Dead Man's Song

Chapter 21

(1)

Crow went back in to the store and worked for a few hours while Mike sat behind the counter and finished his homework, a paper on Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Crow used the time to make a battery of phone calls related to the big Halloween celebration. He called the Dead In Drive-in to make sure all of the films had been ordered, and then called Ken Foree, the star of the original Dawn of the Dead, and went over the itinerary for the presentation he’d be giving. Then he called Brinke Stevens and chatted amiably with the “scream queen” about the talk she would be giving after the screening of a couple of her films. Then he made a conference call to his two webmasters, David Kramer and Geoff Strauss, to remind them to post only PG-13 versions of Brinke Stevens’s publicity shots on the Hayride’s Web site—not the versions the two of them had downloaded and e-mailed to him. They were crushed, but Crow reminded them that the Hayride was a family attraction, after all.

He made a call to Pittsburgh and talked with Tom Savini, and went over the budget for the makeup effects workshop he was giving at the college. Savini was going to have the workshop students do full-on monster makeup so that the whole class would look like flesh-eating zombies. The materials were expensive, but every seat had already been booked and he asked Savini to consider doing a second workshop the following day. Pine Deep was going to own Halloween, no doubt of that.

When he was done with his calls, he ordered pizza delivery and when it arrived, Mike saved his file, shut down his laptop, and the two of them taunted each other with science fiction trivia while they plowed through double-pepperoni, onion rings, and large Cokes. Customers came and went, waited on by both of them, their mouths puffed out like chipmunks around big bites of pizza.

Munching the last onion ring, Crow strolled outside for some air. Corn Hill was crammed with cars as Tuesday afternoon faded into evening and the after-work crowd mingled with a fresh tide of tourists. There was laughter everywhere and music coming from at least three bars, the happy sounds spilling out into the street. It was dark, but the street was alight with neon and the glow from hundreds of store windows. Crow leaned against the wall by his door and watched the crowd as he chewed. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and punched in the number for Saul Weinstock. It was answered on the third ring.

“Crow! I’m so glad you finally called.”

“I tried earlier but you were in a meeting, and then I got busy at the store. So, what’s the big thing you want to tell me? You’re acting very weird these days.”

“A lot of things are very weird these days,” Weinstock said softly.

“Oh good, you’re being even more cryptic.”

“Look, I need to run a few things by you. Can you come over tomorrow?”

“Can’t…I’m taking a reporter down into Dark Hollow tomorrow. He’s doing a story on the Reaper Murders and I—”

“You’re what?”

Crow explained, but Weinstock replied with a huge sigh. “You’re a moron sometimes, Crow. Jesus H. Christ. Look, I need to see you. Soon.”

“Okay. How about tomorrow night?”

“‘Night’?” Weinstock echoed. “No, I don’t think that would be good. Can you meet me at my office Saturday morning? Say, nine?”

“Sure.”

“Good. And, Crow…be careful down there. I mean it…really careful.” With that he hung up.

Crow looked at his phone “Everyone in this town is freaking nuts!”

He went back inside. The store was empty of customers and Mike was perched on the stool behind the counter just staring off into space, his eyes half-closed like a mystic in a trance, and Crow had to snap his fingers a couple of times to shake the kid out of it.

“You’re not getting weird on me, too, are you?” he said with a smile, and though Mike smiled back and shook his head, there was an odd distant and dreamy quality about him that dissipated slowly over the next hour. Crow didn’t like that, either.

At five-thirty Crow pulled on his jacket and fished for his car keys from under the counter, shooting Mike a quick glance. The kid seemed to be back to his own self again, with no trace of the odd distance in his eyes. Even so, Crow lingered at the door and said, “I’m heading out to Val’s. You going to be okay closing up tonight?”

“Sure,” Mike said brightly. “I’m on it.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah?” Mike asked, surprised. “Why ask?”

Crow smiled and shook his head. “Just making sure I didn’t work you too hard earlier. I threw a lot of stuff at you today. Maybe we worked out too hard…?”

“No, I’m cool. It was fun.” His smile began a little lopsided. “Kind of.”

“Okay. But if you feel tired or sick or anything, give me a call.”

“Yesss, massster,” Mike said in his best Igor lisp.

(2)

When Terry left Crow’s apartment he had not gone directly back to his office. Instead he turned and headed the opposite way up Corn Hill, needing the simple mechanical exertion of walking to calm his nerves. Talking with Crow had neither calmed him down nor amused him as it often did. Crow was too deeply situated in what was going on—and what had gone on in 1976—to be of use as a diversion. Damn him.

