She is dead. The shot was so loud that for a moment I could hear nothing. Only ringing in my ears. I lay on the floor staring blankly at the ceiling overhead, smelling cordite in a corridor in New York.
But this was Miami. Her clock was ticking on the table. From the overheated heart of the television came the pinched and tiny voice of Gary Grant telling Joan Fontaine that he loved her. And Joan Fontaine was so happy. She'd thought for sure Gary Grant meant to kill her.
And so had I.
South Beach. Give me the Neon Strip once more. Only this time I walked away from the busy pavements, out over the sand and towards the sea.
On and on I went until there was no one near-not even the beach wanderers, or the night swimmers. Only the sand, blown clean already of ail the day's footprints, and the great gray nighttime ocean, throwing up its endless surf upon the patient shore. How high the visible heavens, how full of swiftly moving clouds and distant unobtrusive stars.
What had I done I'd killed her, his victim, pinched out the light of the one I'd been bound to save. I'd gone back to her and I'd lain with her, and I'd taken her, and she'd fired the invisible shot too late.
And the thirst was there again.
I'd laid her down on her small neat bed afterwards, on the dull quilted nylon, folding her arms and closing her eyes.
Dear God, help me. Where are my nameless saints Where are the angels with their feathered wings to carry me down into hell When they do come, are they the last beautiful thing that you see As you go down into the lake of fire, can you still follow their progress heavenward Can you hope for one last glimpse of their golden trumpets, and their upturned faces reflecting the radiance of the face of God What do I know of heaven
For long moments I stood there, staring at the distant night-scape of pure clouds, and then back at the twinkling lights of the new hotels, flash of headlamps.
A lone mortal stood on the far sidewalk, staring in my direction, but perhaps he did not note my presence at all-a tiny figure on the lip of the great sea. Perhaps he was only looking towards the ocean as I had been looking, as if the shore were miraculous, as if the water could wash our souls clean.
Once the world was nothing but the sea; rain fell for a hundred million years! But now the cosmos crawls with monsters. He was still there, that lone and staring mortal. And gradually I realized that over the empty sweep of beach and its thin darkness, his eyes were fixed intently on mine. Yes, looking at me.
I scarce thought about it, looking at him only because I did not bother to turn away. Then a curious sensation passed over me-and one which I had never felt before.
I was faintly dizzy as it began, and a soft tingling vibration followed, coursing through my trunk and then my arms and legs. It felt as if my limbs were growing tighter, narrower, and steadily compressing the substance within. Indeed, so distinct was this feeling that it seemed I might be squeezed right out of myself. I marveled at it. There was something faintly delicious about it, especially to a being as hard and cold and impervious to all sensations as I am. It was overwhelming, very like the way the drinking of blood is overwhelming, though it was nothing as visceral as that. Also no sooner had I analyzed it than I realized it was gone.
I shuddered. Had I imagined the entire thing I was still staring at that distant mortal-poor soul who gazed back at me without the slightest knowledge of who or what I was. There was a smile on his young face, brittle and full of crazed wonder. And gradually I realized I had seen this face before. I was further startled to make out in his expression now a certain definite recognition, and the odd attitude of expectation. Suddenly he raised his right hand and waved.
Balfling.
But I knew this mortal. No, more nearly accurate to say I had glimpsed him more than once, and then the only certain recollections returned to me with full force.
In Venice, hovering on the edge of the Piazza San Marco, and months after in Hong Kong, near the Night Market, and