inclination of her head. 'You misunderstood me. You have no choice. You will hunt, and you will go on hunting, until you find my son a second time, and bring him back to me.'

" 'I don't understand.'

" 'A second time.'

"She pointed to the corpse of the goat-child, which lay in its cooling blood. Her hair drifted over the sprawled cadaver, lightly touching the boy's chest and stomach and private parts. Much to the Duke's astonishment the child responded to his mother's caresses. As the hair touched his chest his lungs drew a little breath, and his penis—which was disproportionately large for one his age—grew steely.

" 'Take your sword out of him,' Lilith instructed the Duke.

"But the Duke was too terrified at this scene of infernal resurrection to go near the boy. He kept his distance, filling his breeches in fear.

" 'You men are all the same!' Lilith said contemptuously. 'You find it easy enough to drive the sword in, but when it comes to taking it out you can't bring yourself to do it.'

"She stepped into the puddle of her son's blood, and reached to take hold of the sword. The boy's eyes flickered open as he felt his mother's hand upon the pommel. Then he lifted his hands and caught hold of the blade with his bare palms, almost as though he were attempting to keep her from extracting it. Still she pulled, and it slowly came out of him.

" 'Slowly, Mama,' the goat-boy said, his tone almost lascivious. 'It hurts mightily. '

" 'Does it, child?' Lilith said, twisting the blade in the wound as though to perversely increase her child's distress. He threw back his head, still looking at her from the bottom of his eyes, his lips drawn back from his little, pointed teeth. 'And this?' she said, turning the blade the other way. 'Does this bring you agony?'

"'Yes, Mama!'

"She twisted it the other way. 'And this?'

"Finally, it was too much for the child. He let out a hissing sound, and spat from his erection several spouts of semen. Its sharp stink made the Duke's eyes sting.

"Lilith waited until the boy had finished ejaculating, then she drew out the sword. The goat-boy sank back on the wet earth, with a look of satisfaction on his face.

" 'Thank you, Mama,' he said, as though well pleasured by what had just happened.

"The wound on his belly was already closing up, the Duke saw. It was as though it were being knitted by agile and invisible fingers. So too the wounds on his hands, incurred when he had seized the blade. In a matter of perhaps half a minute the goat-boy was whole again."

"So if the child wasn't dead," Todd said, "why was the Duke guilty of murdering him?"

Katya shook her head. "He'd committed the crime. The fact that the boy was an immortal was academic. He'd murdered the child, and had to be punished for it."

Todd's gaze went again to the trees where the Duke and his men had disappeared, picturing the look of hope that had appeared on the men's faces when they'd heard the sound of the child's cries. Now all that made sense. No wonder they'd ridden off so eagerly. They were still hoping to find the boy, and earn their release from the Devil's Country.

A wave of claustrophobia came up over Todd. This was not the limitless landscape it had first appeared to be: it was a prison, and he wanted to be free of it. He turned, and turned again, looking for some crack in the illusion, however small. But he could find none. Despite the immensity of the vistas in all directions, and the height of heavens above him, he might as well have been locked in a cell.

His breath had quickened; his hands were suddenly clammy.

"Which way's the door?" he asked Katya.

"You want to leave? Now?"

"Yes, now."

"It's just a story," she said.

"No it's not. I saw the Duke. We both saw him."

"It's all part of the show," Katya said, with a dismissive little shrug. "Calm down. There's no harm going to come to us. I've been down here hundreds of times and nothing ever happened to me."

"You saw the Duke here before?"

"Sometimes. Never as close as we saw today, but there are always hunters."

"Well ask yourself: why are there always hunters? Why is there always an eclipse?"

"I don't know. Why do you always do the same thing in a movie every time it runs—"

"So things are exactly the same, every time you come here, like a movie?"

"Not exactly the same, no. But the sun's always like that: three-quarters covered. And the trees, the rocks ... even the ships out there." She pointed to the ships. "It's always the same ships. They never seem to get very far."

"So it's not like a movie," Todd said. "It's more like time's been frozen."

She nodded. "I suppose it is," she said. "Frozen in the walls."

"I don't see any walls."

"They're there," Katya said, "it's just a question of where to look. How to look. Trust me."

"You want me to trust you," Todd said, "then get me out of here."