It was late afternoon and the sky was thickening from pale blue to a darker purple and there was a promise of frost in the air. The Growers Association meeting was starting in a few minutes, and Terry had to be there, though God only knew what good it would do. What could he tell them that they didn’t already know? The blight was slackening, sure, but that was only because it had already done just about as much damage as it could. There was very little left to destroy. Why in hell they needed him to tell them that they were all going down the crapper was beyond him. Damn them, too.

Damn all of them.

He quickened his pace despite the heavy crowds of tourists and there was such a look on his face that the seas of people parted before him. Even so there were too many people for his needs, so he veered sharply to the right and went down Steadman’s Alley, which only had one store, and that only sold furniture, so the crowds were gone. Just a few stragglers looking for the main drag and a car or two looking for parking. At the first corner he turned again and was now walking behind the fenced yards of the stores and houses on Corn Hill. He passed Crow’s yard and saw that Crow had hung his heavy bag out there. Tough-guy Crow with all his jujutsu nonsense. Damn and blast him.

At the end of Crow’s yard he stopped, and turned and looked away from the line of fences up toward the fields beyond and the mountains that rose so powerfully to the southeast. Three tall tree-covered peaks—not tall enough to be snowcapped except in winter—but impressive and lovely against the darkening sky. Lovely to most, but not to him. Terry found them loathsome. Hateful. He stretched out his hand and the magicians of distance and perspective made his hand as great as the hand of God and the mountains were tiny mounds of dirt that he could just gather together in his fist and crush into dust. If only he could do that for real; if only it was within his power to take those mountains and what lay at their feet and crush it all to nothingness. With that one act he could, he was certain, wipe away thirty years of nightmares and pain. Of course, with godlike powers he could just roll back those thirty years and have kept the terror from ever coming near his family. If only. Terry lowered his arm and bowed his head and tried to fit his mind around the idea that Crow was really going to go out there in a couple of days. Out there. To where he used to live.

“Insane,” he murmured and his voice broke on the word and he had to clamp a hand to his mouth to keep from screaming. He had tried to reason with Crow, had argued, had even yelled, but the idiot wouldn’t budge from his plan.

“I need to do this,” Crow had said over and over again.

“What do you hope to accomplish by going out there? He’s dead!”

“I need to do this.”

“Damn it, Crow—Griswold’s dead!” Terry had roared and had then gasped and actually staggered as if saying that name was a punch to his own head. When had he spoken that name before? How long had it been? The name burned his throat like bile. He felt like his lips and tongue should have been blistered for having said it.

Now, half an hour later, he stood with his back to Crow’s yard and stared at the mountains that loomed up like evil djinn above the shadowy corruption of Dark Hollow, and as he stood there he said it again. Not in anger this time, but to himself, and in a pleading tone intended to convince a disbelieving jury.

“Griswold’s dead.” Thirty years dead, and damn him to hell.

“No,” she said, “he’s not dead.”

The voice came from behind him, but he didn’t turn; instead Terry buried his face in his hands, not wanting to see the blood-splattered ghost of his sister.

(3)

Weinstock had all of the information spread out in front of him. Videotapes from the morgue security cameras and from his clandestine second autopsy of Castle and Cowan, blood work and labs on both officers, photos and additional lab work on a half dozen other patients, mostly older folks who had passed on over the last few days. He still didn’t have the reports from the independent labs in New York and Philly, but they were due tomorrow and he already knew what they would say. He had reports from two attendings and one intern in his own hospital for patients who had died, and reports and some lab work from primary care physicians who had reported deaths from among their patients throughout the region. Since he was the assistant county coroner, these reports routinely passed through his office and he had started doing database searches. There were a surprising number of heart attacks, and of those there were five fatalities. A whole family was wiped out in a house fire. Seven people had died in car accidents—a high number even with the increased amount of tourist traffic. Two deaths from industrial accidents, two farm-related fatalities. The local papers even remarked on it, ascribing the deaths to carelessness due to the stress of recent events, plus tension-related heart attacks. That sort of thing. It was on the radar, but no one was seeing it for what it was.

Why would they? He could not actually tie these deaths in with Castle and Cowan, and ordinarily no connection would ever have been made, even by him. Now, however, he was looking for that connection, grouping any recent death under the umbrella of his suspicions. Since completing the autopsies on the two officers, and reading the resulting reports from the labs, Saul Weinstock had created a very strange picture of what had happened at the Guthrie farm, and with each day he was adding more information to that picture, expanding it into bizarre areas and at the same time making it more clear—but clear in a way that was patently impossible.

