She gestured past him at the big copper hood arrangement. "What's that thing?"

"Negative-air-pressure hood," he said. "Draws up nasty fumes and all kinds of other stuff we don't want getting loose. We do a lot of metalwork here. I draw and paint, myself." He handed her a business card, printed with a pen-and-ink drawing of some kind of Goth goblin girl with pointed ears and a definite attitude.

She laughed. She liked him. She liked the place, and the energy of the people. "This is very good. Do you have some work on display here?"

He nodded at the door behind her that led into the display room she had first seen from outside. "In there. But look all over the place. We have a lot of talent here."

He gestured deeper into the building. Past the partition at the other side of the metal shop lay a much bigger room. The music came from there, as did most of the other party noise. Though the band was hidden from view, Annja saw paintings and drawings hung on the walls.

"Thanks," she said. "I will. Where would I find Byron Mondragón's work?"

"Through that door right behind you, then through another door on the right. It's great stuff. He's a great guy, a good friend of mine. Although I hate him."

His big smile belied the latter. Annja could not refrain from asking, "Why?"

"He's too damned young to be so good!"

"Is he here? I'd like to meet him."

"So would everybody else. But because you're you, I'll see what I can do," he said with a wink.

Although Annja felt drawn into the back room and Mondragón's Holy Child paintings as if by a magnet, she resisted. Exercising her willpower was all to the good, she told herself. And if that's just token rebellion against my destiny, she thought defiantly, then good for me. I didn't ask for the sword. I just wanted to do archaeology.

Telling herself to simmer down, she took in the art on display. She looked at paintings, drawings, small sculptures of wire or stone. She was surprised by how good most of it was. Randy's artwork mostly followed the lines of his business card, pen-and-ink cheesecake. But it was cheesecake with an edge. The scantily clad females, some with pointed ears and little wings whom she presumed were punk fairies, displayed not just sexiness but a definite insouciance. As if they'd as soon kick your ass as look at you – and could. It wasn't exactly to Annja's taste. But it definitely made her smile.

She moved on. She had visited many of the great art museums in Europe and New York City. While she didn't doubt the cognoscenti would want to subject her to her famous predecessor's fate for daring to believe so, she thought to see much of the same inspiration here in this desert backwater. If that wasn't an oxymoron. She'd never claim to be an expert of fine art. But she was endlessly fascinated with the human drive to express vision with skill – whether in the caves of Lascaux, the studios of Renaissance Florence or here.

I don't know if it's art, she thought, amused at herself, but I like what it stands for.

She found herself staring intently at a huge photograph on the back wall. It was very strange. It looked for all the world like a winter snowscape, with snow dusted or clumped on bare tree limbs, drifted on the ground around dry grass bunches. Except it wasn't white. It was orange – and glowing.

It was, in fact, fire. Embers, actually, although if she looked closely she could see little blue ghost wisps of flame dancing above the brighter concentrations. It gave her goose bumps.

"I know the feeling," a voice said from behind her right shoulder. "It kind of creeps me out, too. Makes me think of a winter wonderland in Hell."

She jumped, turned. A young man stood there. He was just taller than her, wispy, with almost blue-pale skin that made the blackness of his eyes and wavy, slightly wild hair especially intense. He was dressed in black pants and white shirt, as if he'd just shucked suit coat and tie.

But for an obvious but indefinable Latino cast to his features, he might have stepped from a Beardsley drawing. Annja thought he was beautiful.

"I'm sorry," he said, smiling. "I didn't mean to startle you. I'm Byron Mondragón. My friend Randy said you were looking for me."

"Yes," she said, returning his smile with interest. "I'm so pleased to meet you. I'm Annja Creed."

"It's my pleasure, Ms. Creed," he said. "Have you seen my work?"

"I haven't yet had the pleasure."

He gestured toward the next room. "Would you like to?"

It was what she had come for, of course. She preceded him through the door. The ska band had finished their set and were filing past the door to the main room in their Goodwill sports coats and little hats, carrying their instrument cases.

The Alibipiece had characterized Mondragón as something of a child prodigy. He was certainly kicking up a sensation. Annja was dubious herself. The pieces pictured in the article struck her as tacky, just a step up from black-velvet paintings. She felt trepidation. She'd liked the young sensation on sight, with his pleasant, ever so slightly diffident manner. He was a far cry from the social-lion artists she was familiar with from the East Coast.

There were a half dozen of his paintings displayed, propped in a darkened corner of the room with a tracked spotlight overhead focused on each. Her first look at them in person was a disappointment. They're amateurish, she thought, and wondered if he might be no more than a beneficiary of the global attention drawn to the Santo Niño flap. Did he just win the lottery on this?

She glanced at him sidelong. He hung back. Though he maintained calm well enough, she could tell he was on tenterhooks. She opened her mouth to lie...

Then she found her eye sliding back to the middle painting. It was the largest, at least three feet high in its blond-wood frame. It was a conventional enough representation, the usual Holy Child portrait, with his archaic outfit, his staff, his little basket. She found herself noticing the intricacy of the woody vines the artist had used to frame his central figure, the detail, unobtrusive yet meticulous. They drew her attention gradually inward to the child himself.

The eyes, huge and dark, no longer looked so clown-waif tacky. They seemed to stare deep inside her, responding to her, recognizing her for who she really was, approving. Forgiving.

Odd, she thought. The skin, pale cheeks blushed faintly pink, seemed alive. It was as if she were looking at a real being through a window. Despite the lifelike quality the painting was not photorealistic. It went beyond that. It transcended the appearanceof reality while seeming to reveal...truth.

"It's fantastic," her mouth said before she even knew she meant it.

"Thanks," he said.

She looked at the other paintings. Each had a similar impact, but no two quite the same. She found them utterly compelling. She realized she was looking not just at remarkable skill for an artist so young, but authentic genius. He somehow used an idiom of bad taste and cutesiness to reach down and grab the viewer's soul. The semblance of vulgarity actually induced the viewer to let down her guard.

She realized she was holding her breath. After she set it free, she turned to the young man and said, "It's amazing how you've managed to capture such an overwhelming sense of innocence."

"Thank you," he said with a self-deprecating laugh. "I had a good model."

She raised a brow at that. A woman of about Annja's age, height and build suddenly appeared at Byron's elbow. She was pretty, without makeup, with big pale gray eyes, and hair dyed into a rainbow cockatiel crest. Had Annja been insecure about her own appearance she might have hated her on sight.