"Why do you think?"

He could turn now and walk away, but would that put Rossi's death behind him? What's done is done, he told himself. I go back to Paris now, back to my old life. It would be so easy.

But it wasn't easy. He felt rooted to the spot, unable to turn around, let alone walk away. He thought of his father, thought of the way in which he had misjudged everything about him. He'd allowed his own selfish emotions to blind him to the truth. His father was involved in something so important Bravo felt himself enveloped by it. But he also knew that the biggest mistake he could make now was to fight his father's fight out of guilt. He'd end up dead, like as not. No, he had to do this because he wanted to.

Without even consciously realizing what he was doing, he crossed over the threshold and entered the gloom. In darkness, he passed through a small mudroom whose walls were ribboned with wooden pegs on which hung various caps and hats, windbreakers and golf sweaters, before reaching a large country-style kitchen with its center island of blond beech-wood and pale granite. There were acres of cupboards and an old-fashioned bay window, beneath which was a padded window seat. They stood in shadows, listening to the small creaks and hums inside the pipes and ducts of the house.

Outside the multipaned window twilight had descended, cobalt shadows clinging to the flagstone steps, weaving themselves into the shrubbery of the garden. Lights had come on, lemony, haloed in a grainy mist that rose from the ground like a specter. Not far away a dog barked; headlights flashed as a car turned a corner. Cicadas shrilled.

He watched her as she observed the immediate environment with a professional's eye. After a time, he could see that she was analyzing the pattern of the vehicular traffic, her mind working much like that of a bridge or poker player, who is not only aware of what cards are on the table but also weighing probabilities, what might be held close to the chest.

"Are you hungry?" she said, after a time.

"Yes, but I'd like a shower more." He said it harshly, but the moment the words were out of his mouth he knew it was proof of his capitulation.

Wordlessly, she led him to a door beyond which was a standard wooden staircase down to the cellar. She pulled the door shut behind them, turned on a light. Below him was visible a swath of sea-green carpet, the rolled arm of a leather sofa, a section of bare pale-green wall. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he could see that the place was immaculate-the furniture he'd seen, some more stacked against a wall, a refrigerator and separate freezer, a four-burner stove, a large soapstone sink and counter with a row of drawers beneath-but it was also Spartan and deliberately impersonal, like a hospital waiting room. There were no windows, only metal air grilles. The light, indirect and coolly fluorescent, drained all the colors of warmth.

Jenny showed him to a small, metal-walled bathroom. Inside, he stripped off his filthy, half-shredded clothes. As he was reaching to turn on the shower, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. He halted in mid stretch, appalled. His face was cut, bruised and unnaturally reddened, his body swollen, abraded and discolored in innumerable places. He hardly recognized himself, but it wasn't because of the abuse his body had taken. It was the look in his eyes, the particular depthless expression he recognized only too well-it was the look he would see in his father's eyes when the elder Shaw was about to leave home on one of his mysterious trips abroad. As a child, the expression had seemed mysterious, but now he understood what it signified: his father had tuned his gaze away from society-he was returning to the Voire Dei.

Wincing in pain, Bravo stepped into the shower, but the hot water felt unutterably delicious as it sluiced over his naked body. When he emerged, he found fresh clothes folded neatly on the toilet seat, waiting for him. Part of her dead father's wardrobe, he deduced. Opening the medicine cabinet, he found antibiotic ointment and bandages, but he was unable to apply them to the cuts and abrasions on his back. He pulled on underwear and a pair of khaki trousers, then opened the bathroom door.

Jenny had obviously taken a shower in another part of the house because like him she was dressed in fresh clothes-black jeans, black sleeveless top, thin-soled boots of a leather as supple as a ballet dancer's toe shoe. Her face was scrubbed clean and her hair, combed straight back and unbound, fell down to the hollow between her shoulder blades. It was still damp, gleamed with the bronze luster of a helmet. The solid line of her jaw gave her a diligent, almost studious aspect that lent depth and dimension to her beauty. It was the extremely rare kind of confluence that attracted Bravo. The truth was that had he spotted her across the room at a crowded party, he would have found it impossible to leave without talking to her. He had to remind himself that he hardly knew her, had no idea how much he could trust her, save for the fact that his father had trusted her-he'd deliberately steered Bravo to her. That wasn't quite enough.

She had made sandwiches, and there was a carafe of ice water and two red plastic tumblers on an old-fashioned folding bridge table to which she had pulled up a pair of metal folding chairs.

A part of him didn't want to talk to her at all. She was so willful and hardheaded. Then, astonished, he realized that it had been those two words his father had often used to describe him. He waited a moment, unsure how to proceed. In the unkind light, the duskiness of her skin turned sallow, her gray eyes receded into pools of dark shadow. Her wide mouth held no promise for him. How long could he be angry with her for the situation he was in? He felt suddenly spent, as if his anger was a candle that, having burned low, was now guttering.

Turning to reveal his lacerated back, he said, "I need your help."

She hesitated only a moment. Wordlessly, she took the ointment from him. He sat straddling the toilet, bent slightly forward while she applied the antibiotic cream. He was acutely aware of her fingertips as they moved across his shoulder blades.

"Relax," she said shortly. "It will hurt less."

At length, he said, "You never told me how you feel about being part of the Voire Dei."

He heard her let out a breath and wondered if part of her also wished to remain silent.

"I don't think about it at all," she said, "at least not in the way I think you mean; it's my home, just as it was my father's-and yours."

"If it means more killing, I don't know whether it's a world I can commit to."

"That's the billion-dollar question, isn't it?" The stiffness had returned to her voice, but her fingertips never stopped their motion. "I have to tell you that there are those in the Order who don't believe you will, they don't believe you have it in you."

"Really?"

"Don't move," she said sternly. She had begun to apply the bandages. "They don't like me and they don't trust you."

"You don't trust me, either."

"Let's say we don't yet trust each other."

He thought about the truth of her words, as well as the promise they held out. Then his mind made an abrupt leap. "Is that why the Order won't help us?"

"He was the Keeper. Part of his responsibility was to identify and train his successor." It was not an answer to his question, but for the moment at least it was all he was going to get from her.

For some time Bravo thought about what she'd just said. He had been four when his father started him on his course of physical training, six when his father began to read to him from treatises on medieval religion.

"He chose me."

"That's right." Jenny put away the ointment and bandages, washed her hands. "You can finish dressing now." She walked out of the bathroom before he could say anything more.