If ever there was a time for a second opinion, this was it—but who could he consult? Who on earth would even listen long enough to his suspicions to hear it all the way through? Terry was out of the question. He looks worse than I feel, Weinstock thought, then for no logical reason wondered: Does he know? Does Terry already know about this? Is that why he’s so stressed out lately? He thought about it, and then dismissed the idea. Terry had been showing signs of stress since long before Ruger and Boyd had come to town, and as far as he could tell that’s when all of this had started. Was it something those bastards brought to town? Who else could he tell? Crow wasn’t available until Saturday morning, but at least he would listen, so there was that to hold on to. As for the rest…well, Gus Bernhardt was a fool. Rachel? Could he tell her about this? No, probably not. Rachel would think that he was suffering from some kind of stress-related paranoia, and several times a day he wondered if maybe that was indeed the case. It would certainly be the best possible solution, because then he could just take a few weeks off and take the kids to Disney. But…no. This wasn’t something he could run away from. Not if he was even only partly right about what was happening, and he knew that he was certainly right about some of it.

So what was the solution, then? If he brought it to his medical colleagues, how would they react? Weinstock tried to put himself in the frame of mind of someone else, a doctor like Bob Colbert who was great with a scalpel but had little imagination. Would Bob believe, even after all the evidence?

“No,” he said aloud, and he knew that was true because too much of the evidence was speculation, and almost all of it could have been faked. Even the video. If they can make horror movies with special effects, then some clever kids at the film department at Pinelands could cook this up, and in Pine Deep elaborate Halloween pranks were run of the mill. Same with the tissue samples. Some jackass orderly or a nurse with a twisted sense of humor could have taken skin samples from a corpse in one of the anatomy classes and put it under the fingernails of Nels Cowan. It would be sick, but it wouldn’t be difficult.

The wounds on the officers’ throats could either be explained away as bites by a dog or other animal who happened onto the murder scene before the cops secured it. The fact that the skin bruising showed that some of the bites had been inflicted while the officers were still alive meant something, but could still be explained by animal attack. A dog or bear drawn by the scent of blood, biting the officers while they lay dying—it was a stretch, sure, but it was a hell of a lot more plausible than what Weinstock was thinking, and he knew that’s where Bob Colbert would go. As would any medical professional, and Weinstock knew that if he made the case and was not believed then his reputation, his career, and his job would be shot to hell, along with any chance he had of ever convincing anyone of the truth.

If it was the truth, and the more he played devil’s advocate with it, trying to see it from the outside, the shakier his own assumptions were becoming. “If you assume…” he murmured. So, where did that leave him? If every bit of the evidence, separately, could be disproved or cast into doubt, then what did he really have to make his case?

“Crow will be here Saturday morning,” he said aloud. “He knows this stuff…he’ll know what to do.”

(4)

“You’re here early,” she said.

Crow smiled down at her from the porch. He leaned against one of the whitewashed wooden porch columns, arms folded, posture casual and relaxed, and mouth smiling as Val trudged toward him from where her father’s Bronco was parked in the big circular driveway. “I left Mike in charge of the shop and thought I’d surprise you,” he said simply.

“A nice surprise,” she said as she came up onto the porch. She took a handful of his plaid shirt and pulled him toward her, and he came willingly enough. Their lips met softly, but with heat. After a long and delicious moment, she murmured, “Maybe Connie or Mark can fix us all some supper.”

“Nope,” he said. “They’re not home. I convinced them to go to the movies.”

“To the movies?”

“Uh huh. A nice, quiet Bruce Willis picture just opened at the Webster.” He shrugged. “Hey, the guy’s trying romantic comedy. No guns. No murder, not a drop of blood. Just him and Michelle Pfeiffer. Placid.”

“They actually agreed to go? Alone? That must have taken some convincing.”

“You stand in the presence of a master of the art, my dear, but truth to tell I bribed Harry O’Donnell and his wife to go with them. You know Harry…he’s with Mark in the Rotary. I had coffee with him today and told him that I needed a couple of chaperones to make sure Mark and Connie actually have a good time together. Harry was actually happy to do it once I guilted him into it by explaining that it was good therapy for Mark and Connie.”

“Ah. So we have a couple hours to ourselves?”

“I made them swear that they wouldn’t come home until at least eleven.”

“Must be a long movie.”

“I made dinner reservations for the four of them, too.”

“Really? Where?”

