"Touch me again, Subi, and you'll be very, very sorry."

I turned from the stove to flash the little dagger I'd snatched from the floor last night. Still sore and weak in the arms from when this Geisha had strung me from the chandelier, I didn't trust her to fix my breakfast--nor would I tolerate any more funny business! Damn housekeeper. She went skulking upstairs after the seance, as though she had something to hide--just as Dr. Graves got summoned for a house call. All this, after Ravenna's presence had predicted our intruder would strike again, and soon.

Subi's mask looked fresh and inscrutably white, accentuating the jagged streaks of cream in her black kimono. Was it my imagination, or had she drawn her kohl brows and eye outlines at a more angular slant? The woman warrior stood a few feet away with her arms crossed at her chest, as though ready to laugh at my threat: her blue-black hair was bound with more daggers, after all. And she certainly had more practice at flinging them than I ever would.

I sensed, however, a vulnerability in her aura. The Geisha had presented herself in her most hostile attire yet, but her scowl didn't fool me. She'd made me her slave--had gloated as Ferral brought her to shattering orgasms while I could only watch--yet Subi refused to let me see the smallpox scars beneath her chalky, opaque makeup. Vanity? Perhaps. But mostly she couldn't trust me with her imperfections.

Just as well. She seemed as determined to get rid of me as I was to leave. After all, what was holding me here at Raven Crest, now that I'd summoned Ravenna? I flipped my fried eggs onto my plate as though we both didn't know the answer to that.

"Ferral has left me in charge this time," I announced as I sat at the small table near the rear kitchen window. "Do what you want. Hide, for all I care. But I don't intend to let that intruder slip in here again to look for Ravenna's letter. Do you know where it is?"

Silly me, to think Ferral's housekeeper would surrender such an important piece of his past and future. The Geisha glided silently into the pantry for a brightly-patterned tin of Oriental tea. Then she lit the stove beneath the kettle, as though I hadn't spoken.

"Fine," I muttered around a mouthful of egg. "Ignore me. But if we're to be safe from that madman this time, it's obviously up to me--since you couldn't stop him from tearing the place apart. Or did you ransack the place, to make it look like somebody else broke in?"

Her violet eyes flashed, but then Subi turned back to her exotic-smelling tea. I saw her silence as an advantage, however: it meant she was peeved enough--probably jealous that Ravenna had spoken to me--not to distract me from the task at hand. I carried my yolk-smeared plate to the sink, my stride resolute.

"You probably wanted your old friend to comfort you last night, instead of--"

"Missy Ravenna come to me plenty of times. Up in her room," the Geisha muttered.

"--me, but there's no denying her effect on Ferral," I finished firmly. His tranquil expression still haunted me, and I wished I could summon such a deep serenity for myself. Wished I could tend to my own business, now that Dr. Graves had been pronounced innocent of his wife's demise. "I can't just walk away, leaving his home vulnerable again, Subi. I'm going to catch that damn prowler, and thereby prove who murdered Mrs. Graves."

Was that a shiver that racked her slim body? Guilt? Or the chill of apprehension we'd all felt in Ravenna's presence last night--so close to solving her mysterious death, yet still so far away? I gave the maid a last, purposeful once-over and went out to the stable, where Uncle Ludlow's wagon was parked. I had work to do, whether or not Ferral's Oriental whore helped me with my plan.

It took me most of the day, but the longer I tinkered, the more I believed I could catch that intruder...or convince her to stay in her room. Subi watched, flitting like a ghost behind me, as I positioned a large camera by the front entry and another one at the side door Ferral and I had entered upon returning from his cabin. By rigging a trip wire across each doorway, attaching it to the camera's shutter, as well as the pull-string of a sturdy lamp, I could make the prowler fall while snapping a photograph! Thank goodness Ferral had been progressive enough to electrify Ravenna's home when he built it!

