"Subi's going into town until tomorrow. It's safe for you to come out now."
Safe? As I turned to look at Ferral Graves, framed in the doorway of the room where he held me prisoner, I doubted I would ever feel safe within his walls again. I had just now seen the carriage heading toward the road, and once again I was spooked by this man's ability to guess my every thought. "She's not coming to the seance?"
"She considers this whole affair a sacrilege. An affront to the memory of her dear friend, Ravenna," he explained with a deep sigh. "No matter what Lovejoy wants you to believe, Subi and my wife were closer than most sisters."
When he gestured toward the hallway, I accepted his invitation to freedom--at least for the few hours that remained before Aaron Lovejoy arrived. Dusk was settling like a plush periwinkle blanket over the peaks and chasms I'd been viewing from my window, a velvet backdrop for the rising full moon. The deep dimples and shadowy hair framing his face reminded me that Ferral Graves did indeed rule like that mysterious golden orb--omnipotent and ever-present--and after last evening's shocking, erotic events I'd do well to pay close attention to his words and moods.
Tonight he seemed calmer. Tamer. Yet even I, a relative innocent to his ways, knew better than to relax in his presence. "She wants me to leave Ravenna's spirit in peace. Let the dead keep their secrets."
"Yes. But I suspect she fears your meddling might interfere with her own ceremonial communings," he replied as we approached the stairway. "Rather like introducing electricity to these grand chandeliers, when they've functioned quite well with gas."
"The sparks could prove explosive," I mused aloud, gazing out over the vestibule and its magnificent fixture of a million crystal prisms. "I'll warn you again, Dr. Graves--when I establish contact with your wife's spirit, I can't control what Ravenna chooses to reveal to us...or who she might point a finger at."
"I understand that. It's a risk I have to take if I'm to live in this house, among her belongings, with any pretense at peace."
We had descended the carpeted stairs and now stood on the landing where the haunting self-portrait of the woman in question gazed out over our heads. And indeed, Ravenna Graves, arrayed in a flowing gown spun of midnight and mystery, impressed me as a woman far above me in many important ways; far more sophisticated and worldly, despite the earlier life Aaron Lovejoy had described. Painted in ethereal shades of gray and white and blue upon an ebony canvass, the likeness conveyed utter knowledge of life and death and other realities mere mortals aren't intended to comprehend.
"Not only beautiful, but extremely talented," I murmured, touching the hem of her gown with reverent fingertips. "You must have loved her very much."
Once again my remark hit its target, and Ferral Graves--the fugitive soul I sensed I'd never meet--retreated from a truth he was afraid to face. With an insistent hand at the small of my back, he steered me down the stairs and into that front parlor where he'd bandaged Lovejoy's wounds. He poured himself a snifter of brandy at the sideboard, downing it in one gulp before he realized I was standing there in his blood-red parlor with its ebony trappings, like a guest forgotten in the Devil's own home.
"Please sit down," he said, waving toward a cozy settee upholstered in crimson satin. When he refilled the snifter and then joined me, settling close enough that our thighs touched, I sensed he was fueling embers that never went out...glowing coals of resentment toward Aaron Lovejoy, as well as the flames of a passion that flared with the least suggestion. As he took another long sip, he caught me watching the pressure of his lips against the glass, and that alluring twitch of his Adam's apple when he swallowed.
"Here--fortify yourself."
He held the snifter an inch in front of my lips, and then tipped it before I could drink. Brandy dribbled down my chin to land between my breasts, which were covered only by the folds of the silk dressing gown he'd provided me yesterday. I gasped at the liquor's fiery tingle against my skin, giggling as he forced me to sit taller to catch any of the liquid at all.
"Yes, laugh for me, Caressa," he murmured, "for after tonight's revelations, who knows when we might find gaiety and mirth again?"