“The Vineyard Room at the Dark Hollow Inn.”

“So, instead of taking your own gal out for dinner and a movie—”

“Ah, my duckie, you fail to grasp the subtlety of my scheme. With them out of the way, it leaves this big, old, comfy house to ourselves.”

“So?”

“So, it’s a chilly night, baby, and inside there is a warm fire and some other goodies, all laid out for my lady fair.”

Her smiled seemed a little forced. “Look, Crow…if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking…I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

“And why not? We already know it’s not too soon.”

She wasn’t smiling. “It’s more than that.”

Crow kissed her forehead. “I know what it is, baby. You think I don’t feel the weight of all this stuff pressing down on me, too? I know what you’re feeling, and I know that living with Mark and Connie is wearing you thin.”

Val leaned against him, kissed his chest and then rested her head against his shoulder. “I know…it’s just that…”

“Besides, my dear,” he said lightly, “you are presuming that you know my plans. I might have in mind a quiet evening of reading the Bible, drinking whole milk, and watching educational television.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure,” she laughed.

“My sweet baby,” he murmured, kissing her hair. “What I have in mind is just a chance for you to turn off your brain and relax.”

She snorted. “Relax? Maybe if I was shot with a tranquillizer dart.”

“Just happen to have one inside. C’mon, it’s cold out here.” Taking her good hand, Crow led her inside and nudged the door shut with his foot. He touched her chin and kissed her once, very sweetly. The wind had blown and tangled her dark hair, but she looked wonderful to Crow. He helped her off with her coat and tossed it onto a chair. They stood together just inside the door, in the wide living room, which was lit only by the warm fire crackling in the fireplace. The room was sweet with incense and the darkness was soothing.

“Come with me,” he whispered, and taking her by the hand, he drew her up the long flight stairs to the second floor. She saw, with wonder, that each stair was scattered with rose petals. The third floor was dark except for the spill of golden candlelight coming from the bathroom. Crow led her inside the spacious bathroom and smiled at her gasp of surprise. There were a dozen candles burning quietly, and wisps of jasmine incense wafted through the humid haze of steam rising from the filled and scented tub. A small CD player was playing serenades by Tchaikovsky.

“What’s all this…?” Val begin, but he touched his fingers to her lips to quiet her words. He kissed her again, and then began slowly—very slowly—to undress her. He did it with all the deliberate slowness of a sacred ritual, making the unfastening of each button a special act of beauty. He moved slowly, touching her face, her eyes, her lips with many small kisses that were as light as spring raindrops. He removed her bulky sweater and laid it on a chair, and then tugged the .45 out of her waistband, making sure not to comment on it as he shoved it under the sweater, and then gently tugged the ends of the blouse from the waistband of her jeans.

Beneath the blouse she was wearing a lacy peach-colored bra. The sensual awareness of the moment had made her nipples hard and they made small tents in the soft cloth of each cup. He set the blouse on the back of a small chair and leaned forward to kiss her bad shoulder, his lips brushing the nearly faded bruises. He knelt in front of her and slowly undid the zipper of her jeans, revealing inch by inch the pale flatness of her stomach, and the edge of panties of the same lacy peach pattern as her bra. Crow slid the pants down her legs, taking long, slow strokes of her legs through the cloth as he gathered them at her ankles. She rested her hands on him for balance as she stepped out of them, and he placed the jeans on the chair on top of the blouse. Reaching up, he unhooked the front closure of her bra and it slid off easily into his hand, he felt the shift of weight as her breasts came free from the material. He rubbed the soft material across his cheek and then lay it over top of her other clothes.

Val tensed, and he saw it, but didn’t acknowledge it. She was never comfortable with being seen in the nude. Years ago Val had wrecked three motorcycles in as many years and each crash had left its marks. She had a four-inch scar across her stomach, a few minor ones on knees and elbows, and a whole bunch of jagged little ones dotting the curved landscape of her left shoulder, left breast, and the upper ribs. Those scars were linked by a few patches of healed burns. Val hated those scars, but Crow thought they were sexy.

In the glow of the candlelight her breasts were golden, except for her nipples, which were as dark as autumn roses. He bent forward to kiss her, only once, between her breasts over her heart, hooking his fingers at the same time in the waistband of her panties. He tugged them down and Val stepped out of them. The puff of dark hair between her legs had once been trimmed into a heart but had not been tended to since before the attack ten days ago; even so the heart shape was still visible and the dark hairs caught the light so that it seemed it was sewn with golden threads.