It was late afternoon when I finally placed a glass negative in each camera, and prayed it didn't shatter with the force of the intruder's fall. The shadows were deepening in the vestibule, made more sinister by the dark blue walls. As I stepped back to assess my trap, Fu came along. I held my breath...but the cat seemed to sense my purpose, and after sniffing at the wire I'd stretched at ankle height, he nimbly hopped over it. I'd be resetting the damn trap all night, if Subi's pet entertained himself with it.<

Satisfied I'd done all I could, I started upstairs, as nervous as a little girl trying to catch Santa. Of course, our evil intruder had forgotten the concept of Saint Nicholas, or he wouldn't be ransacking the house. In the glimmer of moonlight drifting through the vestibule windows, Ravenna's self-portrait took on an eerie glow, as though the pale grays and whites shone with a radiance of their own on the velvety-black background. For a moment, the beautiful woman's smile looked downright sly. A trick of the fading light, I told myself.

Odd, how her facial features appeared more angular...how Ravenna seemed to be revealing a side of her nature I hadn't noticed before. My hand fluttered at my throat as a horrid notion occurred to me: what if Ravenna herself had turned this household upside down, looking for a letter other eyes should never see? Distressed spirits had been accused of wreaking such havoc, and I believed they possessed such powers, yet--

My stomach bottomed out as another outrageous idea came to mind--an idea I tried to push away, but couldn't let go of. What if Ravenna wasn't really dead? No one close to her had mentioned details of her funeral, or finding her body on the rocks, or the location of her grave.

Lord knows being married to a werewolf--a very jealous werewolf--would test a wife's mettle. That predicament, paired with a baby possibly bred on the wrong side of the blanket, by a strutting blonde songbird who loved to rub Ferral's nose in it, would've been reason enough to escape such an intolerable situation.

I wiped sweat from my brow yet shuddered with a chill. From her portrait, above me on the landing of the grand staircase, the lady of Raven Crest gazed down with a secretive grin and a tilt of her pretty chin that suggested a deceptive strength...an ability to remain mistress of her own fate, even if it meant faking her death to disappear.

Closing my eyes tight against this idea, I hurried up the stairs, hugging the carved railing to avoid brushing the larger-than-life portrait with my skirts. What a ninny, thinking a painted likeness could grab at me! It was a sign of my mental agitation, as was the echo of my rapid breathing in the upstairs hall. I paused, for the last thing I needed was to be pounced upon by a Geisha lurking in the shadows between the stairs and my room. Swallowing my breath, I listened closely for the rustle of her silk kimono.

But the breathing noises continued. For all I knew, the intruder had slipped in the side door while I set my trap in the front of the house. Or perhaps Ravenna had come out of hiding to haunt me by--

"Stop it!" I muttered to my runaway imagination.

For a moment, there was absolute silence. Then the breathing sounds resumed, and I heard the hum of water through the pipes...from the direction of the bathing chamber, where a slender bar of light teased me from beneath the door.

As though drawn by a magnet, I tiptoed along the carpeted hall. If Subi was calm enough to be bathing, in the face of another potential invasion, she was either the prowler, or she was acting far more sensible than I by preparing for bed, free of the fears I'd conjured up. Maybe she had removed her white makeup....

She would certainly be naked. Unable to hide or escape when I poked my head in the door, which I noticed was ajar.

Wisps of steam escaped with a low moan. Splashing...a rhythmic splashing that made erotic images dance in my head....

Subi didn't hear the door ease open, nor did she see me spying on her, for she was too caught up in the throes of self-pleasuring to be aware of anything save her body's response to the water flowing from the faucet. I nipped my lip to keep from moaning myself, for the Oriental had draped her shapely legs over the end of the tub to catch the splash against her snatch. Propped on her elbows, she levered her hips up and down as though fucking a phantom lover. With her eyes squeezed shut and her head lolling back, the housekeeper concentrated on a clit that had to be throbbing from the force of that warm water...opening a hole grown slick with her own honey, where the steam rose with the exotic aroma of her sex.