I was about to refute his dire predictions, when he quaffed the last drops and threw the snifter into the fireplace. Crystal shattered and the flames leaped to consume the liquor--just as Ferral moved in to devour me. His lips possessed mine with a bestial fierceness, bruising my mouth before following the brandy's trail along my neck and into the hollow of my chest. I exhaled sharply, aroused to fever pitch by kisses that scorched my skin. He sucked my nipple into his mouth with such unrelenting suction that I cried out with the first pangs of a climax.
Ferral relaxed then, as though he'd merely sought to test his power over me. Like a babe he suckled, closing his eyes so the long, black lashes feathered onto his lean cheeks. I inhaled the tang of the brandy and my own arousal, as well as the musky, animal scent of the man whose mouth could control me so effortlessly. Maternal stirrings warmed me to him and I stroked his unruly waves of ebony tinged with silver. When the clock struck eight forty-five, however, I knew I'd better distract him or it would be us Lovejoy spied upon--through the window, most likely, after no one opened the door.
"Is it true you bought Subi?" I asked quietly. "From an Oriental whorehouse?"
Graves glanced up, slightly dazed from laving my breasts. When those crystalline eyes clouded over, I clarified my question. "If you don't tell me your version of this story--because I am sincerely interested--I'll have to rely upon Lovejoy's version, you see."
He sat up then, but left the front of the dressing gown gaping so my breasts were in full view. "I prefer to think of it as paying a ransom, to prevent her inglorious descent into destitution and disease," he replied in a faraway voice. "Subi had contracted smallpox from some Western client who'd secured her services. Poor woman was hanging onto life by the thinnest thread when I found her--she'd been cast out as contagious and unclean. But my best medicine couldn't erase the scars that ravaged her face."
As I considered this, I recalled the buttery-smooth legs and ass I'd seen at close range last night. "But the rest of her body--"
"Remains a temple of beauty as alluring and fragile as a lotus blossom."
I blinked. From what I'd experienced at Subi's wicked hands, fragility was not my immediate impression.
The man beside me smiled wryly, knowing the direction of my thoughts. "The base compounds of the Geisha makeup had affected her face, weakening the skin's ability to heal," he explained. "So now, whenever she'll be in anyone's presence--even mine--Subi conceals her scars with a beeswax mask and applies the opaque white layer of her former trade. To bolster her confidence as much as to appease her vanity."
As I watched the muscles of his lean face fluctuate with each word, shifting the shadow of hair along his jaw, I realized that some of those horrible photographs in his cabin laboratory were of his Oriental housekeeper. I also heard the unmistakable compassion and respect he had for this woman, whom I'd only viewed as a volatile voluptuary with daggers in her hair. "So she's not always the militant, avenging angel who answered the door yesterday?"
Ferral chuckled fondly. "When we learned Ravenna was with child, no one was more excited or more doting than Subi. The two of them were inseparable, to the point I envied the emotional intimacy they shared."
He sighed then, resting his head on my shoulder to kiss my exposed skin with utmost tenderness. "And when she died...no one was more devastated, either. As racked as I was by guilt and remorse--and my hatred of Aaron Lovejoy--I returned to a semblance of reality and purpose long before my Oriental housekeeper. Which is why she left tonight. And why I must find out the circumstances of Ravenna's fall into the chasm below her balcony."
Stroking the strands of silver-streaked hair wreathing his cheeks, I felt such sorrow for this man's loss that nothing would stand between me and Ravenna's spirit. These moments of quiet revelation proved that beneath his domineering arrogance, Ferral's tortured soul raised its face as one longing to be warmed by the morning sun. I could be his saving grace, if all went well at tonight's seance; could bring his heart the peace it yearned for by assuring him of Ravenna's perpetual love and her happiness on the Other Side. Experience had taught me that most sitters at my seances felt enormous relief when they heard this. It often gave them a renewed sense of purpose.
Hoofbeats on the brick drive warned us Aaron Lovejoy had arrived, and the euphoric closeness between Ferral and I evaporated. He was up and pacing like a caged panther at the sideboard, pouring another brandy, before the clatter of the brass knocker resounded in the entry hall.
