Well, for him it was the perfect quotation. Because after he was finished here—if he was successful, if he pleased Her—he would be going directly to Harmony. His life would be complete.

He was presently in his temporary residence in the region of Campania, home to Naples. It was old—as were many of the structures here. A musty smell permeated the place, mold and rot. And it was cold. But this hardly bothered him. The senses of smell and taste and touch and vision were of little interest to Stefan. His ear was the only important organ.

Stefan was in a dim room, not dissimilar to his lair back in New York. He wore jeans and a sleeveless white T-shirt, under a work shirt, dark blue. Both were tight (the meds kept his soul under control and his weight high). On his feet were running shoes. His appearance was different from what it had been in America. He’d shaved his head—common in Italy—and lost the beard and mustache. He needed to remain invisible. He was sure word would spread here, sooner or later, about the kidnapping and his “compositions.”

He rose and looked out the window into the blackness.

No police cars.

No prying eyes.

No Artemises. He’d left the red-haired policewoman behind, back in America, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be another one here—or her brother god or god cousin or whoever—looking for him. He had assumed that was the case.

But all he saw was darkness and distant lights of the Italian landscape.

Italy…

What a wonderful place, magical.

The home of Stradivarius stringed instruments, worth millions, occasionally stolen or left in the back of a taxi, generating New York Post headlines about absentminded geniuses. Appropriate at the moment, because he was winding more double-bass strings into another noose for his next composition, which he would start on shortly. Italy was, as a matter of fact, the source for the absolutely best musical strings ever made. Sheep intestine, goat, lovingly stretched and scraped. Stefan actually felt a twinge of guilt that the strings he was using for his adventure had been made in the United States.

But that was simply practical. He’d bought a supply there, concerned that a purchase here might lead the authorities to him.

Italy…

Home of the opera composers, Verdi. Puccini. Brilliant beyond reckoning.

Home of La Scala—the most perfect acoustics of any concert hall made by man.

Home of Niccolò Paganini, the famed violinist, guitarist and composer.

Stefan returned to his bench and slipped on a headset. He turned the volume up and, as he continued to twine the gut strings together and tie the noose, he listened to the sounds caressing his eardrums, his brain and his soul. Most playlists people store on iPhones or Motorolas ranged from folk to classical to pop to jazz, and everything in between. Stefan certainly had a lot of music on his hard drive. But he had far more gigabytes of pure sound. Cricket chirps, bird wings, pile drivers, steam kettles, blood coursing through veins, wind and water…He collected them from everywhere. He had millions—nearly as many as the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.