Haunted Air

But this time was different. He found the fortress in a ravine near the ruins of a peasant village. As soon as he stepped through a gap in its crumbling foundation and let its walls enfold him, he knew his search had ended.

Immediately he'd arranged for a quantity of its loosened stones to be shipped back to the States and installed in his basement. He said the stones had absorbed the power of the old keep and now he had some of it for himself. His own home was now a place of power.

Eventually Eli learned the reason for Dmitri's obsession with these matters: He was terrified that he would die of pancreatic cancer like his father. He'd watched the man rot from the inside out and had sworn that would never happen to him.

Eli knew a better way to protect him, far better and more reliable than importing stones from Old World forts. Slowly, slyly, he felt out Dmitri about how far he'd be willing to go to protect himself from his father's fate. When he'd ascertained that there was nothing Dmitri would not do, no lengths to which he would not go, he introduced Dmitri to the Circle. He became Eli's twelfth disciple.

Dmitri quickly evolved into Eli's right-hand man, for Eli sensed that his motives were pure. For too many members of the Circle, Eli suspected that the abducted children and what was done to them were almost as important as the Ceremony and the immortality they'd eventually gain from it. They might be men in high places, but he sensed their motives were low. Year after year he'd seen the lascivious light in their eyes as the deeply anesthetized lamb was stripped naked upon the ceremonial table. It had disturbed Eli so deeply that he'd begun leaving the lambs fully clothed, baring only the minimum amount of flesh necessary to slit open the chest and remove the still beating heart. None of the Circle looked away during the bloody procedure. Some went so far as to suggest that the lamb be strapped down and conscious during the Ceremony.

How dare they? The Ceremony was to be performed without pain to the lamb. That would debase the ritual. The point was not pain but to gain life everlasting. The a

How lamentable that he had to ally himself with such creatures, but in these increasingly Big Brotherish times, he needed their power and influence to safeguard the Ceremony and guarantee its a

But Dmitri was different. His focus was on the end, not the means. He soon became an indispensable member, especially once the Ceremony was moved to the basement of his home. It was perfect. The stones did indeed resonate with a strange power, and the dirt floor was a perfect resting place for the lambs. Disposing of a body, even once a year, had always been a perilous chore.

Eli would be performing the Ceremony at Menelaus Manor to this day were Dmitri still alive. But his doctors discovered that he had his father's cancer-too early to be helped by medical science, and too early to be saved by the Ceremony, for Dmitri had participated in nowhere near the twenty-nine he needed for immortality and invulnerability.

Unable to face the same agonizing death as his father, he'd seated himself on the dirt floor of his cellar and put a bullet through his head. What a loss... a terrible, terrible loss. Dmitri had been like a son to Eli. He still mourned his passing.

"I wonder who's living there now?" Adrian said as he drove on.

"I checked that out already," Strauss said. "Couple of brothers named Kenton. Bought it a year ago."

Eli felt a surge of excitement. Could they have tracked down his nemesis? "Do you think one of them could be our 'Jack'?"

"Doubt it. I ain't got much in the way of contacts here in the one-fourteen, but I did learn that not only are these two guys brothers, but they're also brothers-if you know what I mean."

Excitement dipped toward disappointment. "They're black?"

"'S'what I'm told. You said your attacker was white. No chance you could be wrong?"

"I wouldn't know," Adrian said. "I can't remember. The last thing I remem-"

"He was white," Eli said, jumping in before Adrian could launch into his litany. "So that leaves them out."

"Who knows?" Strauss said. "A guy who can raise Tara Portman from the dead can maybe turn himself white too."

Eli was about to tell Strauss that this wasn't a joking matter when Adrian spoke.

"I don't care who they are as long as they don't dig up the cellar."

The remark brought silence to the car. That had been the great fear after Dmitri's death: the new owners would excavate the cellar. Eli had wanted a member of the Circle to buy the place so they could go on using it, but no one wanted his name co

"The possibility of that is so small," Eli said, "I've ceased to worry about it. Step back and consider it objectively. How many homeowners, no matter how extensively they renovate a home, tear up their cellar floor?"

"Virtually none," Adrian said.

Strauss said, "Just lucky for us the people who bought it poured a cement floor over the dirt down there."

"It didn't bring them much luck, though," Eli said.

Strauss barked a laugh. "Yeah! Two slit throats and still nobody has a clue. If you don't close a murder in forty-eight hours, chances are you'll never close it. It's been years for that one. Guess by now you could call it a perfect crime."

Eli had been shocked when he'd read about the dead couple, and worried that the crime scene investigation might venture too deeply into the cellar.

And then there'd been the mutilation of the little boy adopted by the next owners. Eli had begun to wonder if a combination of the Ceremony and those strange stones lining the basement could somehow have laid a curse on the place.

"The other thing I'm worried about," said Adrian, "is that key ring."

"So am I, Eli." Strauss tapped Eli on the shoulder. "It co

Adrian stopped at a red light. He continued to stare straight ahead as he spoke. "I've had nightmares about something like this happening because of that trophy cabinet of yours, sitting out there in your store for all to see. I always thought it was risky and... and arrogant as well."

Eli stared at him. Had he just heard correctly? Had Adrian, so deferential despite his size and strength, actually dared to call him arrogant? He must be furious, and very frightened.

Arrogant? Eli couldn't dredge up any anger. Adrian was right. Displaying the trophy cabinet had been arrogant and even foolhardy, but not half as arrogant and foolhardy as what Eli had done on Saturday.

Maybe the impetus had been the unbidden thoughts of Tara Portman the night before, perhaps it was nothing more than mere e

Eli permitted himself a fleeting smile. Adrian would shit his pants if Eli told him.

Instead Eli said, "Be that as it may, the trophy cabinet had nothing to do with our current predicament."

Strauss leaned back and returned to his slouch in the rear seat. "Maybe it did and maybe it didn't, but it was a bad idea all around. That kind of in-your-face shit threatens us all. Maybe you don't care, but we do."

"I sympathize, and I'll try to take your feelings into account in the future," Eli said. If the Circle had a future.

They lapsed again into silence as the car moved into traffic, then Adrian cleared his throat.

"Eli, am I the only one bothered by you thinking of Tara Portman for no good reason on Friday night, and then this stranger popping into your shop on Sunday to try and buy the key ring? Then someone-possibly the same man-attacks us Monday night, and steals Tara's key ring on Tuesday. And today he claims that Tara is 'back'-whatever that means. Could he have brought her back on Friday night?"