"I thought you were enjoying yourself."

"The pleasure went out of it a while back," Todd said. He grabbed her arm, hard. "Come on," he said. "I want to get out."

She shook herself free of him. "Don't touch me that way," she said, her expression suddenly fierce. "I don't like it." She pointed past him, over his right shoulder. "The door's over there."

He looked back. He could see no sign of an opening. Just more of the Devil's Country.

And now, to make matters worse, he once again heard the sound of hooves.

"Oh Christ . . ."

He glanced back toward the trees. The Duke and his men were riding toward them, empty-handed.

"They're coming back to interrogate us," Todd said. "Katya! Did you hear me? We need to get the hell out of here."

Katya had seen the horsemen, but she didn't seem overly unnerved. She watched them approaching without moving. Todd, meanwhile, made his way in the general direction of the door; or at least where she had indicated it stood. He scanned the place, looking for some fragment—the corner of the doorframe, the handle, the keyhole—to help him locate it. But there was nothing.

Having no other choice he simply walked across the stony ground, his hands extended in front of him. After proceeding perhaps six strides, the empty air in front of him suddenly became solid, and his hands flattened against cold, hard tile. The instant he made contact, the illusion of the painters' trompe l'oeil was broken. He could not believe he had been so easily deceived. What had looked like infinite, penetrable reality two strides before now looked absurdly fake: stylish marks on pieces of antiquated tile, plastered on a wall. How could his eyes have been misled for an instant?

Then he looked back over his shoulder, to call Katya over, and the illusion in which she stood was still completely intact—the expanse of open ground between where they stood and the galloping horsemen apparently a quarter-mile or more, the trees beyond them twice that, the sky limitless above. Illusion, he told himself, all illusion. But it meant nothing in the face of the trick before him, which refused to bow to his doubt. He gave up trying to make it concede, and instead turned back to the wall. His hands were still upon it, the tiles still laid out under his palms. Which direction did the door lie in?

"Right or left?" he called to Katya.

"What?"

"The door! Is it to the right or left?"

She took her eyes off the riders, and scanned the wall he was clinging to. "Left," she said, casually.

"Hurry then—"

"They didn't find the child."

"Forget about them!" he told her.

If she was attempting to impress him with her fearlessness she was doing a poor job. He was simply irritated. She'd shown him the way the room worked, for God's sake; now it was time to get out.

"Come on!" he cried.

As he called to her he moved along the wall, a step to his left, then another step, keeping his palms flat to the tiles every inch of the way, as though defying them to play some new trick or other. But it seemed that as long as he had his hands on the tiles—as long as he could keep uppermost in his mind the idea that this was a painted world—it could not start its trickeries afresh. And on the third step—or was it fourth?—along the wall his extended hand found the doorjamb. He breathed out a little sigh of relief. The doorjamb was right there under his hand. He moved his palm over it onto the door itself which, like the jamb, was tiled so that there was no break in the illusion. He fumbled for the handle, found it and tried to turn it.

On the other side, Tammy had found her way along the passageway and chosen that precise moment to turn the handle in the opposite direction.

"Oh Jesus—" Todd said. "It's locked."

"You hear that?" Tammy gasped. "That's Todd? Todd!"

"Yeah it's me. Who's this?"

"Tammy. It's Tammy Lauper. Are you turning the handle?"

"Yeah."

"Well let go of it. Let me try."

Todd let go. Tammy turned the handle. Before she opened the door she glanced back at Zeffer. He was still one flight up the stairs, staring out of the window.

"The dead . . ." she heard him say.

"What about them?"

"They're all around the house. I've never seen them this close before. They know there are people passing back and forth through the door, that's why."

"Do I open the door? Todd's on the other side."

"Are you sure it's Todd?"

"Yes, it's Todd."

Hearing his name called, Todd impatiently yelled from the other side. "Yes, it's me. And Katya. Will you please open the fucking door?"

Tammy's hands were sweaty, and her muscles weary; the handle slid through her palm. "I can't open it. You try."

Todd struggled with the handle from his side, but what had seemed as though it were going to be the easiest part of the procedure (opening the door) was proving the most intractable. It was almost as though the room didn't want him to leave; as though it wanted to hold on to him for as long as possible, to exercise the greatest amount of influence over him; to addict him, second by second, sight by sight.

