She hates his voice most of all, because the beautiful way he speaks in public is just another cloak he wears to hide what lies beneath his skin, and behind those measuring eyes. He really is like a character in one of her books, but not a hero. Hes a shape-shifter, a demon who knows that the surest way into the souls of normal people is to appear to be exactly what they most want, to make them believe he sees them exactly as they wish to be seen. That was how hed snared Linda. Hed made her believe her most secret fantasies about herself, just long enough to make her willingly give herself, and then
the mask had come off.
The horror of that night is graven on her soul like scar tissue. In the span of a few minutes, she saw what shed allowed inside her, and something in her withered away forever. It happened in this very room, a cavernlike hold in the bowels of the Magnolia Queen, one of the only two rooms on the casino boat without security cameras. Linda works upstairs in the bar called The Devils Punchbowl, but the women on the Queen call this off-limits room the real Devils Punchbowl. For its here that the demon inside her conducts all business that cannot stand the light of day. Here he brings card counters and other troublemakers, to strap them into the chair bolted to the floor in the middle of the room. Here he brings the women who endure what Linda suffered that night after the mask came off
.
After hed gone, while she put herself together as best she could, shed told herself she would quit the boat. But when it came to it, she hadn't had the nerve. Partly it was the money, of course, and the insurance benefits. But it was also the minds ability to lie to itself. A familiar voice began telling her that she was mistaken, that shed misinterpreted some of the things hed done, that she had in fact asked for those things, if not verbally then by her actions. But each new visit brought further confirmation of her warning instincts, and the fear in her had grown. She wanted desperately to stop, to flee the Queen and the city, yet she didn't. This demon seemed to haveno, he had some strange power over her, so much that she was afraid to mention her predicament to anyone else. In rational moments, this made her furious. Surely she had an open-and-shut case for sexual harassment. Of course, he might argue that the relationship was consensual. Shes given him enthusiastic sex in several places on the boat, and except for his office and this room, every inch of the casino is covered by surveillance cameraseven the bathrooms, no matter what the law says.
Shes thought about asking some other girls to go to a lawyer with her, but that would be riskier than laying all her money down on one of the table games upstairs. Linda only knows about the other girls because shes heard a couple of the trashier ones talking about how they did a group thing with him and a big player from Hong Kong. Knowing that the man inside her now has been inside those other women makes her shudder, yet she doesn't cry out or try to throw him off. Why? A heroine in one of her novels would do just that: find a hatpin or a dagger and stab him in the back during his moment of greatest passion. But real life isnt like that. In real life that moment comes and goes, and when he rolls off of you, you feel like your soul has been ripped out by its bloody roots, leaving only a husk of what you were before.
That was the state shed been in when her true prince walked into her life. He wasn't riding a white charger or wearing a doublet or a wizards robe; he was wearing a blackjack dealers uniform, and watching her with an empathy that cut right through her hardened defenses. His eyes were the opposite of those burning above her now: soft and kind and infinitely understanding. And somehow, shed known, he had seen her torment before speaking to her. He didn't know the nature of it; that would have killed him, literally, for he would have tried to stop what was going on, and he is no match for the shape-shifter. Hes too good for the job he hastoo good for her, reallybut he doesn't think so. He loves her.
The problem is that hes married. And to a good woman. Linda despises herself for wanting the husband of another woman. But what can you do if you truly love someone? How can you banish a feeling that is stronger than the darkness thats eating you from the inside out?
Youre making a bloody bags of it, the demon growls in contempt. Do ye want me to change at Baker Street?
Linda shrinks in fear, moves her hips faster. Shes picked up enough slang to feel nausea at the innocuous-sounding euphemism. Her extra effort seems to allay his anger; at least theres no more coded talk of turning her over.
She shuts her eyes and prays that the demon moving inside her won't discover her secret prince, or what hes doing at this very moment to put the world in balance again, like the heroes in her novelsnot until its one delicious second too late. For if the demon or his henchmen discover that, Timothy will diehorribly. Worse, they will surely make him talk before the end.
That's one of their specialties.
CHAPTER
3
Penn? Tim says softly, touching my knee. Are you okay?
I'm bent over three blurry photographs in my lap, trying to absorb whats printed on the rectangles of cheap typing paper, with only the wavering flame of a cigarette lighter to illuminate them. It takes a while to truly see images like these. As an assistant district attorney, I found that murder victimsno matter how brutally beaten or mutilateddid not affect me quite so deeply as images of those who had survived terrible crimes. The mind has a prewired mechanism for distancing itself from the dead, surely a survival advantage in our species. But we have no effective filter for blocking out the suffering of living humansnone besides turning away, either physically or through denial (not if were raised right, as Ruby Flowers, one of the women who raised me would have said).
The first picture shows the face of a dog that looks as though it was hit by a truck and dragged a hundred yards over broken glass. Yet despite its horrific wounds, the animal is somehow standing under its own power, and staring into the camera with its one remaining eye. Wincing with revulsion, I slide the photo to the bottom of the group and find myself looking at a blond girlnot a woman, but a girl carrying a tray filled with mugs of beer. It takes a moment to register that the girl, whos no older than fifteen, wears no top. A vacant smile animates her lips, but her eyes are eerily blank, the look of a psych patient on Thorazine.
When I slide this photo aside, my breath catches in my throat. What might be the same girl (I cant be sure) lies on a wooden floor while a much older man has intercourse with her. The most disturbing thing about this photo is that it was shot from behind and between a group of men watching the act. Theyre only visible from knee to shoulderthree wear slacks and polo shirts, while a fourth wears a business suitbut all have beer mugs in their hands.
Did you take these pictures? I ask, unable to hide my disgust.
No
Damn!
Tim jerks the hand holding the cigarette lighter, and the guttering light goes out. You seen enough?
Too much. Who took these?
A guy I know. Lets leave it at that for now.
Does he know you have them?
No. And hed be in serious shit if anybody knew hed taken them.
I lay the pictures beside Tims leg, then close my eyes and rub my temples to try to stop an incipient headache. Whos the girl?
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