When she saw me staring, I couldn't look away. Her expression suggested that either she'd wanted to be caught--or she'd lured me here with her sense of forbidden mystery. Her butter-colored breasts were peaked in tips of sienna, bobbing low on the sides of her chest as she continued to thrust--knowing the sight of her open pussy, rimmed in coal-black curls and deep pink from the heat, would draw me like that moth to the proverbial flame. Beads of steam had gathered on her mask, yet that white face, seamless as she clenched with her need for release, only added to her allure...the mystique of a queen so openly displayed yet still hidden from my hungry eyes.

"Do it," she rasped.

I didn&'t have to ask. As though by their own accord, my clothes found the floor in a frenzy of longing I didn't dare acknowledge to myself. Yes, I'd seen and touched this woman's body in the most intimate places, yet this--this watching her rise to climax, as an enticement for me to share my secrets the same way--sent shivers through me. I was dripping wet, and I hadn't come near the bath water.

My fingers found the fringe of damp, springy hair crowning my mound, and then dipped deeper, testing. The steam whirled around us in the small room, a lazy haze that seemed to stop time and all thoughts save those of my intense need. I stepped to the end of the tub, facing Subi, wishing it were my slit beneath the pounding water--knowing she wanted it this way. Wanted me to envy her exquisite position and the water's wanton torture.

Carefully I stepped into the tub, pressing against the maid's lush hip with a foot that got covered by warm water, which was gurgling down the drain. Once I swung the other leg over, there was no turning back: I fell forward to catch my weight by grabbing the rim of the porcelain tub, which positioned my puss directly over the faucet head. I lowered myself gingerly, not wanting to scald my sensitive skin. And certainly not wanting to break the fixture beneath my weight!

Subi sucked air and stopped flexing to watch. My jaw dropped with the first contact of the warm pipe...slick it was, and vibrating with the current that still pulsed from its mouth to the Geisha's waiting lips. Her knees twitched against my inner thighs and I spread farther, pressing my wet folds forward and back...forward and back. The faucet's heat magnified the scent of my aching sex, filling the steam around us with yet another fragrance of longed-for release.

I felt utterly depraved rubbing myself this way while the woman beneath me began to splash in the bath water. Her quickening rhythm spurred me on as she strained to find the right spot...the right sensation that would send her over the edge. She was gazing up at my breasts, which dangled above her face, as though she wanted to spring upward and suck one into her mouth.

I gripped the rim of the tub, watching the ripples in her slender abdomen spread upward to jiggle her breasts. Her head fell back again, and she gave herself over to the first spasms, letting the water pelt her slick pink slit. Her moans rose, mixed with little Oriental outbursts that needed no translation, and then Subi cried out with a wild abandon that made my entire body throb. Grimacing, she bucked and thrust against the warm torrent of water--on and on, until I could stand no more.

I stepped forward from the faucet to slide her by the armpits, until she sloshed against the back of the tub. I refused to settle for metal, when that water could be pummeling my cunt! Squatting quickly between Subi's legs, I turned so I could scoot into that same wayward position beneath the faucet's flow. Damned if that Oriental witch didn't move in behind me! When she urged me forward, I felt the brush of her bush against my wet ass, and then the clasp of thighs around mine--letting me know there was no escaping this exquisite temptation she'd set me up for.

The first splash against my sex made me cry out--made me thrust upward to position my clit to best advantage beneath the force of that warm water. My Geisha conspirator pressed into me from behind, adding her own little groans and encouragements while stretching her lithe legs alongside mine at the tub's rim. She was humping me now, which in turn gave me a rhythm to follow. For indeed, Subi had always been in the lead here.

"Open your hole," she grunted against my ear. "Squeeze it shut--tight--then open wide. Let water carry you away!"

I was in no position to argue. I'd been transformed into one gasping, humping, quivering slit with an all-consuming itch and I could think of nothing, save getting it scratched. The hot water splattered around us...our bodies strained and sought that sweet, scalding release...until, with a loud wail, the spasms attacked like a beast from the shadows. On and on I climaxed, riding wave upon wave of pleasure, vaguely aware of the woman rubbing against my backside.

