As if he had spoken it aloud, Julia raised her gaze and met his. Her eyes seemed as dark and empty as a skull's. He looked away quickly.

He became aware of a couple clinging to the wall in a dark far corner of the pool, face-to-face, their steady underwater motions creating an eddy that rippled out across the water's surface and right through his skin, penetrating him in a whoosh as if his body was gone and only his raw nerves were left to feel.

And he saw, as he had seen the heartbreak glow from the statue of Eden Hale, but with an intensity so heightened it was almost unbearable, that this was a marketplace – that some commodity was being bartered away by the young to the old, in return for money, drugs, the hope of fame. It was not sex, or pleasure – that was only the medium of exchange. It cut far deeper, into the vitality of youth.

Coffee Trenette. Used up.

Focused.

Monks moved onward, lurching a little. Gwen walked patiently beside him. They came around the grotto's rock cornice, and he found himself staring at another tableau. A man was leaning against the wall, relaxed, complacent-looking. Monks recognized the satyrlike older man who had accosted Gwen earlier. He was clothed, but his trousers were open and his chubby member protruding, gripped in the hand of a pretty young woman. She was nude, her skin glistening with water, apparently just out of the pool. One of her knees was slightly bent, as if she was about to kneel.

But when she saw Monks and Gwen, she let go of him and stepped away, head turning aside and gaze going downcast, arms moving automatically across her body. Monks had once read somewhere that a Western woman, if caught unclothed by a strange man, would cover her vulva and breasts, but in other parts of the world, she would cover her face. There was a certain logic to that.

The satyr grinned at Gwen. "I keep telling you, baby, I got the power," he said.

"You got Viagra," Monks suggested distantly.

The grin dissolved into a hostile stare.

"Why don't you go back where you came from?"

"Impossible," Monks pointed out, frowning. "No space-time continuum can ever be repeated."

"You're a fucking wacko, you know that?"

"Not my fault. Schroedinger's."

"Get outta here!"

Monks backed away, shaking his head, trying to clear it. His brain seemed to bounce inside his skull.

Gwen came beside him again, catching his arm, steadying him. "Ivan likes to make sure everyone knows he's still virile."

"Poor girl."

"Don't worry, she's getting hers," Gwen said. "He owns a modeling agency."

Monks was starting to hyperventilate. Waves of pure sensation were washing through him. They were not unpleasant, but they were frightening.

Then he was aware that Julia D'Anton was standing in front of him. Her arms were folded imperiously.

"I see you found a date," she said coolly to Gwen, but her gaze stayed on Monks.

"I see you're looking for one," Gwen retorted.

Julia ignored her. "So you think someone murdered Eden, Dr. Monks? And that they might be here tonight?"

Things had gotten far more complicated than that, Monks thought, but the right words would not come.

"If thou hast blood on thy hands and shed more blood, wherewith shall ye cleanse it?" he asked, trying earnestly to explain. "For how shall ye wash off blood with blood?"

Both women looked startled.

Gwen murmured, "You'd better excuse us," to Julia, and helped Monks to a chair. He sat heavily.

"Something – is happening to me," he said.

"What kind of something?" Her fingers massaged his neck and shoulders.

"In my brain," he tried to explain. "The universe is getting scrambled."

She inhaled sharply. "Oh, my god. It sounds like ecstasy."

"Like what?"

"Ecstasy," Gwen said. "XTC."

Monks raised his head and stared at her.

"I wonder if someone slipped some in your drink," she said. "Sometimes they do that, to newcomers. It's supposed to be a joke, but this is awful." Her fists went to her hips in outrage. "If I find out who did it, they'll never come here again."

The import hit him with numbing impact. "I can't believe," he said. "Can't believe – I need to get someplace." He tried to heave himself to his feet. Her hand held him down with surprising strength.

"But darling, you are someplace," she said. "Just sit still a minute. You'll calm down." She crouched beside him, her face close. Her eyes were luminous with passion. "I'll predict the future. A beautiful woman wearing black will fulfill all your desires. Soon."

"Black?" he said stupidly. Her blouse was white. The only thing black she was wearing, that he could see, at least, was the top underneath it.

"Come on. We'll go where we can be safe and alone."

"My car," he objected.

"Don't be silly, you can't drive. Let yourself go, Carroll. I'll take care of you."

This time, she helped him get to his feet. He stumbled along, holding her hand like a child.

She led him away from the pool and party, around the base of the cliff that abutted the house, and up a stairway of flat stones that had been set into the earth. It was quiet here, and dark except for the gibbous moon, topping the coastal mountains to throw its cold fire across the land.

Monks became aware of the musical sound of trickling water, growing louder as they climbed. They came to a plateau, a hundred yards behind the house and a bit higher than its roof. The water was running down a rock face in a little fall, into a natural pool, about twenty feet across.

'This is the spring that feeds the swimming pool," she said. "Julia and I used to play here. Sit."

She eased him down onto a flat rock. Monks started to get his wind back. The dizzying surges were leveling off, leaving him bristling with unimagined perceptions. He turned his head slowly, seeing the swelling hillsides split into deep, secretive crevasses, watered by streams that emptied into the great sea. Trees burst from the earth with their fierce erect trunks, then gentled out into feminine branches that lifted long-tipped fingers in supplication to the sky. All of nature was fueled by this huge engine, the generator of life.

And everywhere within it, death was waiting – hidden, seething with menace, razor talons ready to strike.

"Are you ready for the lady in black?" she said.

He turned toward her voice. The blouse was gone and she was stepping out of her skirt, tossing it aside. Her fingers worked at a knot between her breasts. She unwound the garment sensuously, then tossed it around her neck. Monks realized that it was not a tube top. It was a black scarf.

Except for that, she was all flesh, shining ivory in the moonlight like a pagan goddess. Her splendor filled him with worshipful awe.

She walked to him boldly, high full breasts shimmying with her steps, nipples taut in the crisp air. She was shaved bare as marble. He stared, entranced by the miracle of skin, its color that no image could ever quite capture, its smooth sheen so warm to the touch.

"How old am I?" she demanded.

Monks was confused. How could she not know?

"Thirty… nine?" he hazarded.

"No! I'm eighteen. And very naughty." Her hand moved to the back of his neck and urged him toward her. "Taste me."

Monks parted the delicate slick flesh with his tongue, finding the tiny bud within. Jewel in the lotus, he thought. Man in the boat. He felt her shiver, her fingers tightening in his hair. She shivered again, and again, and then tensed, thrusting hard against him.

Far away above him, he heard three soft cries, oh, oh, oh.

For half a minute longer, they stayed still, with his cheek pressed against her warm belly while her fingers stroked his hair. Then she sank to her knees.

"Now you," she said. Together, they tugged off his clothes. She pushed him back down onto the rock and fastened her mouth on him, liquid fire, quickly sucking him rigid. Then she slipped her arms around his neck and straddled his thighs. Monks slid slowly into delicious softness that went on and on, and oh, man, holy angels, this was it, this was what being born was all about-