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The names meant nothing to Harry. All he knew was
the proximity of the woman at her side; her hand laid
upon his arm.
'And what about you?' she said to Valentin. Then,
more softly, 'why don't you show us your wound?'
She forsook the shelter of Harry's side, and crossed to
the desk. The lighter flame guttered at her approach.
'Go on. . .' she said, her voice no louder than a breath.
'. . . I dare you.'
She glanced round at Harry. 'Ask him, D'Amour,'
she said. 'Ask him to show you what he's got hidden
under the bandages.'
'What's she talking about?' Harry asked. The glimmer
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Valentin stood revealed. The creature on 83rd Street
had torn the sham of humanity from his arm; the limb
beneath was a mass of blue-black scales. Each digit of the
blistered hand ended in a nail that opened and closed like
a parrot's beak. He made no attempt to conceal the truth.
Shame eclipsed every other response.
'I warned you,' she said, 'I warned you he wasn't to be
trusted.'
Valentin stared at Harry. 'I have no excuses,' he said.
'I only ask you to believe that I want what's best for
Swann.'
'How can you?' Dorothea said. 'You're a demon.'
'More than that,' Valentin replied, 'I'm Swann's
Tempter. His familiar; his creature. But I belong to
him more than I ever belonged to the Gulfs. And I
will defy them -' he looked at Dorothea, '- and their
agents.'
She turned to Harry. 'You have a gun,' she said.
'Shoot the filth. You mustn't suffer a thing like that to
live.'
Harry looked at the pustulent arm; at the clacking
fingernails: what further repugnance was there in wait
behind the flesh facade?
don't give it to her!'
'Don't listen,' Dorothea said. 'He doesn't care about
Swann the way I do.'
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Harry raised the gun. Even looking straight at death,
Valentin did not flinch.
'You've failed, Judas,' she said to Valentin. 'The
magician's mine.'
'What magician?' said Harry.
'Why Swann, of course!' she replied lightly. 'How
many magicians have you got up here?'
Harry dropped his bead on Valentin.
'He's an illusionist,' he said, 'you told me that at the
very beginning. Never call him a magician, you said.'
'Don't be pedantic,' she replied, trying to laugh off her
faux pas.
He levelled the gun at her. She threw back her head
suddenly, her face contracting, and unloosed a sound of
which, had Harry not heard it from a human throat, he
would not have believed the larynx capable. It rang down
the corridor and the stairs, in search of some waiting
ear.
'Butterfield is here,' said Valentin flatly.
Harry nodded. In the same moment she came towards
went off. Her breath on his throat seemed to gush from
her. Then she loosed her hold on him, and staggered
back. The shot had blown open her abdomen.
He shook to see what he had done. The creature, for
all its shriek, still resembled a woman he might have
loved.
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'Good,' said Valentin, as the blood hit the office floor
in gouts. 'Now it must show itself.'
Hearing him, she shook her head. 'This is all there is
to show,' she said.
Harry threw the gun down. 'My God,' he said softly,
'it's her .
Dorothea grimaced. The blood continued to come.
'Some part of her,' she replied.
'Have you always been with them then?' Valentin
asked.
'Of course not.'
'Why then?'
'Nowhere to go . . .' she said, her voice fading by the
syllable. 'Nothing to believe in. All lies. Everything:
lies.'
'So you sided with Butterfield?'
'Better Hell,' she said, 'than a false Heaven.'
'Who taught you that?' Harry murmured.
astonishing force. The blow blinded him a moment;
he fell against the tall filing cabinet, which toppled
sideways. He and it hit the ground together. It spilled
papers; he, curses. He was vaguely aware that the woman
was moving past him to escape, but he was too busy
keeping his head from spinning to prevent her. When
equilibrium returned she had gone, leaving her bloody
handprints on wall and door.
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Chaplin, the janitor, was protective of his territory. The
basement of the building was a private domain in which
he sorted through office trash, and fed his beloved
furnace, and read aloud his favourite passages from
the Good Book; all without fear of interruption. His
bowels - which were far from healthy - allowed him little
slumber. A couple of hours a night, no more, which he
supplemented with dozing through the day. It was not
so bad. He had the seclusion of the basement to retire
to whenever life upstairs became too demanding; and
the forced heat would sometimes bring strange waking
dreams.
Was this such a dream; this insipid fellow in his fine
suit? If not, how had he gained access to the basement,
when the door was locked and bolted? He asked no
not take kindly to the proprietorial tone the man used.
But he'd lost the will to resist. He picked up a rag and
opened the peeling door, offering its hot heart to this
man as Lot had offered his daughters to the stranger in
Sodom.
Butterfield smiled at the smell of heat from the
furnace. From three floors above he heard the woman
crying out for help; and then, a few moments later,
a shot. She had failed. He had thought she would.
But her life was forfeit anyway. There was no loss in
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sending her into the breach, in the slim chance that
she might have coaxed the body from its keepers.
It would have saved the inconvenience of a full-scale
attack, but no matter. To have Swann's soul was worth
any effort. He had defiled the good name of the Prince
of Lies. For that he would suffer as no other miscreant
magician ever had. Beside Swann's punishment, Faust's
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