I rose to answer the door, bracing myself against the onslaught of the singer's defensive envy--hoping the two men behaved themselves and focused upon our efforts to contact Ravenna, rather than upon the enmity they shared. When I opened the heavy, carved door, however, it was not the Byronic blonde songbird who bounded in with open arms.
"Caressa, dear! We meet again! Oh, I can't wait to see what--does that glorious full moon affect these spirit summonings?"
It took a moment to catch my breath in Katy DeShay's exuberant embrace. The henna-haired madam was arrayed in peacock watered silk that rustled with her every move and was cut so immodestly I thought her seamstress had forgotten its front bodice. The ostrich feathers along this plunging neckline tickled my face, while her flamboyant perfume rose up from between her exposed breasts.
"The moon won't be full for two nights yet," an ominous voice rumbled behind me. "Why are you here, Miss DeShay? This is a private sitting."
"And how do I love thee, Dr. Graves? Let me count the times you've come to my house unannounced." Katy pulled away to bat her eyes at Ferral. "I told Caressa I'd return her wagon. You can thank me later for settling Aaron into a more...submissive frame of mind. He's incensed, however, that he had to stable the horses himself because you have no groom."
"A recluse like myself has no need for--"
"And Belle?" I asked eagerly. "You've brought her, too?"
The madam sobered, grasping my shoulders to keep me from running out to greet my Belgian. "It's the oddest thing," she murmured, her eyes on Ferral, "but when the twins retrieved the wagon, they found your poor horse not ten yards ahead, in the woods. Its throat had been...torn open by a wild animal."
I clapped my hands over my mouth, my horror welling up into sobs. For nearly ten years that sturdy little horse had hauled Uncle Ludlow and me around the Rockies, dependable and uncomplaining. Miss Katy consoled me in her bosomy embrace once again, while behind me, Ferral quaffed the rest of his brandy.
"That's precisely why I warned Miss Caine against traveling alone," he said, his earlier warmth replaced by that icy cynicism from our meeting at the cabin. "This world abounds in wickedness, which can assume the form of one we love and trust--which is why I also warned my beloved wife against befriending Lovejoy. If you've prepared him to face the judgment Ravenna will pronounce upon him tonight, then you're most welcome, Miss DeShay."
Of course, Aaron came through the door just in time to hear Ferral's accusation. The two adversaries started sparring so vehemently I slipped away without them even noticing, seeking the silence of the dining room to corral my scattered thoughts. Not only did grief for Belle pierce my heart, but dread descended upon me, concerning the clash of male auras and the evening's inopportune start. I'd be damn lucky to summon my own courage, much less Ravenna Graves, the way things were going.
"Men!" Katy plopped onto a chair at the table with a disgusted grunt. Then she fished a cheroot and a match from her reticule, and popped the match head so expertly between her clenched fingernails that it flared with a demon-like hisssss. "You'd never guess they began as the best of friends, and that Ferral paid for Aaron's schooling in theater and music. Sponsored his first overseas concert tour to launch his career."
I raised my eyebrows at this; it explained Ferral's behavior, if he believed his protege had impregnated his wife. "They're worse than children! I've warned them that everyone must concentrate, in harmony with one another and entuned to the cosmos, if we want Ravenna to respond."
Miss DeShay studied me, taking a long draw on her little cigar as the voices in the front parlor grew more strident. Then her brown eyes twinkled inside the garland of smoke she blew from her nostrils. "Only one sure way to pull them out of their quarrel and into a like frame of mind," she said mischievously. "Take off your clothes, Caressa. We're going to set you on your throne and give them something to focus on."
The audacity of that woman! She was setting a chair atop the massive walnut table, as though--
"I can't conduct a seance naked!" I cried. "My own mother's my spirit guide! I consult her first, to assume the properly receptive mental state for--"
"Your mama's seen you naked, dear," Katy replied playfully. "And why did God give us a snatch, if not to snatch a man's attention? Would you feel less conspicuous if I disrobed, as well?"
