So I waited, too, watching the last of the daylight disappear in the dark windows of the condo. A light wind began to stir, just enough to flutter a neighbor's wind chimes; clouds stacked up into black thunderheads over the treeline; birds twittered in the burning bushes and then fell silent. All the portents of storm, on a night when no storm had been forecast.

Unwillingly, I started the car again--the top was down, and I didn't know yet how to put it up--and pressed the button on the garage-door opener. The door creaked and groaned like something out of the House of Usher. All that was missing now, I figured, was Vincent Price.

But just when I'd half-decided to spend the night at a motel, Cassie's mocking comment came back to me: witches and vampires and goblins. She probably would've told me I was just trying to scare myself. She probably would've been right.

Besides, Monica had sent this sexy little car. Even if I was the only person who could see it, the least I could do was thank her. I couldn't keep it, but at least I could thank her.

So I garaged the Miata--just in time; hard rain hammered on the roof the second the garage door closed again--and walked cautiously into the dark condo.

Well, it wasn't totally dark. The lights were off, as they should have been. But the minute I stepped in, a fire roared to life in the greatroom fireplace.

Christ, I've seen this movie.

"Monica?"

No answer.

"I know you're here. Where are you?"

No answer. Fine. She wanted to play games, apparently. She probably wanted to make some kind of grand entrance--in a pillar of fire, no doubt. Who was I to stop her?

Muttering, I slung my club bag into the laundry room and went to the kitchen to pour a brandy. With any luck, there'd be enough brandy to last the night.

Halfway to the greatroom, I saw the shadow.

"Monica?"

"Devlin."

She was curled up against one arm of the loveseat. Uncertain, I stayed standing.

"About the car," I said tentatively.

"Yes. Do you like it?"

"Like it? I love it. I wish I could live in it....I can't accept it, Monica. But thanks for the thought. It was really..."

"It pleased me to give it to you. It would please me to have you accept it."

"But it's not real. Is it?"

"It's real. But it'll be our little secret for now. You want it, don't you?"

She had me there. Besides, maybe it was real enough--maybe demons could conjure up little red cars just like that. So why not take it? If it would please her...

"All right. Thank you. I accept."

"Accept this, too." She reached over to the coffee table, where she'd set up bar, after a fashion, and poured some sort of ruby liqueur into a cut-crystal stem.

"Thanks, but I've already got..."

"I insist. Take it."

Shrugging, I set down the brandy snifter, took the stem, and checked the contents. Nothing I could identify, but nothing identifiably lethal, either.

Monica finished pouring her own and then stood--perhaps too close. "To beginnings."

Beginnings? Well, all right. Why not?

We touched stems lightly and drank. Whatever the liqueur was, it was first-class goods. I started to ask her about it, but her expression made me stop short. She was studying me minutely, with those strange lights glinting in her eyes, and she really was standing too close.

"Do you have a last name?" I asked, uneasy.

"Yours, if you like. Why do you ask? Do I need one?"

"Well, it would be normal. Or at least more nor..."

"Normal. How clever of you to bring that up. What is normal?"

Something cold shot up my spine. Trying to make it look casual, I moved away from her, all the way over to the fireplace.

She understood, and laughed. The cold shot up again, stronger this time.

"Who are you?" I asked her.

"Who do you think I am?"

"Dammit, Monica, I'm serious."

"Yes. You are serious. You're starting to think that you're afraid of me." Slowly, she moved closer. "You're still not quite sure that I'm not a special effect. You're seeing things that you think aren't there. You're having dreams that you can't explain. You're starting to doubt your sanity. Not to mention your sexuality." There was complete certainty in her tone, and a note of mockery. "Do you believe in witches, Devlin?"

That really did it. I set my stem down hard on the mantel. "I think I should leave now."

But suddenly Monica was one step away, and she took it. Then her mouth was on mine, kissing very slowly, at exquisite leisure, as though she had all the time there was and needed no permission whatsoever.

