"You can't have me!" She whirled angrily. "I don't have any time to waste with this."
"You have higher things in mind," Rick said savagely.
"Of course." She softened a little. "I'm sorry, Rick. Remember Icarus? You want to fly, too. I know it."
"In my time."
"Why not now? Why wait? You're afraid." She slid lithely away from him, cunning twisting her red lips. "Rick, I want to show you something. Promise me first -- you won't tell anybody."
"What is it?"
"Promise?" She put her hand to his mouth. "I have to be careful. It cost a lot of money. Nobody knows about it. It's what they do in China -- everything goes towards it."
"I'm curious," Rick said. Uneasiness flicked at him. "Show it to me."
Trembling with excitement, Silvia disappeared behind the huge lumbering refrigerator, back into the darkness behind the web of frost-hard freezing coils. He could hear her tugging and pulling at something. Scraping sounds, sounds of something large being dragged out.
"See?" Silvia gasped. "Give me a hand, Rick. It's heavy. Hardwood and brass -- and metal lined. It's hand-stained and polished. And the carving -- see the carving! Isn't it beautiful?"
"What is it?" Rick demanded huskily.
"It's my cocoon," Silvia said simply. She settled down in a contented heap on the floor, and rested her head happily against the polished oak coffin.
Rick grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to her feet. "You can't sit with that coffin, down here in the basement with --" He broke off. "What's the matter?"
Silvia's face was twisting with pain. She backed away from him and put her finger quickly to her mouth. "I cut myself -- when you pulled me up -- on a nail or something." A thin trickle of blood oozed down her fingers. She groped in her pocket for a handkerchief.
"Let me see it." He moved towards her, but she avoided him. "Is it bad?" he demanded.
"Stay away from me," Silvia whispered.
"What's wrong? Let me see it!"
"Rick," Silvia said in a low intense voice, "get some water and adhesive tape. As quickly as possible!" She was trying to keep down her rising terror. "I have to stop the bleeding."
"Upstairs?" He moved awkwardly away. "It doesn't look too bad. Why don't you..."
"Hurry." The girl's voice was suddenly bleak with fear. "Rick, hurry!"
Confused, he ran a few steps.
Silvia's terror poured after him. "No, it's too late," she called thinly. "Don't come back -- keep away from me. It's my own fault. I trained them to come. Keep away! I'm sorry, Rick. Oh --" Her voice was lost to him, as the wall of the basement burst and shattered. A cloud of luminous white forced its way through and blazed out into the basement.
It was Silvia they were after. She ran a few hesitant steps towards Rick, halted uncertainly, then the white mass of bodies and wings settled around her. She shrieked once. Then a violent explosion blasted the basement into a shimmering dance of furnace heat.
He was thrown to the floor. The cement was hot and dry -- the whole basement crackled with heat. Windows shattered as pulsing white shapes pushed out again. Smoke and flames licked up the walls. The ceiling sagged and rained plaster down.
Rick struggled to his feet. The furious activity was dying away. The basement was a littered chaos. All surfaces were scorched black, seared and crusted with smoking ash. Splintered wood, torn cloth and broken concrete were strewn everywhere. The furnace and washing machine were in ruins. The elaborate pumping and refrigeration system -- now were a glittering mass of slag. One whole wall had been twisted aside. Plaster was rubbled over everything.
Silvia was a twisted heap, arms and legs doubled grotesquely. Shriveled, carbonized remains of fire-scorched ash, settling in a vague mound. What had been left were charred fragments, a brittle burned-out husk.
It was a dark night, cold and intense. A few stars glittered like ice from above his head. A faint, dank wind stirred through the dripping calla lilies and whipped gravel up in a frigid mist along the path between the black roses.
He crouched for a long time, listening and watching. Behind the cedars, the big house loomed against the sky. At the bottom of the slope a few cars slithered along the highway. Otherwise, there was no sound. Ahead of him jutted the squat outline of the porcelain trough and the pipe that had carried blood from the refrigerator in the basement. The trough was empty and dry, except for a few leaves that had fallen in it.
Rick took a deep breath of thin night air and held it. Then he got stiffly to his feet. He scanned the sky, but saw no movement. They were there, though, watching and waiting -- dim shadows, echoing into the legendary past, a line of god-figures.
He picked up the heavy gallon drums, dragged them to the trough and poured blood from a New Jersey abattoir, cheap-grade steer refuse, thick and clotted. It splashed against his clothes and he backed away nervously. But nothing stirred in the air above. The garden was silent, drenched with night fog and darkness.
He stood beside the trough, waiting and wondering if they were coming. They had come for Silvia, not merely for the blood. Without her there was no attraction but the raw food. He carried the empty metal cans over to the bushes and kicked them down the slope. He searched his pockets carefully, to make sure there was no metal in them.
Over the years, Silvia had nourished their habit of coming. Now she was on the other side. Did that mean they wouldn't come? Somewhere in the damp bushes something rustled. An animal or a bird?
In the trough the blood glistened, heavy and dull, like old lead. It was their time to come, but nothing stirred the great trees above. He picked out the rows of nodding black roses, the gravel path down which he and Silvia had run -- violently he shut out the recent memory of her flashing eyes and deep red lips. The highway beyond the slope -- the empty, deserted garden -- the silent house in which her family huddled and waited. After a time, there was a dull, swishing sound. He tensed, but it was only a diesel truck lumbering along the highway, headlights blazing.
He stood grimly, his feet apart, his heels dug into the soft black ground. He wasn't leaving. He was staying there until they came. He wanted her back -- at any cost.
Overhead, foggy webs of moisture drifted across the moon. The sky was a vast barren plain, without life or warmth. The deathly cold of deep space, away from suns and living things. He gazed up until his neck ached. Cold stars, sliding in and out of the matted layer of fog. Was there anything else? Didn't they want to come, or weren't they interested in him? It had been Silvia who had interested them -- now they had her.
Behind him there was a movement without sound. He sensed it and started to turn, but suddenly, on all sides, the trees and undergrowth shifted. Like cardboard props they wavered and ran together, blending dully in the night shadows. Something moved through them, rapidly, silently, then was gone.
They had come. He could feel them. They had shut off their power and flame. Cold, indifferent statues, rising among the trees, dwarfing the cedars -- remote from him and his world, attracted by curiosity and mild habit.
"Silvia," he said clearly. "Which are you?"
There was no response. Perhaps she wasn't among them. He felt foolish. A vague flicker of white drifted past the trough, hovered momentarily and then went on without stopping. The air above the trough vibrated, then died into immobility, as another giant inspected briefly and withdrew.
Panic breathed through him. They were leaving again, receding back into their own world. The trough had been rejected; they weren't interested.
"Wait," he muttered thickly.
Some of the white shadows lingered. He approached them slowly, wary of their flickering immensity. If one of them touched him, he would sizzle briefly and puff into a dark heap of ash. A few feet away he halted.