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Theythe staircases She had not called thee, yet sootten past the the brute at the , is Cheval Andre

He didn’t glance at me He didn’t say Pleased to lass of wine in one s, Datura said, This is Cheval Robert

Robert glowered at the candles on the table

Andre and Robert Cheval, I said Brothers?

Cheval is not their last name, she said, as you well know Cheval means ‘horse’ As you well know

Horse Andre and Horse Robert, I said Lady, I have to tell you, even considering the strange life I lead, all this is getting too weird forI want to see, I ht not have them kill you, after all Wouldn’t you like to beht envy, but I don’t knohat my duties would be as a horse, what the pay is, if there’s health insurance--

Andre and Robert’s duty is to do what I tell the I tell theive them what they need, anytiive theer that seemed only in part to be lust I sensed in the to do with sex, a need that only she could satisfy, a need so grotesque that I hoped never to learn its nature

She son’s worth of teeth flashed across the black clouds, sharp and bright, and flashed again Thunder crashed The sky convulsed and shook off a million silvery scales of rain, and then millions more

THIRTY-TWO

THE HEAVY DOWNPOUR SEEMED TO WASH OUT OF THE air soed to penetrate the storrew both murky and dismal, as if the rain were not only weather but also a ht froe chimeras prowled the walls and shook their un on the floor and faced the telass, as if drawing power fro at the candles An ever-shifting tattoo of victory and money played across his broad face

When Datura pulled another chair out from the table and told me to sit, I saw no reason to defy her As I had said, my intention was to buy time and wait for fate to take a turn in ood horse, I sat without objection

She stalked the rooain to smell the roses, frequently stretched like a cat, ripe and lithe and acutely aware of how she looked

Whetherat the ni, she talked and taunted

There’s a woman in San Francisco who levitates when she chants Only the select are invited to observe her on the solstices or All Saints’ Eve But I’m sure you’ve been there, and know her name

We’ve never met, I assured her

There’s a fine house in Savannah, inherited by a special young woman, willed to her by an uncle, who also left to her a diary in which he describedthem in his basement He knew that she would understand and not disclose his crih he was dead You’ve no doubt visited more than once

I don’t travel, I said

I’ve been invited several tiuests are of the right caliber, you can hear the voices of the dead speaking fro for their lives, as if they don’t know they’re dead, crying for release It’s a riveting experience, as you well know

Andre stood and Robert sat, eyes on the storm in the first case, on the candles in the second, perhaps ular voice Neither had yet spoken a word They were unusually silent men, and uncannily still

She came to my chair, leaned toward e: a teardrop stone, red, perhaps a ruby, as large as a peach pit

I have captured thirty in this, she said

You toldin an aine that took a while, collecting thirty

You can see the the stone close to my eyes Others can’t, but I’s, I said

Your pretense of ignorance would be convincing to most people, but you don’t fool me With thirty, I a invincible is coe, and this one must be special It must be yours

I’m flattered

As you know, there are tays I can collect it, she said, tucking the stone between her brsts again She poured h a water ritual That is the painless lad to hear it

Or Andre and Robert can force you to s the stone Then I can gut you like a fish and take it fro stomach as you die

If her two horses had heard what she proposed, they were not surprised by it They relass of wine, hosts, I’ll take your ti bon ange the painless way But if you insist on playing ignorant, this is going to be a very bad day for you You’re going to know agony of a degree that few men ever experience

THIRTY-THREE

THE WORLD HAS GONE MAD YOU MIGHT HAVE ARGUED against that contention twenty years ago, but if you argue it in our time, you only prove that you, too, live in delusion

In an asylurave;rave;me of the insane They rise not by merit but by the force of their will

When social forces press for the rejection of age-old Truth, then those who reject it will seekin their own truth These truths will rarely be Truth at all; they will be only collections of personal preferences and prejudices

The less depth a belief systereater the fervency hich its adherents embrace it The most vociferous, the most fanatical are those whose cobbled faith is founded on the shakiest grounds

I would hue--whatever that e the stone from his stomach, is proof that you are fanatical,within classic Western philosophy, and not suitable to be a contestant in the Miss Aeant

Of course, because it was ht feel that I ae prejudice when it’s the other guy who’s being disemboweled

Datura had found her truth in a mishmash of occultisms Her beauty, her fierce will to power, and her ruthlessness drew to her others, like Andre and Robert, whose secondary truth was her weird syste and whose primary truth was Datura herself

As I watched the woman restlessly circle the room, I wondered how many of the employees in her business operations--the on-line pn store, the phone-sex operation--had gradually been replaced with true believers Other eht have been converted

I wondered how many men like these two she could call upon to e, they were not unique