Magda shook her head, tried to blink away the flares of grey and gold and blue that streamed at the edges of her vision. What the hell is this? But she could see nothing clearly save the boy in front of her. He was impossibly beautiful, his hair unbound and his throat and face and eyes all turned to gold, his robe fallen open so that she could see his skin, smooth, the color of expensive oil. Like a bronze kouros, one of those sacred images dredged from the Aegean, his blank eyes fixed on some point in the unfathomable distance. He was unbuttoning her shirt, his fingers cupping her breast, his weight pressing the lunula into her flesh as he kissed her.
She pushed him back against the mattress, pulling off his robe until he lay there, naked. For a long moment she looked at him, stroking the tops of his thighs, tracing the long curve of his waist and then cupping his ass in her hands as she lowered her head and took his engorged cock into her mouth. His flesh tasted salty, bitter; she could smell the sea and feel the wind cold upon her back, his hands hot as metal as they crushed her breasts and he groaned. A few bitter drops burned against her tongue. She drew back quickly before he could come. He groaned louder; she straddled his legs, took his cock in her hands.
“Oh—hey, don’t stop—”
His voice cracked as he stared up at her, his eyes no longer soft but imploring, almost desperate. She smiled, a thin smile, and mounted him.
It was too fast for him, she could hear him begging her to slow down but she didn’t care. Her fingers raked his chest, her nails left red streaks as she pulled him harder into her. Blood welled from beneath his bottom rib; she brought her finger to her mouth and sucked it, then lowered her face and kissed him. He moaned and tried to grab her, but she pulled back again, still holding him inside her.
When she came she gasped and let her breath out explosively. She could hear him crying out, a high thin sound carried away by the wind, felt the faint pulse and throb of him beneath her as she drew away. Her head pounded so that it drowned out everything else.
“God—ah, god—” Peter murmured where he lay beside her. “That was amazing…”
There was a sound. A lingering echo as of the voices she had heard earlier, far-off and indistinct. She sat with her knees sinking into the mattress, naked except for the silver crescent upon her breast. From its twin spars candlelight glinted, gold and red. The voices grew louder.
As though she were reading them in the air in front of her, the meaning of the words became clear. She had always known them, had heard them before a hundred times, a thousand.
The voices died into the rush of wind and the sea. Magda shook her head, trying to recall just where she was, why her knees seemed to be digging into rough dirt instead of cloth. She could smell the musty thick odors of Peter’s room, incense and semen and unwashed clothes, and see a small blue flame beneath its spiral of grey smoke. But the outlines of walls and floor and ceiling had grown blurred, lost in a growing haze. Then the sun was gone, and the candle flame. Everywhere about her was night save for a fine thread of silver drawn across the sky and the pale form of the kouros in front of her. In her hands she felt the lunula’s weight, no longer warm but icy cold. As she drew it over her head she felt the bite of metal, a tugging pain as it raked her temple.
Then it was free. Between her fingers she held the shining reflection of the new moon that burned high overhead. The face of Cybele, Brimo Hagne, Terrible Pure One. The sleeping moon, the fasting goddess: Othiym. She could feel eyes upon her, could see them now in the dark. But not Peter’s eyes.
No: Her eyes, cold and bright and full of yearning. She was there, standing before Magda on the mountaintop, the moon upon Her brow like an arc of flame, Her mouth curved into a smile. Magda could see Her white teeth and Her hands outstretched as though to gather Magda to Her breast; but Her breasts were withered and shrunken as an ape’s, Her hands knotted into clumps of bone. From Her mouth flowed a blackness so immense that Magda swooned; but before she could lose consciousness something grabbed her, she felt stony fingers pulling at her arms and that cold foul breath filling her nostrils like fetid water. Magda opened her eyes and She was still there, more immense and terrifying than anything Magda had ever seen.
“No!” Magda cried; but as she sought to wrench away she could feel herself bowing, even as her mind cried Worship! Worship!
And then She was gone. Magda gasped, blinked and raised her hands protectively, expecting to see that monstrous face. Instead she saw the boy, one arm flung across his face so that his eyes were hidden. His throat was pale, smooth, showing only the smallest bulge of Adam’s apple beneath his childish face. His breathing was soft. Across his mouth spilled a slender bow of moonlight. He stirred, murmuring, then lay still again. Without a word she raised the lunula, grasping its spurs so that the curved glittering blade faced outward, and fell upon him.
Long after she woke. She lay upon the pallet, the lunula still in her hand. The room was dark. From the sliver of bluish light that crept from beneath the door she guessed that it was morning. A foul smell hung in the air, excrement and bile and blood. There was blood on the sharpened edge of the lunula, still damp, and blood on the first three fingers of her right hand. On her knees was the crumpled mass of the shirt he’d given her. When she bunched the cloth between her fingers it crinkled, as though it had been starched. A tangle of something soft tugged at her fingers and she looked down to see a long matted plait of blond hair, at one end stuck with a felted blackish mass. Flies lifted from it in a lazy droning spiral, like the lingering ghost of the boy’s stoned chatter, and disappeared.
She drew her head up slowly. A few inches from where she sat, Peter’s corpse sprawled on the mattress. His head sagged backward; it had been nearly severed from his neck. He was so white he looked as though he had been frozen. She had never seen a body so purely albescent, like a figure carved of quartz or crystal. His hands were curled into rigid talons. His hair had fallen across his face, so that all she could really see was his mouth; his lips had drawn back in a snarl. One of his front teeth was missing.