I toyed with the idea of pushing myself beyond all limits--would I pass out? Would I drown us, by plugging the drain? Would Subi pull some sort of trick, now that I was convulsing helplessly between her legs?

Would I care?

I felt my consciousness fading--was tempted to just ride it out and see what oblivion really felt like--when Subi reached around me to turn off the taps. She was panting as hard and as loud as I, her soft body quivering against my back and her nipples poking below my shoulder blades.

"Caressa stay in Subi's room tonight?" she rasped. And if I hadn't known the Geisha better, I'd have thought she was begging me. "If prowler come--"

A loud crash downstairs--the shattering of glass and Fu's startled yowl--made us grip the sides of the tub, holding our breath. An unmistakable commotion was going on, far more havoc than we could blame on a single black cat. Frozen in fear, the two of us sat absolutely still, except for the thoughts racing through our frightened minds.

"We've got to stop him," I whispered hoarsely, struggling out of the maid's embrace. "If he heard us up here--we can't let him corner us, naked and defenseless--"

Subi, too, was scrambling up from the tub, grimacing at the loud gurgle as the last of our water rushed down the drain. We pulled clothes over our dripping bodies, so frantic it didn't matter that I was hastily wrapping a black silk kimono around myself, which left the maid to slip my crumpled dress over her head.

"I go down back stairway--through kitchen--to get big knife!" the Oriental whispered with a chilling vengeance. "Caressa go down main stairs. Drive him like a sheep into dining room, where I be hiding!"

It was a bold plan--and of course Subi had placed me in the position of most immediate danger! My blood was pumping from sheer adrenaline now, rather than our rampant romp, so I agreed without argument. Within moments we would know who'd been ransacking the house--and who felt so compelled to search for Ravenna's letter before Lovejoy had another chance to look. The singer's schedule prevented him from visiting Raven Crest for several weeks, according to that brochure he'd shown us, so I could end his quest this very night.

As we tiptoed into the hall, I grabbed Subi's arm. "Be careful," I warned. "What if it's Ferral? What if he tripped over my wire? He wouldn't know--"

"Ferral not concerned about letter. He know Missy Ravenna love him--always."

The conviction in her voice reminded me that I would never hold such a place in my host's heart. But my disappointment couldn't stop me. Only when I'd solved the mystery of Ravenna Graves's death could I be free to leave this house that held me hostage...even if it meant placing myself in grave danger, at the hand of an merciless intruder. The sound of a drawer being yanked open, and then the tinkling of crystal hitting the parlor floor, goaded me toward the main stairway as Subi disappeared in the dimness.

The air around me crackled with anxiety as my bare foot found the first step. As my eyes got accustomed to the darkness and my mind put my frolic in the tub behind me, I realized I could easily step on Fu in this inky blackness. I could also be walking into the clutches of a madman--whom I, too, doubted would be Ferral Graves. Even if he'd succumbed to the full moon's madness, he wouldn't run amok in his own home. And he wouldn't attack me.

Would he?

The moon had shifted, leaving Ravenna's likeness in the shadows, mute and unable to assist me. I felt foolish for thinking she'd committed these acts of terror: the atmosphere of the mansion was too unsettled--its aura too jagged--to belong to the gentle spirit who'd visited us last night. For the moments I paused on the last landing, I envied Ravenna Graves her separation from these awful events. And I prayed I could do right by her; could erase the nasty accusations that must've flown on all three sides of this tragic triangle, when the paternity of her baby came into question.

Whoever had been tearing apart the parlor was silent now. Waiting for me, no doubt. Letting me step down into a trap that would forever alter my understanding of love--of a man for his woman; of artistic friends gone down the primrose path in his absence. My mind swirled with the possibilities, all of them treacherous, but I knew this intruder would either wait me out or slip away to haunt us another time. There was nothing to do but descend these stairs and meet my fate.