He glanced back over his shoulder. Katya was staring up at the sky, moving her hands down over her body, as though she were luxuriating in the curious luminosity of this enraptured world. For a moment he imagined her naked, cradled in the heavenly luminescence, but he caught himself in the midst of the fantasy. It was surely just another of the room's tricks to keep him from departing. The damn place probably had a thousand such sleights-of-mind: sexual, philosophical, murderous.

He closed his eyes hard against the seductions of the Country and put his head against the door. The tile was clammy; like a living thing.

"Tammy?" he said. "Are you still here?"

"Yes?"

"When I count three, I want you to push. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Okay. Ready?"

"Ready."

"One. Two. Three!"

She pushed. He pulled. And the door fell open, presenting Todd with one of the odder juxtapositions he'd witnessed in his life. In the hallway on the other side of the door stood a woman who looked as though she'd gone several rounds with a heavy-weight boxer. There were bloody scratches on her face, neck and arms; her hair and clothes were in disarray. In her eyes she had a distinctly panicked look.

He recognized her instantly. She was the leader of his Fan Club, a woman called Tammy Lauper. Yes! The missing Tammy Lauper! How the hell had she got up here? Never mind. She was here, thank God.

"I thought something terrible had happened to you," Lauper said.

"Give it time," he quipped.

Behind him, he heard the horsemen approaching. He glanced around, calling again to Katya.

"Hurry up, will you?"

When he returned his gaze to Tammy it was clear that she'd taken in, as best her disbelief would allow, the incredible sight over his shoulder. Her eyes were wide with astonishment, her jaw slack.

"So this is what it looks like."

"Yes," he said to her. "This is it."

Tammy threw a look back at a stooped, older man standing on the stairs behind her. He looked almost incapacitated with fear. But unlike Tammy, whose expression was that of someone who had never seen anything like this before, it was Todd's sense that her companion knew exactly what he was seeing, and would have liked nothing better than to turn right there and flee.

Then Todd heard Katya calling from behind him, naming the man.

"Zeffer," she said, the word freezing the man where he stood.

"Katya . . ." he said, inclining his head.

Katya came up behind Todd, pressing him aside in order to cross over the threshold. She pointed at the trespasser as she did so.

"I told you never to come back into this house!" she yelled at Zeffer. "Didn't I?"

He flinched at this, though it was difficult to believe she posed much physical threat to him.

She summoned him down the stairs. "Come here," she said. "You worthless piece of shit! I said: come here!"

Before he could obey her, Tammy intervened. "It's not his fault," she said. "I was the one who asked him to bring me down here."

Katya gave her a look of complete contempt; as though anything she might have to contribute to the conversation was worthless.

"Whoever the hell you are," she said, "this is none of your business."

She pushed Tammy aside and reached out to catch hold of Zeffer. He had dutifully approached at her summons, but now avoided her grasp. She came after him anyway, striking his chest with the back of her hand, a solid blow; and another; and another. As she struck him she said: "I told you to stay outside, didn't I?"

The blows were relatively light, but they carried strength out of all proportion to their size. They knocked the breath out of him, for one thing, and she'd come back with a second blow before he'd drawn breath from the first, which quickly weakened him. Tammy was horrified, but she didn't want to interfere, in case she simply made the matter worse. Nor was her attention entirely devoted to the sight of Todd, or to the assault upon Zeffer. Her gaze was increasingly claimed by the sight visible through the open door. It was astonishing. Despite the fact that Zeffer had told her the place was an illusion, her eyes and her mind were wholly enamored by what she saw: the rolling forest, the rocks with their thickets of thorn bushes, the delta and the distant sea. It all looked so real.

And what was that?

Some creature that looked like a feathered lizard, its coxcomb yellow and black, scuttled into view, and out again.

It halted, seeming to look back through the door at her: a beast that belonged in some book of medieval monsters rather than in such proximity to her.

She glanced back at Zeffer, who was still being lectured by Katya.

With the door open, and the visions beyond presented to her, she saw no reason not to step over the threshold, just for a moment, and see the place more plainly. After all, she was protected against its beguilements. She knew it was a beautiful lie, and as long as she remembered that, then it couldn't do her any harm, could it?

