“Haïyo Othiym,” she murmured, and brushed her fingertips against the mirror’s pitted surface. Then she took the lunula from where it lay in a carved sandalwood box. For an instant the lunula’s reflection gleamed in the window, like a glimpse of the moon rising above the chaparral. She slid it over her head, being careful not to snag her hair, and fingered its cool edge as though she were testing a blade. She gazed another moment at her image in the bronze mirror, then left.
She went back out into the main house. Sunday waited there as she always did, standing by the window and staring out at the chaparral—she had seen a puma there once, and Angelica knew she was hoping to see it again. She gave her housekeeper a little white envelope—Sunday liked to be paid in cash, and she liked to be paid every day—thanked her and walked her to the front door. Angelica watched her housekeeper climb into her new red Chevy pickup and take off down the rutted drive. She waited half an hour later, until she saw the Porsche disappear in a haze of dust. Angelica was alone at Huitaca.
Well, almost alone.
It was the hour after sunset, when you could feel the desert heat seep back into the earth. She went to the back of the room and drew open the sliding doors, opening the entire rear of the house to the night.
“Well now,” she murmured, and breathed in luxuriously.
Overhead the sky was violet. The horizon paled to green where the buttes reared: immense pillars of sandstone, so huge and strange and silent they were like living things, vast watchful manticores or sphinxes waiting to descend upon the sleeping plain. Heat lightning stabbed fiercely at the tallest crags, and though Angelica knew there would be no rain, the scent of water filled the air, sweet as incense. Angelica smiled to see what awaited her outside.
At the pool’s edge, myriad small things had gathered to drink. Desert crickets, kangaroo rats, fat golden-eyed toads, and tiny sleepy-looking owls. Nighthawks and shrikes swooped above the water, and crimson bees like strings of beads spilled across the tiles. And rattlesnakes that paid no attention at all to the furtive kangaroo rats and nervous mice, but drank and then slithered back across the patio with a sound like the rustle of a wooden rosary.
Angelica watched them all, her smile a benediction. Then she slipped outside.
Beneath her bare feet the tiles felt warm, but the air touching her arms was cool enough to raise goose bumps and make her nipples harden beneath the thin fabric of her chiton. A few of the animals looked up, but none fled. A kit fox froze, water dripping from its jaws, then lowered its head once more. As Angelica watched it, she felt something tickle her foot. She looked down to see a tarantula, three of its legs extended so they brushed against her instep, a fourth raised to tap tentatively at her little toe. She stooped and opened her hand. The tarantula stiffened, then relaxed, its legs unfolding like miniature landing gear, and crept onto her hand. The hairs on its legs and abdomen were soft as those on a mullein leaf. It crawled onto her wrist and crouched there, its eyes bright and intelligent as a magpie’s.
“Ah, little sister.” Angelica walked toward the pool, stooped, and rested her hand against the warm tiles. The tarantula jumped from her palm to the ground. Angelica laughed, then stood and stretched her arms toward the sky.
Bats swept down to skim the surface of the pool and ricocheted back into the night. A few stars pricked the darkness. Angelica lowered her hands and pulled her dress over her head. She untied the suede ribbon that bound her hair, so that the thick curls fell in a damp mass down her back. She was naked, save for the glint of the lunula above her breasts. As she moved, the animals moved as well. Not fearfully but with care, as they would move to accommodate some great beast, bull or elk or antelope.
But someone else froze at the sight of the woman in the dark. Staring at Angelica from the shadows, Cloud felt her breath catch in her throat. She’d been hanging furtively around the edges of the patio, trying to come up with some kind of MO for the evening, when without warning Angelica appeared at the bank of sliding doors. With a muffled cry Cloud darted into a thick stand of underbrush.
Immediately she wished she’d worn something other than her usual uniform of tank top and hiking shorts and Doc Martens. Thorns tore at her bare legs and arms. Cloud muttered a curse, crouching among snaky wands of ocotillo and agave blades. She felt giddy from the rush of adrenaline. A stupid overreaction. She shouldn’t be this stoked about hiding in the bushes and peeking at Angelica, but here she was.
And there she was—
Cloud held her breath. This was, like, definitely Out There. She had always thought her employer was beautiful—everyone thought Angelica was beautiful—but seeing her like this Cloud finally understood the fanatical, almost worshipful reaction of Angelica’s fans.
Cloud had read a few of Angelica’s books, but it was hard for her to take them seriously. All that crap about the Goddess, about atavistic beauty and power. A power that would fill any woman, if only she would open herself up to it. Angelica had designed an entire ritual for this: Waking the Moon, she called it. Cloud had watched the ritual plenty of times. To tell the truth, it was not very impressive, at least to Cloud. A lot of incense and chiming bells and chanting, a certain amount of Camp Fire girl rowdiness and restrained nudity. Cloud usually dozed through most of it, leaving Kendra to watch in case any crazies showed up.
So maybe Cloud was missing out on something. Certainly afterward the women appeared to be ecstatic enough. Chattering about the Goddess, and how empowering it was to know Her true names. About what it was like to feel that power and to see Her beauty, a terrible beauty that She held within Her very bones, a beauty that would burn like flame and consume anyone foolish enough to come too near.
In Angelica’s workshops—and these were very special workshops, participants were carefully screened, and to further ensure that only the very serious-minded took part, the experience would set you back two grand and change—in her workshops, Angelica even hinted that she, Angelica di Rienzi Furiano, was the final and supreme incarnation of the Goddess. Cloud had always thought this was a little presumptuous of Angelica, to say the least.
Now she wasn’t so sure. Now, it seemed that maybe Angelica was onto something. Because this was different. This looked like the Real Thing.
In front of the pool Angelica stood, arms upraised, bathed in a cold bluish glow like moonlight. But when Cloud tilted her head back, she could see no moon, only a black-and-grey chiaroscuro of thorns and scrubby leaves. She moved gingerly, trying to get more comfortable, snagged her arm and swore beneath her breath.
When she looked up again Angelica was at the very edge of the pool. Light rippled across her bare flesh, mirroring the lightning overhead. About her throat she wore the same moon-shaped pendant she always wore for her rituals. The necklace must have been catching the light in some weird way: it glittered and sparked as though it were white-hot and had been struck with a hammer. The eerie light made Angelica look as though she were made of some semiprecious stone, fluorite or azurite or agate, something that filled her veins so that she glowed like phosphorous. Her hair streamed across her shoulders and over her breasts, tangling with the ends of her necklace. Angelica was a good ten or twelve years older than Cloud, but you couldn’t tell by looking at her now. Her breasts were high and full, her waist small above wide hips, her legs long and muscular.
Gazing at her Cloud’s mouth went dry. Her head was pounding, as though she’d had too much to drink; but Cloud never drank. She tried to take a step forward, felt her head yanked back sharply.