Was it the rarefied mountain air that made women like Subi and Katy so eager to bare themselves? Or did Ferral's mysterious powers have them shamelessly shucking their clothes? I wasn't at all convinced that nudity would foster the proper concentration...that Ravenna would approve of our diversionary tactics enough to make herself known to us.
And yet, she, too, had apparently dropped her drawers for both the men in question. Miss DeShay made it a moot point by flicking an artfully-arranged loop over a button under her bust, from which the folds of her peacock gown fell open to reveal the bare skin beneath it. The revealed stripe of her ivory body glimmered in the light from the chandelier, giving me a full view of her pubic thatch--and it was not red!
"Prepare yourself, Caressa," she said, strutting, dress open, with languid confidence toward the parlor. "I'll have them here shortly."
No doubt in my mind Katy would persuade them. I would still feel awkward and exposed, seated in an elevated chair, eyes closed, as I summoned Mama and Ravenna. But I couldn't think of a better plan--and the two men would quarrel the entire evening away, left to their own devices. I heard a sudden hush from their direction, and I sensed the madam now addressed them wearing nothing more than a smile and her cigar.
I was clambering up onto the table, unclothed, when Ferral and Aaron followed Miss Katy into the dining room. As I settled myself on the throne-like chair, three sets of human eyes and more than a dozen wild beasts observed me as I decided how to position myself. It was awkward and embarrassing--especially because Lovejoy stared at me with an avid interest I hadn't anticipated. I managed to smile at each of them in turn.
"If you'll excuse me, I must meditate and summon my mother," I said with quiet control. "She will guide my thoughts to Ravenna's spirit, and in turn Mrs. Graves will decide whether to respond to us."
"At least you have no strings hidden up your sleeves, nor any shills hidden in the room--unless you, Miss Katy, have consorted with Caressa behind our backs," the singer said in a reedy voice.
"Not a chance," the madam insisted. "I do plan, however, to assist with Miss Caine's seance...a way to help her focus, while you gentlemen take your seats and prepare yourselves appropriately. As I've told you, we'll have no outbursts between you, and no squabbling or interruptions of the spiritual transmission, once Caressa establishes contact."
"Bind her arms and legs. Who's to say she won't set that chair thumping by shifting her weight, and then claim it's Ravenna?"
I glared at Lovejoy, already considering myself blatantly open to scrutiny. Yet Miss Katy's smile waxed feline as she went to the sideboard, where she pulled linen napkins from a drawer. "Fine idea," she said slyly. Then she hopped onto the table, as agile as a cat.
"What are you doing?" I rasped. "Isn't it nakedly obvious I can't pull any of the tricks Uncle Ludlow was notorious for?"
"Humor me," she whispered, and then she tied both my wrists to the arms of the chair with napkins. "Scoot forward, honey. If I bind you by the ankles as well, our observers will have absolutely no cause to consider fraud. Don't you agree?"
This position opened my thighs at the edge of the seat, giving the two men quite a shot of my twat. Ferral appeared impatient about these delays, but he clearly found the positioning of interest, even if Lovejoy shared the same view. "Be sure there's nothing up her notch, Katy," he said with a low chuckle. "Caressa's a sly little imp. Knows how to produce noises and other distracting phenomena to divert our attention while she pretends to speak with the dead. Seeing is believing."
"And believing is seeing," Lovejoy chimed in sagely, stealing the line I'd laid on him in town. "We must be objective observers, Ferral. If Harry Houdini made it his life's work to expose fraudulent mediums, we must assume women like Caressa are well-versed in sleight of hand. Or sleight of slit."
I was about to protest again, when Katy's wink shut me up. "Here's my hand, gentlemen," she crooned, wiggling her fingers at them, "and as you can see, Miss Caine has nothing up her... sleeve."