The only thing in the landscape that was real was Todd, and it was to him that she now went, crossing the dirt and the windblown grass to reach him. The feathered reptile lowered its coxcomb as she crossed the ground, and slunk away, disappearing into a crack between two boulders. But Todd wasn't watching animal-life. He had his eyes on several horsemen who were approaching along a road that wound through a dense stand of trees. They were moving at speed, kicking up clods of earth as they came. Were they real, Tammy wondered, or just part of the landscape? She wasn't sure, nor was she particularly eager to put the question to the test.

Yet with every passing second she was standing in this world, the more she felt the power of the room to unknit her doubts. She felt its influence seeping through her sight and her skin into her mind and marrow. Her head grew giddy, as though she'd downed two or three glasses of wine in quick succession.

It wasn't an unpleasant sensation by any means, especially given the extreme discomfort of the last few hours. She felt almost comforted by the room; as though it understood how she'd suffered of late, and was ready to soothe her hurts and humiliations away. It would distract her with its beauty and its strangeness; if she would only trust it for a while.

"Tammy . . ." she heard Zeffer say behind her. His voice was weak, and the effect his summons had on her was inconsequential. She didn't even acknowledge it. She just let her eyes graze contentedly on the scene before her; the trees, the horsemen, the road, the rocks.

Soon, she knew, the riders would make a turn in that road, and it would be interesting to see how their image changed when they were no longer moving in profile, but were coming toward her.

She glanced back over her shoulder. It wasn't far to the door: just a few yards. Her eyes didn't even focus on whatever was going on in the passageway. It seemed very remote from her at that moment.

She looked back toward the horsemen. They had turned the corner in the road, and were now coming directly toward the spot where Todd and she stood. It was the oddest visual spectacle she'd ever witnessed, to see them growing larger as they approached, like illustrations emerging from a book. The landscape around them seemed to both recede and advance at the same moment as they approached, its motion throwing them forward as the ground beneath their horses drew back like a retreating wave. It was an utterly bewildering spectacle, but its paradoxical beauty enthralled her. All thought of Zeffer's summons, or indeed his safety, were forgotten: it was as though she were watching a piece of film for the first time, not knowing how the mechanism worked upon her.

She felt Todd throw her a sideways glance.

"Time to go," he said.

The earth beneath their feet reverberated as the horsemen approached. They'd be at the door in thirty or forty seconds.

"Come on," he said.

"Yes . . ." she murmured. "I'm coming."

She didn't move. It wasn't until Todd caught hold of her arm and pulled her back toward the door that she eventually obeyed the instruction and went. Even then she kept looking back over her shoulder, astonished.

"I don't believe what I'm seeing," she said.

"It's all real. Trust me on that," he said. "They can do you harm."

They had reached the threshold now, and she reluctantly allowed herself to be coaxed back over it and into the passageway. She was amazed at the speed with which the room had caught her attention; made itself the center of her thoughts.

Even now, it was still difficult to focus her attention on anything but the scene beyond the door, but finally she dragged her eyes away from the approaching horsemen and sought out Zeffer.

He had fallen to his knees three or four yards from the door, putting up no defense against Katya's assault.

"I told you, didn't I?" she said, slapping his head. "I never wanted to see you in this house ever again. You understand me? Ever again."

"I'm sorry," he said, his head bowed. "I just brought—"

"I don't care who you brought. This house is forbidden to you."

"Yes ... I know."

His acquiescence did nothing to placate her. The reverse, in fact: it seemed to inflame her. She kicked him.

"You revolt me," she said.

He bent over, as though to present a smaller target to her. She pushed him, hard, and he fell. She moved in to kick him again, aiming for his face, but at that moment Tammy saw what she was about to do, and let out a cry of protest.

"Leave him alone!" she said.

Katya turned. "What?"

"You heard me. Leave him alone!"

Katya's beauty was disfigured by the naked contempt on her face. She was breathing heavily, and her face was flushed.

"I'll do what it suits me to do in my own house," she said, her lip curling. "And no fat, ugly bitch like you is going to tell me otherwise."

Tammy knew plenty about Katya Lupi by now, of course; her intimidating reputation went before her. But at that moment, seeing Zeffer lying on the floor, and hearing what the woman had just said, any trace of intimidation was burned away by a blaze of anger. Even the glories of the Devil's Country were forgotten at that moment.

