“I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I declared. I was thirsting. And my heart was inflamed. I wanted with all my wretched soul to be one of them. I was one of them!

“Suddenly, Petronia lifted me and flung me out from her, out beyond the open terrace doors and into the night, and I fell down, down all the way to the beach below, and I landed quietly on the rocks, standing, just on the edge of the foaming green sea, still and quiet, gazing all around me.

“I looked up. How very far away she was, and from the terrace I could scarcely see as she beckoned me. I heard her whisper as though she was near my ear, ‘Come up to me, Quinn.’

“I willed my body to rise, and I did rise, and faster and faster I moved until I drifted near her and over the railing of the terrace and then I stood beside her.

“She slipped her arm around me, her dark eyes flashing as she looked up at me, and whispered in my ear. ‘And so you see,’ she said, ‘we move by speed, not magic. I have you in my grip. And don’t you spill a drop when you drink. We expect perfection of you.’

“ ‘But do we kill?’ I asked.

“Arion shrugged. ‘If you wish,’ he answered. “If the evil is ripe for it and you are graceful and sly.’ ”

CHAPTER 40

40

“A BLUE HAZE of cigarette smoke hung over the rooms. The faces came at me as if I were a camera lens. All were beautiful. All were imperfect. The voices were a senseless and deafening babble, the thoughts of so many minds a chaotic hubbub. I lost my sense of balance. I wanted to retreat, but I pressed forward.

“The smell of the food was revolting, the smell of the liquor strangely acrid and foreign, as if my body had never drunk it. The scent of blood rose from every inch of flesh pressed against me as I worked my way through the labyrinth.

“I saw the bride beneath the heavily laden pergola. Wraith thin. Pretty. Her bridal gown had long white lace sleeves, and she was smoking a cigarette which she held in her left hand, and when she saw me she beckoned urgently as if she knew me, and I saw in her mind: invitation, but what did she want?

“I couldn’t take my eyes off her as I pushed towards her, and her free arm hooked around my left arm as we came together, and I caught the scent of her blood, strong and pumping alive beneath her olive skin.

“She pulled me into a large bedroom and shut and locked the door behind her. Her big low-set black eyes looked at me imploringly. Smudged mascara. Pouting red mouth.