I sucked air as the the madam pushed two fingers up my pussy. Wiggling fiercely, I fought against the linen bindings at my wrists and ankles, but that only widened my privates for my audience, who were now pulling their chairs forward, into a more advantageous position. Katy knelt alongside my knee, so as not to obstruct their view, and began to probe me with her two curious fingers.
"I feel...only her moist heat, gentlemen...a throbbing of taut muscles that can't hide her rising arousal, much less any of the trickery you've mentioned," Katy intoned. She inhaled her cigar, and slowly released a stream of smoke that tickled my thatch and warmed the sensitive folds around my hole. "Such a fine scent you have, my dear Caressa....pungent with passion, and so very tempting. Will you allow me a taste?"
I gazed down at the redhead with my thoughts racing. Should I insist we continue with the seance, or allow this wily woman to have her way with me first? She'd done as she promised: Ferral and his nemesis sat spellbound, watching my every wiggle and twitch as my knees parted farther and her fingers continued their slow, hypnotic thrusting. The look on Katy's face, so eager yet so knowing, sent a wicked tingling up my spine--totally unlike the aversion I'd felt when Subi approached me in the tub.This woman wanted to seduce me rather than submerse me, and I found the prospect of this licking far more exciting than I cared to admit.
As though answering for me, my ass slipped farther forward and my dampening hole seemed to open of its own accord. Where had this brazen desire to display myself--to a woman--come from? Katy's triumphant smile, followed by her sigh as she closed her eyes, drove my heartbeat into a frenzy. Slowly, so slowly, she approached, knowing quite well how it drove me insane as her pink, pointed tongue aimed like an arrow toward its target.
All I could wonder was how she would feel--as rough and wet and urgent as Ferral's tongue? As insistent and roguish as Lovejoy's fingers, shoved up inside me? I held my breath, watching the chandelier's light play upon her face as she gently pushed her fingers farther inside me and tugged upward on my curl-covered mound with her other hand.
My clit sprang forward to meet her, and I cried out with the first contact--perhaps even before her tongue touched me, so enraptured I was with the vision she made, kneeling naked between my legs. My head went back and my jaw dropped as she circled the aching little nub with the slightest flickerings of a hot, firm point that knew precisely what it was doing.
My knees jerked and my ankles fought their bindings. I wanted to thrust my fingers into her hair and hold her mouth firmly against my slit while she sucked, but I was powerless. Completely at her mercy. She sighed with the contentment of a cat lapping cream--and then began to imitate that very motion, until I thought I'd die from the surge of electrical excitement that had me straining for release. I was vaguely aware that Ferral and Aaron had come to stand at the table for a closer view, but I was hurtling too quickly toward climax to care.
"Katy...oh God, Katy," I breathed, unable to control my wiggling hips. The fingers inside me were circling now, as was the tongue that continued to lave my desperate clit. "Harder...please lick me harder, so I can--"
She pulled away with a chuckle. "Responsive little puss, aren't you? Aaron and Ferral wish they were in my place--sticking themselves into your place--but the release we all seek is at hand, I think. Do you want to come, Caressa?"
I nodded frantically, my body in constant motion as though possessed by a demon. "Please--yes, I--"
"I'm making you wait," she replied, removing her fingers. "I'm putting you in a state of arousal that will catapult you into the cosmos without consulting your mama, sweet child. Your mind will be so attuned to the spirits--to the rhythms of this night--you're going to wish you'd discovered this method long ago."
My eyes flew open and I panted desperately. "You can't just stop! You have to--"
"I have to see how much you want it," Katy whispered, tracing patterns on my quivering thigh with the wetness she'd pulled from my pussy. "I have to be sure you've reached your inner limit before I move in for the final...thrust."
Juice dribbled out of me, and the men's avid eyes followed every wayward drop from my pulsing little hole to the crack of my ass. Lovejoy licked his lips and moved forward, but Katy stuck her arm in front of him.