Crow kissed her stomach. Rising, he took her hand and guided her toward the tub. Val paused, looking uncertain and self-conscious, but Crow gently tugged her hand and she stepped over the rim; he continued to hold her hand as she settled, inch by inch, into the deep, hot water. It was one of the old-fashioned tubs with clawed feet, big enough for Val to stretch out her long, slender legs and immerse all of her body up to the delicate skin of her throat. The water was deliciously hot and a faintness of perfume rose from the mist.

Once she was submerged, she let out her first relaxed sigh.

Reaching over to a small table by the sink, Crow took a cut-crystal wineglass of very dark Shiraz and raised it to her lips. She drank gratefully of the fruity red wine, closing her eyes as she did so. She sank back against the tub and let the waters close over her body.

While she soaked, Crow positioned himself behind her and slowly, deeply began to massage her scalp, feeling where the tension hid and chasing it away with strong, deft fingers. The music soothed her, lulling her into torpor, and Crow gradually slowed the motions of his fingers until they were barely more than a whispery touch. Time drifted past with a dreamy slowness.

After a while, once her skin had soaked up the richness of the water, Crow slipped one hand into a terrycloth mitten. Wetting it, he fetched a bar of scented wheat-and-lavender soap and worked up a good lather; then he helped her to stand up in the tub. Water sluiced down the lovely length of her, and pausing once in a while to kiss her glistening hide, he used the luxurious soap and the gentle roughness of the mitten to wash every inch of her glorious skin. He was diligent in his thoroughness, and then with a large bath ladle he poured water over her to rinse away the soap. He drained most of the water from the tub as he did so and quickly refilled it so that when he helped her down again, she lay in fresh water and that sloshed around her.

With the ladle he soaked her black hair and worked a rich shampoo into it, massaging the gel into her scalp until it foamed with a hearty lather. He used a gentle spray attachment to rinse the suds from her hair, and with a fluffy towel patted the excess wetness from her hair. He bent and pulled the plug from the tub, letting it drain away, rinsing her with the shower attachment until every bubble of soap was gone. Finally all the water was gone and she lay reclining, nude and immaculate, on the slatted wood Japanese grille inside the tub. She made no effort to cover herself with her hands, which Crow took as a good sign. He kept running the clean water for a long time. Then, switching it off, he reached for her and helped her up, wrapping her in a huge oversize towel that had patterns of moons and stars and swirling galaxies.

At first all he did was wrap the towel around her and enfold her in his arms, careful of her shoulder, nuzzling his face in the dampness of her hair. Then he patted her dry, missing no single inch of her skin, and kissing her here and there as he went about his task. When her body was totally dry, he helped her into a silky robe that he’d bought for her that very afternoon. It was a deep electric blue, a perfect color for the paleness of her skin and the deep black of her hair. The thin silk clung to her body in a particularly tantalizing way, and Crow was eminently aware of it.

He blew out the candles and led her out into the hallway, where he paused for a long and lingering kiss. Neither of them had spoken a single word since they’d come upstairs, and neither spoke now. Words seemed pale and weak, the wrong language for this country of soft touches, sweet kisses, and incense-fragrant air. They went downstairs, following the trail of delicate little rose petals to the large living room. The floor was polished hardwood, and the high ceiling was lost in a swirl of shadows. The fire logs were quietly chuckling.

In the center of the floor, Crow spread a thick mat of layered quilts, scattered with pillows, and onto this he lowered her, holding her hand until she was seated comfortably. He used the remote to start the CD player, and Loreena McKennitt began singing sweetly to them from the four speakers placed around the room. Sandalwood incense burned mildly and flavored the air with the aroma of exotic and faraway places, and Crow went around and lit a dozen long tapers, adding their golden glow to the light from the fireplace. There was an ice bucket with two bottles in it; Crow poured white wine for her and Perrier for himself into tall glasses and they lounged there listening to the music. The fireplace was cheerful but subdued, and the candlelight soothing to the mind and the eyes. Time just seemed to swirl, not really moving forward and not standing still. Time just was, and they were, and the moment was golden.

Crow touched her face and she reached and drew him to her, rising until they were an inch apart, both of them on their knees facing one another, bodies only a whisper apart. Crow took her hand and kissed her wrists, her palms, her fingers. He held her hand like a precious thing and kissed each fingertip, and then pressed her palms against his heart. Leaving her hands there, he reached and lightly touched her face, his own fingertips barely touching the softness of her cheeks as he bent to kiss her forehead, her eyes, and finally the sweetness of her mouth. It was such an innocent kiss, despite, or perhaps because of the intense purity of its passion.

