"Hmm." Eve rolled her shoulders and began to relax. Mavis's career as a performer – it was difficult to use the term singer when defining Mavis's talents – was moving along. There had been some serious roadblocks, but they'd been overcome. "I didn't figure you'd work there much longer. Not with a recording contract."

"Yeah, well, that's the thing. The contract. You know, after finding out Jess was using me – and you and Roarke – for his mind games, I didn't figure the demo I'd cut with him would go anywhere."

"It was good, Mavis; flashy, unique. That's why it got picked up."

"Is it?" She rose again, a tiny woman with wild hair. "I found out today that Roarke owns the recording company that offered the contract." Gulping her drink, she paced away. "I know we go back a ways, Dallas, a long ways, and I appreciate you putting Roarke up to it, but I don't feel right about it. I wanted to thank you." She turned then, her silver eyes tragic and bleak. "And tell you that I'm going to turn it down."

Eve pursed her lips. "Mavis, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Are you telling me that Roarke, the guy who lives here, is producing your disc?"

"It's his company. Eclectic. It produces everything from classical to brain drain. It's the company. Totally mag, which was why I was so wired up about the deal."

Eclectic, Eve mused. The company. It sounded just like him. "I don't know anything about it. I didn't ask him to do anything, Mavis."

She blinked, lowered slowly to the arm of a chair. "You didn't? Solid?"

"I didn't ask," Eve repeated, "and he didn't tell me." Which was also just like him. "I'd have to say that if his company is offering you a contract, it's because Roarke, or whoever he's put in charge of that stuff, figures you're worth it."

Mavis took slow breaths. She'd worked herself up to the selfless sacrifice, unwilling to take advantage of friendship. Now she teetered. "Maybe he arranged it, like a favor."

Eve cocked a brow. "Roarke's business is business. I'd say he figures you're going to make him richer. And if he did do it as a favor, which I doubt, then you'll just have to prove to him that you're worth it. Won't you, Mavis?"

"Yeah." She let out a long breath. "I'm going to kick ass, you wait and see." Her smile beamed out. "Maybe you could come by the D and D tonight. I've got some new material, and Roarke could get another close-up of his latest investment."

"Have to pass tonight. I've got work. I've got to check out The Athame."

Mavis grimaced. "What the hell are you going there for? Nasty place."

"You know it?"

"Only by rep, and the rep's down below bad news."

"Someone I've got to talk to there, connected with a case I'm working on." She considered. There was no one she knew more likely to have a line on the unusual. "Know any witches, Mavis?"

"Yeah, sort of. A couple of servers down at the Blue Squirrel were into it. Brushed a few way back when I was on the grift."

"You believe in that stuff? Chanting and spells and palm reading?''

Mavis cocked her head and looked thoughtful. "It's major bullshit."

"You never fail to surprise me," Eve decided. "I figured you'd be into it."

"I ran a con once. Spirit guide. I was Ariel, reincarnation of a fairy queen. You'd be amazed how many straights paid up for me to contact their dead relatives or tell them their future."

To demonstrate, she let her head fall back. Her eyes fluttered, her mouth went slack. Slowly, her arms lifted, palms turned up. "I feel a presence, strong, seeking, sorrowful." Her voice had deepened, attained a faint accent. "There are dark forces working against you. They hide from you, wait to do harm. Beware."

She dropped her arms and grinned. "So, you tell the mark you need to have trust in order to offer protection from the dark forces. All they have to do is put say, a thousand cash – cash is all that works – in an envelope. Seal it. You make sure you tell them to seal it with this special wax you're going to sell them. Then you're going to do this cool chant over it, and bury the envelope in a secret place under the dark of the moon. After the moon's cycled, you'll dig up the envelope and give it back. The dark forces will have been vanquished."

"That's it? People just hand over the money?"

"Well, you string it out a little longer, do some research so you can hit them with names and events and shit. But basically, yeah. People want to believe."

"Why?"

"Because life can really suck."

– =O=-***-=O=-

Yes, Eve thought when she was alone again, she supposed it could. Hers certainly had for long stretches of time. Now she was living in a mansion with a man who, for some reason, loved her. She didn't always understand her life or the man who now shared it, but she was adjusting. So well, in fact, that she decided not to go bury herself in work, but to go outside, into the golden autumn evening and take an hour for herself.

She was used to streets and sidewalks, crowded sky-glides, jammed people movers. The sheer space Roarke could command always astonished her. His grounds were like a well-tended park, quiet and lush, with the foliage of rich man's trees in the dazzling flame of fall. The scents were of spicy flowers, the faintly smoky fragrance of October in the country.

Overhead, the sky was nearly empty of traffic, and even that was a dignified hum. No rumbling airbuses or lumbering tourist blimps over Roarke's land.

And the world she knew, and that knew her, was beyond the gates and over the walls, in the seamy dark.

Here she could forget that for a short time. Forget New York existed with its death and its anger – and its perpetually appealing arrogance. She needed the quiet and the air. As she walked over thick, green grass, she worried the ring with its odd symbols on her finger.

On the north side of the house was an arbor of thin, somehow fluid iron. The vines twisting and tumbling over it were smothered with flowers wildly red. She had married him there, in an old, traditional ceremony where vows were exchanged and promises made. A ceremony, she thought now. A rite that included music, flowers, witnesses, words that were repeated time after time, place after place, century through century.

And so, she thought, other ceremonies were preserved and repeated and believed to hold power. Back to Cain and Abel, she mused. One had planted crops, the other tended a flock. And both had offered sacrifice. One had been accepted, the other dismissed. Thus, she imagined, some would say good and evil were born. Because each needed the balance and challenge of the other.

So it continued. Science and logic disproved, but the rites continued, incense and chanting, offerings and the drinking of wine that symbolized blood.

And the sacrifice of the innocent.

Annoyed with herself, she rubbed her hands over her face. Philosophizing was foolish and useless. Murder had been done by human force. And it was human force that would dispense justice. That was, after all, the ultimate balance of good and evil.

She sat on the ground under the arbor of bloodred blossoms and drew in the burning scent of evening.

"This isn't usual for you." Roarke came up quietly behind her – so quietly, her heart gave a quick trip before he settled on the grass beside her. "Communing with nature?"

"Maybe I spent too much time inside today." She had to smile when he handed her one of the red flowers. She twirled it in her fingers, watched it spin before she looked over at him.

He was relaxed, his dark hair skimming his shoulders, as he leaned back on his elbows, legs stretched out, feet crossed at the ankles. She imagined his pricey and beautiful suit would pick up grass stains that would horrify Summerset. He smelled male, and expensive. Lust curled comfortably in her stomach.