The house held its breath as I reached the parquet flooring of the vestibule. Was Subi in the kitchen by now? Armed with that knife? With the silence closing in around me, I wondered if the maid had escaped to a safer place within these sad walls, waiting for me to unmask our attacker. Slowly I padded across the entryway, still damp from my adventure in the tub--but from my own anxious thoughts, as well.

"Mama, please, please help me," I whispered, longing for the softness of her hanky in my hand, and the solidity of our Bible on my lap.

Almost to the doorway of the parlor, I stopped. I was a fool to enter this room without means of defending myself. The prowler could've fit a shard of a Bohemian bottle in his fist, ready to strike out. I could feel the intensity of a mad soul filling that front room, its red vibrations shooting out in all directions before fading to black. If I met him now, I made myself his willing victim.

So I turned, to check on Subi's readiness...to see where Fu might be hiding. Anything to let my galloping heart gather its nerve before facing the answers awaiting me when I confronted our prowler. I slipped back past the bottom of the grand stairway to approach the dining room, trying to ignore the rush of goose flesh making my neck hairs prickle. Instinct made me retreat faster, thinking that if the Geisha and I were both armed with kitchen knives---

But I was hauled backwards by a hand that shot around to catch my shoulder. My scream echoed in the hall as I landed hard against a taut body--obviously not Subi's, because through the flimsy kimono I could feel an erection prodding my backside. A large, hairy hand splayed over my face. My captor was panting from his exertions--or, more likely, from the wildness that was driving him. His fetid breath brushed my neck with a bristling wetness, and as he ground himself against me, my struggling only excited him more.

"Let me go, you--"

The thick fingers of that hand clamped over my mouth, yet one digit insinuated itself between my lips. This prowler intended to coax more than the location of Ravenna's letter out of me...planned to enter me soon. I bucked backwards, determined he wouldn't get the best of me before Subi came at him. This, however, he inferred as a signal of my desire: he began to groan, rubbing and pressing against me in a rhythm that imitated lovemaking.

"Subi!" I tried to yell, but more fingers filled my mouth--and his other hand shot down to yank the filmy kimono out of his way. The sickening rip of silk got covered by his heightened breathing and low laughter, for he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

"You want this," he growled against my ear, and then he ran his hot, wet tongue around its rim. "Women love the idea of being taken in the dark by a faceless stranger--a primitive mating performed in the midnight of the soul, and forgotten like a nightmare in the morning."

As his words tickled my sensitive skin, I could only wonder if this were indeed Ferral Graves, so out of his mind with desire--so caught up in that animal transformation--that he wasn't accountable for his words or deeds. He bent me forward, so my bare butt and privates rubbed his covered cock. And his cock was quivering like a beast about to pounce.

"I'm going to take what's mine, Caressa," he continued in a breathy whisper. "There's no denying me. No denying that only a beast can fulfill your deepest, secret needs."

Damn him, he was sending shivers of heat all over my body--a body still caught in the afterglow of its adventures in the bath. Water, mixed with my own honey, was dribbling down my naked legs and as fingers found their way to its source, I exhaled with unmistakable lust. He pivoted with me, tossing me against the wall. Then he thrust upward--his thumb it was--and buried it so deeply, the heel of his hand probed my pussy.

I felt him fumbling at his fly. I knew I should escape this invasion of my self and my sanity--after all, he held me with only one thumb!--but I could only slap my palms to the cool, smooth wall, brace my cheek between them, and succumb to the depravity this master had taught me so well. Seconds later a thick, blunt head separated the halves of my ass to slide forward in my slickness. I opened my slit to receive it, so caught up in this unexpected turn of danger into desire--so convinced that Ferral had returned from his house call, and was overcome by the same animal madness as I--that I rocked backwards to capture the full length of his prodding cock.

He buried his face between my shoulder blades and humped, stifling growls that would've driven a lesser woman up the wall in sheer panic. I knew Ferral's ways, however--or thought I did...for as his embrace tightened with his impending climax, I realized there was a subtle difference in scent, and a softer give of the flesh pressing my backside...a greedy triumph as he surged toward his own satisfaction without seeing to mine.

