Страница 82 из 94
"What powers? Name them!"
"Save for one, their names would mean nothing to you. And that one you surely would underestimate gravely. If I were to say that for three nights ru
"Oh, the Baldwy
"Don't let him kiss you!" In his shock, Melanchthon's voice was a roar that shook the steel frame of Termagant down to its foundations. Jane staggered. In the dining room a candy dish fell and broke.
"Why not?" Jane demanded. "What'll happen if I do?" It did not escape her notice that the dragon had known the Baldwy
He retreated into silence.
"You're still lying to me, damn you! I don't lie to you! We're supposed to be partners, right? Equals. In this together. When are you going to stop your stupid mind games and power trips so we can work in concert?"
Still the dragon said nothing. After a while Jane went to take a shower.
When she emerged twenty minutes later, wrapping a towel around her head, the dragon could not be seen. He had drawn the illusion of off-white walls, draped windows, and hanging baskets of English ivy about himself. But the air sang with tension. It trembled with the malice of his regard.
"Well?" Jane said testily.
For a long moment the silence held. At last, grudgingly, the dragon said, "You are right. We have little time left. We must complete our preparations as soon as possible."
"I know what you want and you can just forget it. Not tonight."
"Tonight," the dragon insisted. "I need more."
"More? I must've given you close to a hundred names by now. Just how fucking many do you need?"
"I'll let you know when it's enough."
Jane had a script to go over and lines to memorize. She'd been up late three nights ru
"Destruction," said the dragon, "is my all. Your screams would be as meat and drink to me, your torment sweeter than the blood of i
The reek of indignation and cold iron filled the apartment.
Jane sighed and glanced at the clock. She always lost these arguments. Maybe on some unconscious level she wanted to lose them. Maybe, living within the sphere of the dragon's aura, his passions were translated by her body into desire. In any case, Little Jane always silently sided with Melanchthon. And there was no denying that her duties in this phase of the conspiracy were proving far less onerous than she had expected them to be.
"I've got a shoot in the morning," she said. Her handlers needed publicity shots for an image makeover. So far as Jane could tell, her new image was the same thing as her old, only in red leather instead of black. But two weeks' scheduling had been shuffled to make time for a new set of glossies. Still, she could always pop an amphetamine with breakfast. Just so long as she didn't start making a habit of it. "I suppose I could pick up somebody in the bar."
"My little slut," Melanchthon said approvingly.
At the end of the shoot, while the photographer's assistants were packing up the equipment, Corinde came over and, putting aside his walking stick, placed an arm around Jane's shoulders. Corinde was the single most anorexic elf Jane had ever met, a stick figure in black, and such a bundle of ma
Nattily tucking his cane under one arm Corinde said, "Darling, I have to say this. I've worked with the best—and you know me, I never flatter anyone if I can avoid it—the absolute best, and in all my years I've never seen anything the equal of you today. You were quite simply dreadful!"
"I'm sorry, I—"
"Yes, yes, yes. All this sex-drugs-and-glamour. You think I don't understand? You get to go to all the best clubs and take all those pretty young boys home and do whatever you want with them." Jane held herself expressionless. "Believe me, sweetcakes, I understand perfectly. But listen to me. Your wealth and notoriety—they're simply borrowed against expectations. They could vanish in the morning light. You haven't earned them yet. It's like shooting up speed." He raised his eyebrows significantly. "You feel fine and vigorous for ever so long. You look marvelous. You have the time of your life. But sooner or later, you have to crash. And then you will pay the piper, in exact measure according to how much you've drawn on account. Are you following me?"
"Yes, I—I think so," Jane said in a small voice.
"Good. Now go home and get some sleep."
"Oh, Corinde, I would, really. But I promised Fata Incolore…"
Corinde's eyes flashed. He slammed the floor with the tip of his stick and spun on his heel. Over his shoulder he snapped, "Somebody shorten the way for Fata Jayne. She has an important date uptown."
Under his prickly exterior, Corinde was really very sweet. It was a pity she had offended him. Jane hoped dearly that she hadn't won his enmity. The thought troubled her all the way to Pentecost.
The doorway to House Incolore—or, rather, to the physical expression of House Incolore's local nexus—was gray and unassuming. It opened at her touch and closed noiselessly behind her. She walked unsurely through a dimly lit narthex.
The hall Jane stepped into was overwhelming. It seemed to be carven of vaulted and arched shadows that lofted in great curves to the farabove gloom. The gray walls, which turned to granite when touched, were braced by slim white pillars that glowed faintly in the distant gray. At first Jane thought the pillars were marble. But when she brushed against one, it had the warmth and texture of ivory.
Startled, she looked up at the vaulting again, dizzy with recognition. She was standing within the buttressed chest of some enormous monster whose ribs and bones had been polished and reshaped to form the supports of the granite hall. How could such a creature even support itself? Surely its organs would collapse under their own weight. However could it have taken in enough food to keep itself alive? It must have had an incredibly sluggish metabolism. Perhaps its movements had been excruciatingly slow, centuries for a single thought, ages to complete an action.
"There you are."
Fata Incolore strode briskly into the hall, pulling on her gloves. "Shall we go?"
"Uh, yes. Why not?" Jane continued to stare curiously at the ivory columns. She could not help herself. Incolore followed her glance.
"My ancestor."
"Oh." Jane trailed her hostess into an ambulatory beyond the right-hand row of columns. They stepped into an open-work elevator the details of which were invisible in the murk and rose to an upper gallery. A narrow corridor led deeper into the shadows. With every step they moved farther from the entrance.
"I thought we were going out somewhere," Jane said.