"She's mine tonight, boys," the madam murmured, still tickling my sensitive flesh with her butterfly fingertips. "Caressa is indeed a fine sight--and a fine fuck, no doubt--but I said you could only watch. I'm going to take my pleasure--and give Caressa hers--and you have to sit down, like models of schoolboy behavior, while Teacher gives you a lesson in the fine art of seduction...the ultimate control."
Her words made me throb even harder, deep inside where my reservoir of juice began to overflow. I struggled against the wrappings at my wrists and ankles, exasperated because I couldn't move any of my limbs, until Katy propped me open with one hand and again explored with the other.
"Such a lovely pink here...like the roses Ravenna used to grow in her garden," she mused aloud. "And look at the delicate folds of wet flesh, like poppy petals unfurling around her tight little opening."
A moan escaped Ferral. Indeed, his dark features and shadowed cheeks flexed with his need, and the bulge in his trousers became obvious. In the light from the chandelier, his hair shown like a windswept silver wreath and his eyes...from the depths of his face, his eyes glowed at me with a feral, blue fire that set my insides aflame. He slumped back, mirroring my own position, and let his hand rest on his erection.
Seeing this subtle move, Lovejoy folded one leg beneath himself--merely another subtle way for a man to manipulate his member. The singer sat restlessly, his shapely hands caressing his thighs, which produced a sound much like bodies writhing between sheets.
Katy, meanwhile, was still admiring my personal flower--rubbing the very edge of my hairline with the wet end of her cheroot and watching my reaction.The warmth of the tobacco wrapper startled me, and the proximity of the glowing red ash had me sitting up and away from her, even while I dearly longed to thrust and attract her tongue back to its original target.
"Want it, Caressa?" she murmured, arching one eyebrow. "Perhaps if you ask Katy very nicely, she'll give you a licking that'll send you flying to that full moon."
Again my pussy flexed and droplets of juice shot out. "Please, Miss Katy," I begged, scooting forward as far as my bound legs would allow. "Please lap at me like a cat. Tongue me around the outer folds and tease my clit until--God, I can't believe how badly I want this!"
Smiling slyly, she extended her tongue again, a pink arrow I longed to be pierced by. And once more that initial contact sent shock waves through me, until my bottom shot off the chair and I thrust myself into her face. She grabbed me by the hips then and drove her tongue inside me, as relentless now as she'd been reserved before. In and out she thrust, hard and fast, her sheathed teeth bumping against my mound as she rubbed the entire aching area with her wet, pleasantly-rough flesh.Inside me, the spirals tightened and I grimaced with the first wave of my climax.
Katy lapped loudly then, sucking up my wetness as her lips pressed against mine.
My head thumped back against the chair and I lost track of everything except the marvelous heat exploding within me, like fireworks. Through my closed eyelids I saw flashes of red and orange, starbursts caused by the light from the chandelier and the forces raging within me. With a final cry I gave myself over to her completely, shamelessly. On and on it rolled, until I collapsed into a quivering heap of loosely-fleshed bones held together only by the electrical current still coursing through my veins.
"Now--before you open your eyes--" she instructed in a smoky, hypnotic voice, "let your mind float upward, toward that realm where it consorts with the spirits you seek at your seance table. Those souls have been watching, waiting for you to attain a state of utmost receptivity. Let them welcome you, Caressa. Let them take you in and...accept your plea in Ravenna's behalf...and respond with a profound peace that enables all of us to share in their message. Is this how it's happening?"
Utterly limp in my chair, I nodded. My thoughts were swirling in lopsided orbits, yet I felt my focus sharpen and rise into that consciousness beyond normal comprehension. I called to mind the painting on the landing, the haunting beauty rendered in strokes of white and pale gray upon a midnight sky, illuminated by the full moon.
"Ravenna..." I whispered. "Ravenna, we seek your presence this night. We ask your blessing and invoke your gracious consent, to settle the mysteries you left behind. Enlighten us, if you will. Come among us and grant us the guidance only you can give."