He trailed his fingers down until he found the knot of her robe, and with the subtlest tug, the knot yielded and the ends fell away. The folds of the robe parted and candlelight touched her with gold: the curve of one breast, one thigh, the tips of her pubic hair. With infinite slowness and gentleness, he helped her to lie back on the soft mat. The folds of her rob fell in such a way as to cover her, and somehow that made his heart glad, as if all things in this night were conspiring to keep her safe.

Kneeling next to her, he kissed her lovely face and mouth, feeling the heat of her tongue. Her eyes were closed, long lashes sweeping down over her cheeks. Crow couldn’t help looking at her, at the construction of bone and tissue and blood and heat that had combined into such a pattern of loveliness, and he marveled at the fortune that had allowed him to be the caretaker of that loveliness if only for a single night. His lips sought hers again, and then drifted away downward to chin and throat, tasting the different parts of her, the different textures of her. He traced the lines of her collarbones with kisses, as well as the hard flatness of her sternum, and brushed against the upswell of flesh where each breast rose away from her heart. With great care he peeled open the robe and looked at her breasts as if he’d never seen them before, as if beholding some new mystery. They reflected golden light from the candles, and he bent to them, kissing the contours of each, finding the hardness of each nipple and drifting away only to rediscover them again and again, touching the pebbly hardness with the very tip of his tongue.

Val writhed slightly, her back arching as Crow took one nipple in his mouth, his teeth nibbling on it very gently as the tip of his tongue teased the flat tip. The writhing of her body made the robe fall open even more, and he looked down the length of her, past belly and hips, down long legs to the feet and to each pink toe. To his eyes she was a collection of perfect curves and planes and angles, each part correct in its design and in its part of the whole of her. At the inward curve of her left knee he paused and pressed his mouth and teeth against a pressure point, drawing a line of sensation with teeth alone that made her body twist. Then he continued up her leg, kissing the inside of the long, soft, slender thigh, going higher until he could feel the feathery brush of her pubic hair against his cheek. He shifted, turned, and bent to bring his lips gently down onto the dark swirl of hair, drinking in the perfume of her body, the scent of her awakening passion. His lips explored deeper until they touched heat and wetness and softness. Val hissed and moved as his tongue found that tiny rosebud, coaxed it to hardness, and kissed it deeply.

He shrugged out of his own robe and settled down naked on his chest. Both of his hands swept slowly up and down the length of her, touching and exploring as his tongue began it rhythmic dance back and forth, back and forth, slowly at first, then faster as her breath came faster. Val knotted her fingers in his hair and arched her back as the sensations within her began to build and it was not long before the tremor began deep within her. Crow could feel it through his hands, through his tongue, and through every part of his body that was touching hers. It was a faint tremor at first, but it grew quickly, vibrating out from inside of her, blossoming up, becoming real and full and at a certain point, unstoppable. Her hips were bucking now, twisting and shifting under him, and Crow had to hold on to her to maintain that contact, to keep that essential rhythm so that she don’t fall from that peak. When she climbed to the top of that mountain, her whole body arched, froze, held for a long moment, and then there was a release so violent and so total that Crow was buffeted by her. Val managed no words, just a continuous and inarticulate cry of pleasure and sensation. Her fingers knotted and twisted frantically in his hair, pushing Crow’s face against her, forcing a deeper, harder contact until the relentless waves of pleasure begin slowly—very, very slowly—to diminish, each new wave reaching to a lesser peak and settling lower.

As her body began to relax, slumping bonelessly, exhausted for the moment, Crow kissed his way up her stomach, along the straight line of her sternum, up the graceful curve of her throat, and finally to her parted lips. They kissed, tongues darting and dancing, and he took her in his arms and held her, feeling her sweat mingle with his, feeling her breasts crushed against his chest, feeling the hammering of her heart so much in rhythm with his own. Gradually he rolled over onto his back and with infinite gentleness and care, he helped her slide atop him. It was a movement so skillful, so synchronously performed that even as she sat astride him they were joined. They both uttered small, almost inaudible gasps

There was a long time for silence, for doing nothing but holding that position, for maintaining that perfect contact. They lay in the candlelit darkness for a long while, and Crow felt a burning tear land on his cheek. He reached his hand up to touch her face, searching for a troubled frown and finding only a smile, and he knew that the tear was shed for beauty, and not for pain. He immediately felt his own eyes well up, and as they wept, they began that slow rhythm that is the pulse of all life and love.