The song flowed through Annie and she trembled.
As abruptly as it had begun, the song died away. Annie stood motionless with dread—it had done something to her, devil-music, she had been turned to ice or stone! Then across the room a screen door banged open. A gust of sharp salt-smelling wind raked her face. She sneezed, clapped a hand over her mouth, and shrank against the speakers. The spell was broken; she could move.
And so could the black angel.
Annie gasped. It really was as though a statue had come alive, some beautiful malefic creature, half-gargoyle and half-gigantic child. From here she could watch it striding through the crowd, pulses of crimson and white marbling its bare arms and chest. Now and then it paused, one foot poised above the floor, its great head swaying back and forth like a mastiff’s. Annie was too far to see all that clearly, and she was certainly too far away to hear, but she had a horrible certainty that it was sniffing for something.
Once it stopped, and slowly turned. Annie almost fainted—it was staring right at her, it saw her where she crouched in the shadows. The tip of its tongue flicked between its lips, a tongue white and fat as a mealworm; but abruptly it looked away again, as though it had scented bigger prey, and strode off.
Behind it, Lyla and Virgie and the rest trailed in alert silence. Annie let her breath out, shuddering. Whatever it was hunting, it wasn’t her—yet. She dared another peek out onto the dance floor.
Obviously it was going to take more than a murderous seven-foot androgyne to get the attention of this crowd: no one gave it a second glance. Hell, no one gave it a first glance. Its black eyes stared fixedly at something just out of Annie’s range of vision, and as she watched she could see how the attention of its followers was turned as well.
It was staring at a boy. Like Annie he was by himself.
Just a stupid kid! Annie thought in a sort of bitter panic. Probably taking a few days off from his family vacationing down at Wellfleet or Chatham or Rock Harbor. Tanned and muscular, his short dark hair given ruddy highlights by the sun. He wore a pair of baggy tie-dyed shorts and a pair of sunglasses hanging from a cord against his chest. And he was wasted—that was obvious, he was laughing and talking to himself, his eyes shining, sweat glistening on his cheeks and brow. A little psychedelic fun in the shade, that was all; another harmless mindfuck.
“Hey.” Annie’s mouth was so dry it hurt to whisper. “Hey, wait—no—”
She wanted to yell, to throw herself across the floor, anything to warn him. But fear flowed through her like a drug, so deadening it was a relief not to move. She could only watch as the silent angel crossed the floor, until it loomed above him.
Still the boy was oblivious. He kept talking to himself and giggling; now and then he’d feint and punch out at the air, then fall back laughing. The black angel’s harriers sauntered toward him.
Suddenly the boy stiffened. He stared at the floor, for the first time noticed the shadow there. He raised his head.
The angel was gazing down at him with unblinking onyx eyes. The boy stared back, his smile gone now, his fists hanging loosely at his sides. Annie could hear the throbbing roar of music as Virgie and the others circled the boy.
His eyes widened, his mouth parted, and he tried to move, but someone grabbed him. Lyla; Annie recognized her little body and the dark crescent upon her cheek. When he tried to cry out, Lyla wrenched his arms back, whispering a warning into his ear.
Above them the tall figure smiled. Something huge and shadowy billowed behind it, a deeper darkness that furled and unfurled like great black wings. The dance music faded, until there was nothing but a persistent thudding backbeat, like waves against the shore. The sound grew louder. The dull percussive thud became words, a string of names that rolled across Annie’s mind in an endless tide.
Like the slow soothing blood of poppies the words seeped into her, and as the music had faded, so now did the boathouse, dissolving into a colorless mist. Another room held her. A claustral space, dimly lit by smoking tapers and thick with the smells of flesh and wine. She was lying on her back on a wide stone table. A few feet away, someone else lay as well, sleeping soundly. Dream-logic told her that this was an altar; but it was unlike any church or cathedral Annie had ever been in. And, dazed as she was, she knew this wasn’t a dream. Sweet smoke filled her nostrils, the scents of coriander seed and heated amber, sandalwood and oranges; and why was that so familiar? The fumes clouded her thoughts and she yawned. She wanted only to sleep, like her companion upon the altar—sleep and forget.
But sleep wouldn’t come. This was all was too strange, and part of her wouldn’t stop trying to make sense of it—had she been slipped a drug back at the boathouse? But this was more like a movie than an hallucination, albeit a movie with myriad smells and the acute discomfort of lying on a cold stone slab. Flowers were everywhere: orange lilies, cyclamen, purple morning glories already fading to grey. Tiny golden bees crawled over them, and gathered thickly upon the lip of a rhyton smeared with honey, sipped at a shallow salver of wine and one of soured milk.
Annie grimaced and tried to move, discovered that she was bound with cords—strands of vines and dried grasses that smelled sweet but were surprisingly strong. Several bees crawled toward her, drawn, it seemed, by her struggle. Annie stiffened, then sighed with relief as the insects stopped, too drunk on honey and fermented milk to go on.
She tilted her head to get a better look at the other figure on the altar. A boy, she thought at first—he was slight and curly-headed, his mouth open as though he were asleep. But then she noted that his fair hair was tinged with grey, and the torso beneath the hempen ropes was slack and pale—the skin white and translucent as ice, blue-tinged and with a faint damp sheen.