“The whole thing really is beautiful,” Iago said. “Because, in effect, you really did create me. Or re-create me, at any rate. Do you see? When I had lost my way, when I had lost my sense of identity, I saw your film and became again who I was meant to be. You made me, as they say, what I am. What you see before you, Mr. Storm, is a product of your own imagination. And that’s beautiful. It’s ironic, truly. A subtle mingling of the tragic and the burlesque. Because now, you know, you’ve seen me here and Sir Michael upstairs and all that—you’ve seen the triptych, what it is. And now, really, I simply have to kill you. So you invent me—and I murder you—which is rather lovely, I think.”

Iago, smiling, holding up the candle, stepped up directly before Storm. Storm stared at him, thinking of Sophia. Wondering whether the bastard would hurt her too, or leave her be. Had she phoned the police? Were they coming? Had she left the house? He didn’t even dare to plead for her, lest he remind the lunatic of her presence above.

Iago now shifted the candle into his left hand. The flame played over the stone walls, the outglow touched the paintings leaning on their paper against the wall.

With his free hand, Iago reached into his belt and withdrew a wicked-looking dagger. A curved blade, a bejeweled and golden handle.

“It’s not exactly the Sword of the Serizzim,” he said with a grin. “But it’s all I could comfortably carry. And it’ll do.”

The candle flame shone on the blade and Storm could not take his eyes off it. The monster jerked him back again, lifted him off the ground. The pudgy thug with the gun grabbed his hair and yanked his head back.

Storm gasped, his mouth open. Iago, gripping the knife for a downward thrust, slowly lowered it until the point was hovering a centimeter from Storm’s right eye. The burning blade filled Storm’s vision. His throat felt as if it were filled with dust.

“Thanks for bringing a little touch of movie magic into my humdrum life, Mr. Storm,” Iago said. “But what you’ve seen tonight is only for those who have eyes to see with.”

And with a swift, vicious movement, he raised the knife up over his head, and plunged it down into Richard Storm’s eyeball.

Or so he would have done—but the blade struck steel instead.