easy reach if she were able to move. Not that she’d need that for the Legate—as far as she could tell, he was a mortal man, though the crow seemed bothered by his presence. The bird had flapped to the furthest corner of the Las Vegas hotel room immediately on the Legate’s entrance and had stayed there since. It looked resolutely out the window, like it couldn’t bring itself even to acknowledge the Legate’s presence.
Nor was she worried that the Legate would steal the gun. Its original enchantment bound it to Jane’s will and person, and anyone who fired it without her consent would find it a mediocre handgun, old and small. Jane had murdered the priest whose rendered fat had provided the curse-bearing anointing, and it was Jane’s will that activated the terrible, murderous enchantment of the Calamity Horn. He might grab it and run, but she would get it back.
“Fine,” Jane said. “I hold a knife.” It was true, but it was also a bluff, inasmuch as she couldn’t move her limbs or raise the blade that rested in the water under her fingers. She did have emergency resources available if she had to draw on them, but she hoped it didn’t come to that.
She didn’t waste time wondering how the Legate had found her or gotten into her hotel room—he was the agent of a great power, and he had means.
Besides, she was almost enjoying this soak, with the raised bathtub right in the middle of the suite and the panoramic windows over the lights of the Strip, and she was determined that the man’s presence wasn’t going to destroy her evening.
The Legate sank with aplomb onto the corner of Jane’s bed. He set the candle on the stand beside the mattress and crossed his hands on his own lap, still holding the letter. Maybe, Jane reflected, he wore the mantelletta and the hat to give him more bulk—he was a thin man, to the point of being bony, and Jane calculated she could easily lift him over her head and throw him. He might be self-conscious; a man’s size could limit his ability to exercise his charisma.
“The contents of this letter might be of interest to you,” he suggested.
That introduction guaranteed that Jane wouldn’t let on that she cared at all. “You’re fancy, for a mailman,” she teased the Legate. “Though I don’t see your patch for the National Association of Letter Carriers.”
“You show very little deference for the Legate of Heaven,” the man frowned. He had a faint accent, which Jane thought might be Lebanese or Armenian or Hittite. She wondered where Heaven had found this man. He dressed a bit like a Cardinal, but that was mere fashion. He might be a rabbi by background, or a Sikh, or a Qodesh of Asherah. He wore wooden beads on a long string around his neck, but they were beads only, not bearing any other ornament. He thumbed slowly in a circle around the beads with his hands, and Jane saw a tattoo on the back of one hand that might be a picture of a tree, or a many-armed candlestick. “I was warned, but the extent of your indifference surprises me still.”
“You people cursed me,” Jane pointed out. She could have said it bitterly, but the centuries had pounded the emotional vehemence out her. The facts were the facts, and she endured. “Indifference isn’t the word I’d choose to describe my feelings. You’re lucky I don’t kill you right where you sit, with a knife in the eye.”
“This letter,” the Legate continued, “contains the release of your judgment. It contains your forgiveness.”
That caught Jane’s attention, but she let no hint of her interest slip.
“This letter contains your death.”
Jane trembled, slightly, from the neck up. “Sounds all right to me,” she allowed. “Why don’t you leave it on the table there, and help yourself to something from the minibar on the way out?”
“Forgiveness isn’t free,” the Legate shook his head like he had just discovered this terrible truth for himself. “Not for sins as serious as yours.” He slowly licked his fingers and snuffed the candle. “But I’m pleased that you’re willing to talk.”
“Now’s the time to hit me up,” Jane chuckled to hide her relief at being able to move again, drawing her heels up to her buttocks in the deep, bubble-capped water. She wasn’t afraid of death—she longed for it—but she hated being told what to do, and imposed paralysis was someone else telling