I paused, breathless at the power coursing through me. Above me, the chandelier shimmied and its prisms tinkled. My limbs remained relaxed while my mind ventured into realms I'd not had the means to explore before. A cold draft wafted through the room, and I fought the urge to open my eyes, fearing all would be lost unless I kept myself separate from whatever I'd summoned. My skin prickled with gooseflesh and my nipples hardened into points like iron.
"My God, there she is! Up there!"
Lovejoy's hoarse whisper had us all gazing up toward the gallery railing. Katy clutched my thigh, for indeed a ghostly, gauzy figure was gliding silently along the shadowed hallway. Her hair flowed in a raven stream behind her filmy body; her smile beamed ethereal from a face paled by death.
Ferral went white, and he stood as though in a trance, entreating her with his extended arm. His mouth was moving, but no sound came out.
I gripped the arms of my chair, still afraid to speak and break whatever uncanny, unearthly spell I'd cast. Miss DeShay shivered, her cheroot frozen a few inches in front of her face. Only her eyes moved, flickering from Ferral to the phantasm now midway across the mezzanine.
He wore a tortured yet enraptured expression that wrenched at my heart. "Ravenna?" he called in a hoarse whisper, sounding so anxious to believe. "Ravenna, was it I who--"
"You said you'd explain everything--and then come away with me!" Lovejoy cried. "You promised me a letter, dammit! Now where'd you hide it?"
The blonde bolted toward the stairway but Ferral moved faster. With an unearthly cry, he pitched into Aaron's backside and the two of them struggled fiercely on the floor. I sat frozen in my horror, clutching Katy's hand as the rivals rolled into the corner and cursed each other violently. Had I not known better, I'd have thought two beasts were fighting to the death, for their words became grunts and vicious growls as they clutched at each other.
When Lovejoy's hands closed around Ferral's throat, Katy DeShay found her voice again. "Stop it! Both of you!" she shrieked. She had the presence of mind to untie my hands, and then she cautiously climbed down from the table to approach them.
A blood-curdling snarl filled the room as the doctor flipped into a dominant position. Another flurry of arms in the dark corner, and then Aaron squealed like a deer downed by a predator. Ferral rose and loped up the stairway after the ghost, leaving the singer clutching his arm, curled up on his side.
"He bit me! The bastard bit me!" he wailed. "I've got performances in Denver these next three days, and--"
"Stop your caterwauling and sit up!" Katy commanded. "You can't tell me Dr. Graves sank his teeth into your arm."
But as heavy footsteps faded down the upstairs hallway and a door slammed in the distance, the man who held audiences spellbound the world over stepped into the light to reveal a bloodied wrist--the same one Fu had attacked when we arrived. I shrugged quickly into my dressing gown and fetched the whiskey from the front parlor's sideboard, while the madam talked her client into a quieter state.
Aaron Lovejoy turned a sickly shade of gray as I tended his wound, applying pressure to the puncture marks with a liquor-soaked napkin. When the bleeding stopped, I tied a clean square of the linen around the singer's wrist, not daring to ask him about the letter he'd mentioned. Katy dressed quickly, her face pinched in apprehension, and the two of them left without further ado or discussion.
What had we witnessed, those moments the men fought? The closing of the heavy front door echoed as though I'd sealed myself in a tomb, and I stood in the entryway with my hand over my heart. I had my suspicions about the "ghost" who answered my call, but I was quite certain a beast lurked in this lugubrious house.
Then Fu appeared, gazing about for his mistress before focusing those piercing yellow eyes on me, as though to blame me for the catastrophe that had just taken place. He padded nimbly up the stairway then, disappearing into the darkness.
With the chandeliers still ablaze, I hurried up behind him. Again I gazed at the painted face of Raven Crest's dead mistress, wondering what awful secrets hid behind those faraway eyes and her sad, soulful smile. Once again I pondered the the woman around whom such a tragic, passionate triangle had formed--and then I quickly ascended the second flight, praying to God and Mama to see me safely past Ferral's room.