She walked straight toward Katya and pushed her hard, laying her hands against the bitch's little breasts to do so. Katya was clearly not used to being manhandled. She came back at Tammy in an instant.

"Don't you dare touch me!" she shrieked. Then she back-handed Tammy; a clean, wide strike.

Tammy fell back, the metallic tang of blood in her mouth. There were three sickening heartbeats when she feared the force of Katya's blow was going to knock her unconscious. Darkness pulsed at the corners of her vision. But she was determined not to be floored by one blow, even if it did have something more than ordinary human force behind it, as she suspected it did.

She reached out for something to steady her, and her hand found the doorjamb. As she caught hold of it, she glanced back over her shoulder, remembering her proximity to the strange beauty of the Devil's Country. But the power of the room's illusion had been momentarily knocked from her head. The walls were simply covered in tiles now. There were trees and rocks and a painted river on those tiles, but none of it was so finely rendered that it could have been mistaken for reality. The only part of the scene before her that was real was Todd, who was still lingering at the threshold. Apparently he could see what Tammy could not because at that moment he threw himself over the threshold like a man in fear of something coming close on his heels. He caught hold of the doorhandle, and started to pull the door closed, but as he did so Katya came back into view and blocked the door with her foot.

"Don't close it!" she told Todd.

Todd obeyed her. He let go of the handle. The door struck Katya's leg and bounced open again.

Now the machinations of the room began to work on Tammy afresh. The gloomy air seethed, and the shapes of four horsemen appeared out of the murk, still riding toward the door.

The leader—the Duke, Tammy thought, this is the Duke—pulled hard on the reins to slow his mount. The animal made a din, as though its primitive gaze was failing to make sense of what was ahead of it. Rather than advance any further it came to a panicked halt, throwing up clods of dirt as it did so. Goga jumped from the saddle, shouting a number of incomprehensible orders back at his men, who had also brought their animals to a stop. They proceeded to dismount. There were whispers of superstitious doubt between the men: plainly whatever they were witnessing (the door, the passageway), they could make little or no sense of it. That fact didn't slow their advance, however. They dutifully followed their leader toward the door, swords drawn.

By now Tammy had recovered sufficiently to grab hold of Todd's arm and pull him back from the threshold.

"Come away," she urged him.

He looked round at her. She was probably more familiar with his face, and with his limited palette of expressions, than she was with her own.

But she'd never seen the look of stupefaction he wore right now. The veins at his temples were throbbing, his mouth was slack; his blood-shot eyes seemed to have difficulty focusing on her.

She tugged harder on his arm, in the hope of shaking him out of his stupor. Behind him she could see the horsemen approaching the door, their step more cautious now that they were almost at the threshold. Having stopped the door from being closed, Katya had stepped away from it, leaving Todd the closest of them all to the horsemen. So close, in fact, that had the Duke so chosen, he could have lunged from where he stood, and killed Todd with a single stroke.

He did not do so, however. He hung back from the door, eyeing it with suspicion and awe. Though none of the light from the hallway seemed to illuminate the world on the other side of the doorway, Tammy could see the man's face quite clearly: his severely angular features, his long, braided beard, black shot through with streaks of gray; his dark, heavy-lidded eyes. He was by no means as beautiful as Todd had once been, but there was a gravitas in his physiognomy which Todd's corn-fed charm could never have approached. No doubt he was responsible for all manner of crimes—in such a landscape as he'd ridden, who would not lay claim to their share of felonies?—but in that moment, in the midst of a dark journey of her own, Tammy would have instinctively preferred the eloquence of this face for company to Todd's easy beauty.

Indeed, if she had ever been in love with Todd Pickett—which by many definitions she had—she fell out of love with him at that moment, comparing his face with that of Duke Goga, and finding it wanting.

That was not to say that she didn't want Todd safe from this place; from the house and all its inhabitants, especially Katya. So she hauled on his arm again, yelling for him to get away from the door, and this time her message got through to him.

Todd retreated, and as he did so Katya caught hold of Zeffer by the hair and lifted him up. Tammy was too concerned with reclaiming Todd from the threshold to do anything to save Zeffer. And Zeffer in turn did nothing to save himself. He simply let the woman he had adored pick him up, and with the same nearly-supernatural strength Tammy herself had felt just moments before, Katya pitched Zeffer through the open door.