Can you imagine what that was like after six years of celibacy? But with a woman?

A beautiful woman, though, warm, real, apparently quite willing. It had been six years. And against all odds--not to mention every law of God and man--it felt...right.

But with a woman?

Yes, she was undeniably a woman, and I'd undeniably wanted her all along. First-class passage to Hell, I thought, and closed my eyes, and gave in.

No sooner had I done so, though, than she released me. "You're free to go now, if you like."

I didn't move. Her lips curved into an ambiguous smile.

"Remember that you were afraid and that you had your chance to leave. Dinner?"

By the time we got to dessert, the edge was off. But only the edge. She laughed and pushed her untouched double-chocolate cheesecake over to me. "So there are pleasures that you enjoy."

"Not like this. Not usually. Food's just fuel, usually. But this..." At a loss for a word that would be enormous enough, I gave up the attempt and dug into the cheesecake.

"You've been starving yourself for a very long time. Such a shame. Such a waste." Her voice was light, casual, almost like Cassie's when she was working up to goad me. "You must find advertising difficult. Being in the business of temptation, and yet not being tempted."

So we were back to that. I put down my fork--grudgingly--and waited.

"Life must be terribly bleak for you. Food is fuel, and sex is business. When it's not sin, that is. I wonder what you think sin is. An appetite is an appetite. Have you committed sin at my table?"

Very likely. The cheesecake alone was almost certainly a whole day's quota of calories. To work it off, I'd have to do an extra half-hour on the stair machine every day for the next couple of weeks. Or an extra half-hour every day for a week if I added a five-pound plate on each of the circuit machines I used, and maybe added a set of reps to...

"Mortifying your flesh again," Monica said dryly. "How inconvenient that you're not Catholic."

I didn't much like this mind-reading business, but decided to try to make a joke of it. "Catholics don't belong to Club West. It leads to birth control."

"You have all of the guilt, but none of the redemption. You're very guilty, Devlin. Why?"

"You tell me. You claim to know everything about..."

"Celibacy is just your expiation for your guilt. Your Irish Catholic Methodist atheist form of expiation. You are tempted, but you deny it. You deny yourself. Who told you that what tempts you is necessarily a sin?"

That question brought me up short. I'd always thought it was axiomatic. Who had told me?

"Think," she demanded.

I thought--and then the nickel dropped. "Genesis. Of course. I had a book when I was 6 years old. A children's Bible, with pictures. I remember the Genesis part especially. Nice detail on the snake, but all you saw of God was the feet. He must be a big son of a..."

"Tell me about temptation, the way you learned it when you were 6 years old. According to Genesis, with pictures."

"It's only a story. A dumb one. I thought so even when I was little. How anyone old enough to tie his own shoes can still believe it is a mystery to me. Even a fundie with a grade-school education should be able to see through..."

"Never mind that right now," she said. "Just tell me the story. As you know it."

"As I know it, it's just a lot of gibberish about snakes and apples and some colossal killjoy in sandals called Yahweh. Yahweh, for God's sake. Couldn't the Creator of Everything come up with a better name for himself? No wonder the world doesn't work. Yahweh." Scornfully, I drained my liqueur stem and then refilled it. "It's a stupid story. For stupid people. Sometimes I think Genesis is responsible for half the evil in the world."

Monica's eyes lighted up. "Everyday evil? Or sexual evil?"

What kind of question was that? "Evil, period. I think whoever wrote Genesis must have hated women. And snakes. And rationality. But my God, do people believe it. 'It ain't written,' " I said, slipping into my best white-trash accent. "'It ain't in the Good Book that God made Adam and Steve. So it ain't fittin'. 'Sides which, it ain't moral. 'Sides which, I ain't gettin' any.' "

"Old joke."

"Old story. These people are hilljacks."

"Don't call yourself names."

That lost me. "What?"

