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

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

I said.

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

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

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

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

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

"Time for what?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He stepped back from me.

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

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

"The price of immortality," I said.

"I think I felt something," he said.

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

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

November 21, 1998

Anna Sluage Earldom of Arran Arran Island, Scotland

Dear Countess,

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

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

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

Sincerely yours, Mecham Bernard, Esq.

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

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

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

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

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

"Where is here?" she asks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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