The horsemen were waiting on the other side, swords at the ready.

Only now, as he stumbled across the ground before them, did Zeffer raise his arms to protect himself against the swordsmen. Whether the Duke took this harmless motion as some attempt at aggression, and reacted to protect himself, or whether he simply wanted to do harm, Tammy would never know. The Duke lifted his sword and brought it down in a great swooping arc that cut through the meat of Zeffer's right hand, taking off all four of his fingers, and the top half of his thumb. Blood spurted out from the wounds, and Zeffer let out a cry that was one part disbelief to two of agony. He stared at his maimed hand for a moment, then he turned from his mutilator and stumbled back toward the door.

For an instant, he lifted his gaze, and his eyes met Tammy's. They had a moment only to look at each other. Then Duke Goga came at Zeffer again and drove his sword through the middle of his back.

There was a terrible cracking sound, as the blade shattered Zeffer's breast-bone and then the point emerged from the middle of his chest.

Zeffer threw back his head, and caught hold of the edge of the door with his unmaimed hand. He had his eyes fixed on Tammy as he did so, as though he were drawing the power to do whatever he was planning to do from her. There was a long moment when in fact he did nothing; only teetered on the threshold, his eyelids growing lazy. Then—summoning one last Herculean effort of will—he gave Tammy a tiny smile and closed the door in her face.

It was like being woken from a dream. One moment Tammy had been staring into Zeffer's stricken face, while the men closed in on him from behind, and the sky seethed overhead. The next the door had shut this terrible vision out, and she was back in the little hallway with Todd at her side.

The sight of Zeffer's execution had momentarily distracted Katya from any further mischief. She was simply staring at the door as though she could see through it to the horror on the other side.

Tammy didn't give her a chance to snap out of the trance. She started up the stairs, pulling Todd after her.

"Christ . . ." Todd muttered to himself. "Christ oh Christ oh Christ . . ."

Five stairs up, Tammy chanced a backward glance, but Katya was still standing in front of the door.

What was she thinking? Tammy wondered. What have I done? Did a woman like that ever think what have I done? With Zeffer gone, she would be alone in Coldheart Canyon. Alone with the dead. Not a pretty prospect.

Perhaps she was regretting. Just a little.

And while she regretted (if regretting was what she was doing), Tammy continued to haul Todd after her up the stairs.

Six steps now; seven, eight, nine.

Now the escapees were on the half-landing. Through the window off to their left Tammy could see the sight that had held Zeffer's attention just minutes before: the occupants of Coldheart Canyon pressing against the glass.

Why didn't they simply break in? she wondered. They weren't, after all, insubstantial. They had weight, they had force. If they wanted to get in so badly, why didn't they simply break the glass or splinter the doors?

The question went from her head the next instant, driven out by a wail of demand from below.

"Todd?"

It was Katya, of course. She had finally stirred from her fugue state and was coming up the stairs after them. Speaking in her sweetest voice. Her come-hither voice.

"Todd, where are you going?"

Tammy felt nauseated. Katya could still do them harm. She still had power over Todd and she knew it. That was why she put on that little-girl questioning voice.

"Todd?" Katya said again. "Wait, darling."

If she let go of him, Tammy guessed, he would obey Katya's request. And then they'd be lost. Katya would never let him go. She'd kill him rather than let him escape her a second time.

There wasn't much advice Tammy could give to Todd except: "Don't look back."

He glanced at her, his expression plaintive. It made her feel as though she were leading a child rather than a grown man.

"We can't just leave her here," he said.

"After what she just did!"

"Don't listen to her," Katya said, her voice suddenly a siren-song, the little-girl lightness erased in favor of something more velvety. "She just wants you for herself."

Todd frowned.

"You can't leave me, Todd."

And then more softly still: "I won't let you leave me."

"Just remember what she did down there," Tammy said to Todd.

"Zeffer was a nuisance," Katya said. She was getting closer, Tammy knew; her voice had dropped to a sultry murmur. "I never loved him, Todd. You know that. He hung around causing trouble. Listen to me. You don't want to go with this woman. Look at her, then look at me. See what a choice you're making."