As he trapped me against the wall, his spasms warned me I had mere seconds to save myself. "Get off me!" I rasped, shoving backwards with my last ounce of strength. "I know who you are! And when I tell Dr. Graves--"

It was a lie, but he pulled away with an angry snarl. His slap snagged my cheek and he loped off into the darkness, cursing when he ran into a wall. I held my bleeding face, wanting to warn Subi to be ready--yet not wanting her to be this retreating animal's target. Indeed, the rapid footfalls told me he was headed for the side door, where he must've entered, for the camera trap here in the foyer had remained undisturbed.

For several seconds I held my breath, listening. When I sensed it was safe, I groped along the wall...past the parlor doorway...to switch on the lamp I'd rigged with the trip wire. It cast a pallid canopy of light, enough to show me the remains of Subi's kimono on the floor--the ragged top half quivered over my bare hips--as I slowly approached the parlor. The collection of Bohemian glass and hand-blown pieces lay scattered, and a few drawers hung open, but the intruder had been too busy inflicting himself on me to do any further damage in Ferral's favorite room.

I heard movement and stiffened, fearing the beast was back. But then the chandelier in the dining room burst to life, its prisms whispering about the events it had just witnessed. Subi stood wide-eyed before me. She cradled her cat in her arms...a strangely quiet Fu. I didn't want to believe he might be--

"Damn prowler throw him against hallway wall," the Geisha muttered. "He still breathing but won't open eyes."

I swallowed hard, overcome by unexpected sympathy for the Oriental. No wonder she hadn't come charging from the kitchen with her knife. "Do...do you think he';ll come around?"

"Hah! Fu Manchu too clever--too wicked--to die! Like his mama!" she scoffed. But her defiance melted when she saw the side of my face. "Those claw marks, missy? Come to kitchen! Subi clean wounds...."

The same doubts racing through my mind moments ago now clouded her face, and for the first time I detected true emotion behind that thick white mask. Still clutching her pet to her bosom, which peeked from beneath my unbuttoned dress, the maid peered more closely at my throbbing cheek. She gently touched the top gash, and then stared with horror at the red liquid seeping beneath her fingernail.

"Surely Ferral not go so crazy he..."

"I don't know," I breathed, feeling a tear trickle into the wound.

But its salty sting was nothing, compared to the sharp fear that pierced my soul. I didn't want to believe Dr. Graves had first shown such violence toward his lover's beloved cat, and then lured me into a lecherous embrace that ended in bloodshed, as well. But what else could I think? He'd told me more than once he couldn't account for his actions when his wolf overtook him; had worried that his own wife became its victim.

"Hurts like hell," I rasped, trying desperately not to get maudlin. "Let's clean ourselves up, and wrap Fu in a warm blanket, and decide how to handle things until Ferral comes home. If that beast didn't find what he wanted, he'll be back."

Subi ambled toward the kitchen, cooing soft, sing-song phrases over her cat. The disarray at the back door, however, drew me to investigate: the camera had remained in place beneath the heavy chair I'd anchored it with, but the prowler's fall at the trip wire had sent the lamp careening across the floor. Had the light lasted long enough to create an image when the shutter snapped? Had the intruder fallen with his face in front of the lens?

The glass negative would tell me. But for now I could only surmise that I'd sent that animal floundering toward the floor, shattering a large porcelain vase as he landed against the narrow entryway&'s wall. Shiny shards of glass glittered on the tile, their beautiful patterns of green and blue and red fractured beyond repair.

Such a shame, that pieces of carefully-collected artwork lay in ruins--like the fragile sense of security I'd deluded myself with since coming to Raven Crest. I sighed and shuffled toward the kitchen, wincing in anticipation of the whiskey Subi would use on my wounds. When something caught my eye, however, I approached the dimly-lit wall--but I recoiled right before touching it. My knees went to jelly and I covered my mouth, wondering if I were about to wretch.

There on the deep green paint was a distinct print, rendered in blood. It was the size of a human hand, but it was most definitely made by a paw.