"Simple Aristotelian logic. A: All Bible-believers are hilljacks...to use your word. B: All sexual difference is contrary to the Bible. Ergo, C: All those who believe that sexual difference is evil are hilljacks."

"There's something wrong with that syllogism," I told her. "Besides, you can't put me in it, because I don't believe the Bible."

"You lie like an expert."

I regarded her narrowly. "I am an expert. But I'm not lying right now. I don't believe..."

"You don't believe, and yet you won't disbelieve. You won't sin, and yet you don't stop wanting to. What holds you back? What are you afraid of? Genesis?"

"Revelation."

It was only a joke. But Monica took it seriously.

"Revelation comes in many shapes, Devlin. I'm the shape of yours."

"Who are you? The truth."

"Your demon."

"The truth, dammit."

"Your demon. Shall I prove it?"

"Great God," I muttered. "Who's your decorator?"

Monica smiled slightly. "Derivative. I agree. But who am I to disappoint you?"

"We haven't established who you are, period."

"You haven't been listening. You want a simple answer, so I've given you one. This is it. Your snake, in your Garden."

I had to think about that one for a second. "I think you're mixing your metaphors. What kind of demon are you? Theological? Or psychological?"

"Is there a difference?"

"What are you saying?"

"Just what I was saying before. Shall I say it again?"

"I don't understand. Are you telling me that you're real?"

"I'm very real. I'm what you're most afraid of. What did you think a demon was?"

Good question. I'd supposed that the horns and the pointy tail came into play somewhere, but I'd never given it any serious thought. Still...

"Monica. Please. Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"You know who I am, and I'm doing what you should have done for yourself a long time ago. You've called me. You can't deny me now. You want me. And what you want, sooner or later, you must have."

As she spoke, she moved closer, opening the closures on her gown as she advanced. By the time she reached me, the gown was open to the waist. Uncomfortable, I looked away. But she took my hand and placed it inside.

Oh, God. She was real, all right. But...

"OK. Maybe I do want you," I admitted, pulling my hand as far back as it would go. "You're very convincing. You might even be real. But then again, you might just be a rationalization of some sort. Or a fantasy. I can't get involved with a fantasy. It would look bad."

"I'm not a fantasy. Give me your hand."

"Why?"

For answer, she just took it, and put it back where it was before. This time, she held it there.

"Where did I get you from?" I asked helplessly. "Anne Rice?"

Monica didn't answer. She moved much closer.

Very uncomfortable now, I stepped backward and tried to hold her at bay.

"All right. OK. Suppose that I believe you, for just a second, just for the sake of argument. You're a demon, or something that I've been repressing, and somehow, you got out. Stranger things could happen. Maybe. But what happened that you got out? Why now?"

"Why not?"

While I searched for an answer to that, she closed the distance between us again, pulled me to her, and kissed me. For quite some time. With increasing heat. I was forgetting what objections I'd had to this in the first place.

"Maybe we should go to bed," I told her, "while I still have a few motor skills left."

"We're not going to bed. Not tonight."

I jumped as though I'd been shot. "What do you mean, we're not..."

"You still need tempting. You're not quite ripe. Come here."

Like hell we weren't going to bed tonight.

"I'm tempted, Monica. Believe it. What do you want? My soul? Done. It's yours. No questions asked. I don't even care if you're real. All right? Do we have a deal?"

"You still need tempting."

"I do not. I absolutely do not. I'm...where are you going?"

She had suddenly moved away, out of reach, and was smiling rather appraisingly at me.

"Dammit, Monica, what are you..."

The words froze on my lips. I'd been addressing Monica, but now Cassie was standing in front of me. Cassie, in Monica's black gown, open to the waist, with an appraising expression in her blue eyes. She took a step toward me...

...and I bolted from the bedroom to the garage to the car. I didn't stop for a single red light until the next county.

(c) 1999, ROCFanKat

Continued - Part 6