Tammy half-expected Todd to obey Katya's instruction. But Todd simply studied the stairs as they climbed, which under the circumstances was a minor triumph. Perhaps he still had the will-power in him to resist Katya, Tammy thought. He wasn't her object yet.

Even so, the murdering bitch wasn't ready to give up.

"Todd?" Katya said, now casual, as though none of this were of any great significance. "Will you turn round for a moment? Just for a moment? Please. I want to see your face before you go. That's not asking much, now is it? Just one more time. I can't bear it. Please. Todd ... I. . . can't. .. bear it."

Oh Lord, Tammy thought, she's turning on the tears. She knew how potent a well-timed flood of tears could be. Her sister had always been very quick to turn on the waterworks when she wanted something; and it had usually done the trick.

"Please, my love . . ."

It was almost believable; the words catching in her throat, the soft sob.

". . . don't go. I won't be able to live without you."

They were still a few strides from the front door. Then, once they were out, they had to get along the pathway and onto the street. Somehow she doubted Katya's power extended far beyond the limits of the house. The Canyon might have been hers once upon a time, but she'd lost control of it in the decades since her heyday. Now it belonged to the ghosts and the animals, and the bestial offspring of both.

Still coaxing Todd after her, Tammy made her way across the hallway to the front door.

Behind them, Katya kept up her tearful appeals: declarations of love, interspersed with sobs. Then more appeals for him to turn around and look at her.

"You don't want to go," she called to Todd, "you know you don't. Especially with her. Lord, Todd, look at her. You really want that?"

Finally, Tammy snapped. "How the hell do you know what he wants, bitch?" she said, turning to look round at the woman on their heels.

"Because we're soul-mates," Katya said.

Her eyes were swollen and red, Tammy noted with some satisfaction, and there were tears pouring down her face. Her mascara was running down her pale cheeks in two black rivulets. "He knows it's true," Katya went on. "We've suffered the same way. Haven't we, Todd? Remember how you said it was like I was reading your mind? And I said it was because we were the same, deep down? Remember that?"

"Ignore her," Tammy said. They were no more than three strides from the front door.

But Katya—realizing she was close to losing—had one last trick up her sleeve. One final power-play. "If you step out of this house," she said to Todd, "then it's over between us. Do you understand me? If you stay—oh, if you stay, my darling—then I'm yours. I'm yours body and soul—I mean it: body and soul. But if you go it'll be as though you never existed."

Finally, something she said carried enough weight to stop Todd in his tracks.

"Ignore her," Tammy said. "Please."

"You know I can do that," Katya went on.

Todd turned, and looked back at her, which was exactly what Tammy was praying he wouldn't do. Katya was standing in the darkness close to the top of the stairs but the shadows did not conceal the fierce brilliance of her stare. Her eyes seemed to flicker in the murk, as though there were flames behind them.

Now she had succeeded in making him look at her again, she softened her tone. She certainly had quite a repertoire, Tammy thought. First demands; then pleas and siren-songs; then tears and threats. Now what?

"I know what you're thinking . . ." she said.

Ah, mind reading.

". . . you're thinking that you've got a life out there. And it's calling you back."

Tammy was puzzled. This sounded like a self-defeating argument.

"You're thinking you want to be back in the spotlight, where you belong . . ."

While Katya talked, Tammy made a momentous decision. She let go of Todd's hand. She'd done all that she could. If after all this Todd decided that he wanted to turn back and give himself to the wretched woman, then there was nothing more Tammy could do about it. He was a lost cause.

She crossed swiftly to the front door, and opened it. The first tug was a little difficult. Then the door swung open easily, majestically. There were no ghosts on the threshold, only the refreshing night air, sweetened by the scent of night-blooming jasmine.

Behind her, in the house, Katya was finishing her argument. "The fact is," she said, "there's nothing out there for you now. Do you understand me, Todd? There's nothing."

Tammy stepped out onto the front steps. She looked back at Todd, in time to catch a look of pitiful confusion on his face. He literally didn't know which way to turn.

"Don't look at me," Tammy said to him. "It's your choice."

His expression became still more pained. That wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"Look, you're a grown man," Tammy said. "If you want to stay with her, knowing what she's capable of, then you stay. I hope you'll be very happy together."

"Todd . . ." Katya murmured.

