answers, Delilah Street," Snow said, stretching out his white ostrich-skin boots and lacing his hands behind his neck in a way that showcased his long, dramatic frame. "The mysteries Wichita holds for you are far more serious than my being here. But ... the film I've just acquired is a lost treasure few would appreciate. I simply wanted to show it to somebody."
Unsaid was the fact he wanted to show it to somebody who understood what a rarity it was, that he needed my mind and companionship. For an instant, I actually felt sorry for him. It must be lonely at the pinnacle.
And then I got one of my intuitive glimmers. "How did you find this here in Wichita? Through the Augusta Theater restoration, but only you knew what it was, didn't you?"
His long, white, lazy fingers reached out to touch the silver bracelet I hadn't realized had made a green circle of thorns on my wrist. The familiar morphed again into a green-enameled silver garter snake, reared a tiny scaled head, and hissed at him.
He laughed, but withdrew his hand.
"Yes," he said. "I've hired what the antique dealers call 'pickers' to look for it for decades. The Augusta is a 1935 movie theater on the National Register of Historic Places. It was never a huge urban film palace, but it is pure Art Deco, rather similar to how you're looking now, Delilah, all green and silver and black, like your sterling serpent. It's been restored on a shoestring by devoted locals, and no one was more surprised than I to find that an uncut version of Metropolis numbered among their souvenirs. Of course, they had no idea what they had."
"Of course," I told him. "I just didn't understand why you'd share the find of several lifetimes with me."
"Is that all you want to know after seeing Metropolis? Come on, Delilah, you can be cheekier than this."
I studied my host, an enigma who was as ancient as a same-named medieval Christophe ... as modern and deadly as Cocaine ... as cozy-familiar and icy as Snow.
I held my breath while Irma bit her tongue. My tongue wasn't so easy to harness.
"Why aren't you giving the Brimstone Kiss after your shows anymore?" I asked, not having planned to go there.
He braced his elbows on the theater seat arms and again ran his albino fingers into the hair at his temples as if he had a nagging headache. Me, I hope.
"Why?" I demanded. "The fabled Brimstone Kiss was your signature. Did I ... use it up?"
I was thinking that maybe he ... it had only one life to give ...
Jeez, that sounded like the title of a long-gone soap opera.
He turned to face me, the unreadable sunglasses burning like coal into my anxious regard.
"Nothing to do with you, Delilah. Sorry." A slight smile lifted his lips. "I can't be tied down to a concert schedule anymore, you see. That's why I moved the Seven Deadly Sins to Vegas."
He stood and opened his arms like a showman, an albino Buffalo Bill doffing his hat and taking a bow. "A CinSim, of course, is doing my show tonight."
I stood too.
"A CinSim of yourself? How?"
"Simplicity itself." Snow shot his cuffs, enjoying his Green Room showman's suit, revealing the new Technicolor emeralds in his white-gold cuff links. "I had myself recorded on vintage black-and-white film, then ordered the CinSim from the Immortality Mob."
"One can do that?"
"They're the mob. They fill orders for anything from anyone with the money."
"And your ... zombie CinSim can't bestow the Brimstone Kiss?" I asked to be certain.
"Why would it? The Brimstone Kiss is extremely personal." He moved closer, his voice softer. "Hadn't you noticed? Oh, that's right. You never got the multiorgasmic effect. You were too busy, as usual, Delilah, detesting the easy O and sacrificing yourself to a Judas kiss to save your own true love. You're much like Maria, the worker's champion who was made into the emotionless 眉ber-robot in Metropolis. You, too, believe 'the heart must mediate between the head and the hands.' But the heart harbors all the seven deadly sins, Delilah. Anger, Greed, Sloth, Envy, Gluttony, Lust. ..." He listed all the members of his Seven Deadly Sins rock band but himself.
His cool right hand slid around to the small of my back and my entire spine tingled. I was right. It was naked. My back. So was his palm.
I froze in shock and defense.
"Have I forgotten one?" he asked.
"Pride, I believe."
"And Pride." He named his own