“It’s the cat’s foot,” Wizard admitted miserably.

Lynda gave an abbreviated shriek as she dropped it. Then, with a suspicious glance at him, she picked up the candle and leaned over to inspect the object more closely. “It is not!” she exclaimed indignantly. “It’s got no fur and it’s flat and wrinkly.

That is not a cat’s foot.“

“It is,” Wizard insisted, knowing it was true. She ignored him, digging into the footlocker again. “Hey! Look at this! Not aspirin, but good enough, I’ll betcha. Kinda old, though. Maybe it’s not good anymore. Geez! Look at the buds there. Not a stem or a seed anywhere. You got some papers?”

Wizard stared at her in mystification. She was holding a plastic sack of something. She shook it at him and it rattled like a shaman’s charm. “You got any rolling papers?” she demanded again, a shade of irritation in her voice. “Geez, you’re hard to talk to: you never say anything. Wait! Wait just a moment! Here’s the pipe, down in a corner where the light didn’t reach it. Okay, we are in mighty fine shape now.” ‘

‘ She dug down into the footlocker and came up with an oddly carved little pipe. It was ivory and dirty orange, the color of old bones lying on red earth. The little face carved on the bowl had a pointy beard and squinchy little eyes. Wizard knew that face from somewhere. Somewhere nasty.

Lynda was carefully packing the herb into the pipe bowl.

She had put the pipe completely inside the bag and was loading it mere, loath to let any particle spill. There was a childish glee to her actions and the little sideways glances she kept shooting at Wizard. He felt acutely uncomfortable. Threatened.

Every muscle in his body tensed as she crossed the room to him. She squatted and then sank onto me thin mattress. beside him. Her thigh warmed his. Her perfume was stronger than the musk of frightened cat and sweat. Her presence pushed away the familiarity of the room.

Her lighter flared a third time, scalding his naked eyes. She drew the flame down into the bowl of the pipe. She sucked at it, making embers glow in me tiny bowl. She held her bream and then released a stream of gray smoke that coiled around them like incense. Wizard had a sudden flash of the cathedral with its vaulted ceilings and lofty ideas. The squinchy’eyes of the pipeman winked at him.

“That’s good,” she breathed into his ear. She gave a sigh that was part groan. “I haven’t done this in so long. Your nun, baby.” She held the pipe in front of him. He stared into its mocking little face, making no move to take it. She shook it at him impatiently. “Hurry up, it’ll go out.” She set the stem to his lips and looked deep into his eyes. Her eyes were gray in the dim light and immensely large. They spun like luminous pinwheels as she stared down into his soul. A tiny alarm bell rang unheeded in the back of his mind.

His bream caught and he coughed, acrid smoke spilling from his nostrils and lips. Lynda laughed delightedly and compounded his difficulty by thumping his back. The room receded, fading into the darkness, then came back to press closely around him. He swung his eyes slowly, following the drifting walls. The pigeons were watching him. Their eyes were orange and gold and black as me candle flame touched them, tiny round eyes shining in the darkness. His flock. Their bills were sunk into their breast feathers, their wing plumes preened back smartly. Their little round orbs were carefully nonjudgmental.

He would not find condemnation there.

His slow gaze wandered back to Lynda. She was breathing out, her warm breath and the smoke condensing in the chill air of me room. She leaned against him heavily with a throaty chuckle like the cooing of a fat gray pigeon. He looked down into her face, at her finely pored skin, the tiny individual hairs of her carefully groomed eyebrows, at the tiny lines in her lips where the color of her lipstick was trapped and brightest. She held the pipe up. He looked at her through a thin streamer of drifting gray smoke. A sudden gust of wind and rain rattled his windows and pushed at the blanket-

“No.” The awareness was like a cold hand on me back of his neck. It hadn’t been Booth at all. This ridiculous woman who talked so much she hardly noticed his silence, this foolish bit of fluff with her make-believe problems and her petty plottings; she was dangerous. Would she have stood by while Booth beat him to a pulp, and then left with the victor? He didn’t know. Worse, she probably didn’t know herself. She had set every stage this evening. He had drifted along with her plans like a canoe in me current. Now he heard the laughing whisper of the rapids ahead. She could dash him to pieces with her smile. He hitched himself away from her touch, heedless that she fell back onto his mattress.“No!” he repeated to the hand that reached up to wave the pipe lazily before him.

“Whatsa matter, baby?” Lynda sat up languorously. She unbuttoned her raincoat and shrugged out of it so that it fell onto the mattress. behind her. She smiled, her generous mouth opening too far, showing too many teeth. “This is good stuff.

Not the best I’ve ever had, but not average. Too good to waste.

Come on, it’s Just burning itself up. Take a hit before it goes out.“

The pipe came back to his lips. He pushed her hand away.

“No. I want you to leave now. I’m tired and I’m sick. You’d best go.” His words sounded petulant and childish, even to himself. Even though they were exactly what he needed to say.

She responded to them as if he were eight years old.

“No, baby. That’s why I should stay. You need me. C’mon.

Listen to Lynda, okay? She’ll take care of you. C’mon.“ She put the pipe back to her own lips, drawing steadily until the tiny coal shone bright and unwinking as a cat’s eye. She held it in, making small throaty sounds of pleasure, then letting it stream slowly from her mouth She fell against him, her body a warm weight, and pushed the pipe at his mouth insistently.

“No. I don’t want it.‘ He caught her wrist and held the pipe away. She smiled at him mischievously. Her other hand moved slowly, like smoke, to take the pipe from her captured hand.

She took a short hit of it and then poked it at his lips, saying,

“Come on, baby, it’s nearly all gone. Loosen up a little. You take the last one. Better hurry now.”

“I said no‘” He caught the other wrist, gave it a shake that sent the pipe spinning away into the darkness. He heard the thump of its bounce, saw a tiny shower of sparks and a glowing coal hit the floor. Within seconds it winked out. He drew his eyes back to Lynda, making several efforts before they focused property. It never takes much to stone you, does it? someone had laughed a long time ago. Laughed ’til it hurt him. A long time ago, he reminded himself.

He was confused to find that he still held both of Lynda’s wrists. She was not struggling but was leaning into her captivity.

She rested her face against his, her cheek pressing his cheek, her breath streaming past his ear. “You smell good,” she muttered, rubbing her cheek against his. “You smell wild. I am so damn tired of tame men. I like a man who has spirit and passion.

Not like that damn Booth. No balls. I swear, he only hit me because he was too dumb to think of anything else to do. He couldn’t handle me and he knew it. I was too much for him.

But I like you. You tell me no‘. And you’re quiet. But you do what you want to do. I like that in a man. I don’t want to know every little thing about him; takes all the mystery away.

And you feel just a little bit dangerous to me. I like a man with secrets and claws. I told that to my sister once. Damn bitch told me to go watch a vampire movie. She didn’t understand. She’s got a man like a fat poodle, curly black hair and all. But I’ve got a man here with secrets and silences. I like you, Mitch. I like you a lot.“