She stepped out of the shadows now, choosing her moment, as ever, beautifully. The demonic Katya, the woman who'd thrashed Zeffer, then thrown him to Goga, had vanished completely. In her place was a sad, gentle woman—or the appearance of such—who opened her arms to Todd like a loving mother.

"Come back to me," she said.

He made the tiniest nod of his head and Tammy's heart sank.

He started to turn his back on the door, but as he did so there was a sudden and furious eruption of noise from the depths of the house. Somebody in the Devil's Country was beating on the door: a furious tattoo.

It came at the perfect moment. At the sound from below Todd seemed to snap out of his mesmerized state and instead of heading for Katya's open arms he began to retreat toward the door.

"You know what?" he said to Katya. "I can't take this place any longer. I'm sorry. I've got to get out."

Katya flew at him, her arms outstretched, her eyes wide. "No!" she cried. "I want you here!"

It was more than Todd could take. He backed away from her and stumbled out over the step.

"Finally," Tammy said.

He grabbed hold of her hand. "Get me the fuck out of here," he said.

This time there was no hesitation in his voice, no turning back. They ran to the gate and out into the street, not stopping for a moment.

Tammy slammed the gate loudly, not so much because she felt it would keep the bitch from following, but because it made the point to the entire Canyon that they were indeed out of the house and away.

"My car's up the road," she told Todd, though of course it was now three days since she'd left it, and there was no guarantee it would still be sitting there. And the keys; what about the keys? Had she left them in the ignition? She thought she had; but she was by no means certain. So much had happened to her in the intervening time; she had no clear memory of what she'd done with the keys.

"I'm assuming you're going to come with me?" she said to Todd.

He looked at her blankly.

"To the car," she said, for emphasis.

"Yes."

"It's up the street."

"Yes. I heard you."

"Well, shall we go then?"

He nodded, but he didn't move. His gaze had drifted back to the house. Leaving him to stare, Tammy set off up the road to where she'd left the car. There was neither moon nor stars in the sky; just a blanket of amber-tinted cloud. She soon lost sight of Todd as she headed up the benighted road. Memories of her night-journey through the place, with all its attendant miseries and hallucinations, rose up before her, but she told herself to put them out of her head. She was going to be out of this damn Canyon in a few minutes, long before it got back into her mind again, and started its tricks.

The car, when she reached it, was unlocked. She opened the door and slipped into the driver's seat, fumbling for the ignition. Yes! The keys were there. "Thank you, God," she said, with a late show of piety.

She turned on the engine, and switched on the headlights. They lit up the whole street ahead. She put the car into gear and brought it roaring around the corner. Todd had wandered out into the middle of the road, and she could have plowed into him (which would have made an ignominious end to the night's adventures) had he not stepped out of her way.

But at least the distracted look had gone from his face. When he got into the car there was a new and welcome urgency about his manner.

"We're out of here," he said.

"I thought for a moment that you were planning to stay."

"No ... I was just thinking .. . about what a fool I'd been."

"Well, stop thinking for a while," Tammy said. "It'll slow us down."

She put her foot down and they sped off down the winding street.

About halfway down the Canyon he said: "Do you think she's going to come after us?"

"No," Tammy said. "I don't think her pride would let her."

She had no sooner spoken than something sprang into the glare of the headlights. Todd let out a yelp of surprise, but Tammy knew in a heartbeat what it was: one of the hybrids she'd encountered on the slopes. It was ugly, even by the standards of its malformed breed: a loping, pasty thing with the flesh missing from the lower half of its face, exposing a sickly rictus.

Tammy made no attempt to avoid striking the beast. Instead she drove straight into it. The moment before it was struck the thing opened its lip-less mouth horribly wide, as though it thought it might scare the vehicle off. Then the front of the car struck it, and its body rolled up onto the hood, momentarily sprawling over the windshield. For a few seconds, Tammy was driving blind, with the face of the beast grotesquely plastered against the glass. Then one of her more suicidal swerves threw the thing off, leaving just a smudge of its pale yellow fluids on the glass.

Very quietly Todd said: "What the fuck was that?"

"I'll tell you some other time," Tammy said. And leaving the explanation there, she proceeded down the winding road in uncontested silence, bringing them finally to some anonymous but lamplit street, and so, out of the entrails of Coldheart Canyon, and back into the City of Angels.