The Silver Kiss (13 page)

“I was hungry.” He sounded miserable.

She shuddered. What kind of person ate raw birds? Could he be that desperate and hungry? Was he homeless and destitute enough to do that? Her disgust was almost tempered with pity. Or was he
really
sick, crazy sick? The pity fled, and she was shaking again. There had been a body later on that night, in another place. She had read about it in the newspaper the next day. Her mouth was unbearably dry.

“If you're sick enough to do that, you might do other things. You might be the killer they're looking for.” There, it was out. Let him know she was on to him. She turned, hugged herself, and leaned with her back against the door.

“That's not me!” He sounded indignant.

“Maybe not”—though she wasn't sure about that—“but you're weird.”

“I'll grant you that,” he said quietly. There was silence just long enough to make her hope he'd left. She turned to the door again and cautiously bent down to the mail slot to look out.

“I know who the killer is.”

She jerked upright, sucking her breath in sharply. Was it him? Was he playing games with her? “Then tell the police.”

“They wouldn't believe me.”

“Then why tell me?”

“I don't know yet. I thought you could help.”

“Help what, for Christ's sake? Bring him to justice?”

“I have to.” His voice was hoarse with emotion. She was shocked by the intensity of his feelings. She slowly crouched on the other side of the mail slot, trying to make sense of the confusion she felt. A minute ago she thought he was a crazed killer; now she was wondering if he wasn't an aspiring, lunatic vigilante. God knows what was pushing him so hard. Was it delusion?

“Why do you care so much?” she asked, almost before she realized she was speaking out loud.

“He killed my mother.” The voice broke.

My God, Zoë thought. I believe him. I don't want to, but I do.

“He's the cause of my loneliness.”

Tears stung her eyes.

“But you've been spying on me.” Dammit, she wasn't going to feel sorry for him; he was dangerous, crazy. “You were on my back steps. Why?”

He didn't even try to deny it. “Because you talked to me, and I felt like a person again. Maybe I hoped to catch a glimpse of you through the window. Maybe I hoped you would come out, and we could talk again. I don't know. Perhaps being close to you made me feel safe and real. Zoë, please let me in. I need you.”

She could feel the truth of it in his voice. If she turned from him, would it be an act of cowardice, another hospital room she couldn't cross?

She stood up and pulled back the dead bolt. Oh, God,
she thought, I'm letting a crazy boy into the house, a crazy boy who eats birds. She slowly opened the door.

He was tall and slim. Beneath his tight black jeans and leather jacket she could sense lean, powerful muscles. Motionless, yet taut with energy, he was like a dancer a breath before movement. His dark clothing emphasized the pallor of his finely sculptured face and the ashy silver of his hair, fluffed to an almost airy, spiky texture. He reminded her of a thoroughbred animal gone feral. His eyes glittered to match the sparkling of the metal studs in the jacket he wore. She couldn't tell if it was just the light, or if he had tears in his eyes, like she did. But he winced as if the light from the house were too bright, and averted his face before she could tell for sure. That's when she noticed he was carrying something under his arm. It appeared to be a painting.

He held out a slender hand to her, but he made no move to enter. “You have to invite me in,” he said. “I can't come in unless you ask.” He waited for her answer with eyes lowered.

There was probably a name for this type of behavior in psychology textbooks, she decided. “Come in, Simon.”

A smile lit his face, although he seemed too shy to look at her.

That face could break a heart, she thought. It was suddenly hard to think of him as a murderer.

“You had better sit down,” she said, and wondered where to take him. She led him to the den, and he gazed
around as he followed her. “Would you like something to drink?” She was unsure of this new role as hostess.

He glanced at her, then smiled faintly. “I've been fed at the breast of death, and no other food now can sustain me.

She giggled nervously. “Is that yes or no?” Good grief, listen to me, she thought. How sophisticated.

“Sorry,” he said stiffly. “It's something I wrote once. I never thought I'd see the day when an opportunity arose to use it. I couldn't resist.”

He writes? Her eyebrows went up a little.

“I am not illiterate,” he said, piqued at catching her surprise, in another of his swift glances. “And I don't want any of your beverages.”

“Well, I think I'll have something.” She left to get a Coke. He's as jittery as I am, she thought. She took her time in the kitchen, time to steady her nerves and take a few deep breaths.

When she came back, he was fiddling with the radio. The painting he had carried in was propped up on the couch. He found a rock station that seemed to suit him and came over to stand next to her in front of the gilt-framed portrait. He still wouldn't look at her, and it was beginning to bother her.

He reached out as if to put an arm around her shoulders, and she stepped aside hastily. “No,” he said, sounding anxious to reassure her. “I just want your necklace.”

She wondered why, so she stood still as his fingers
nimbly untied the knot and freed the crucifix from around her neck. He dangled it gingerly by its ribbon at arm's length and, for the first time since he had entered, looked her full in the face. Without taking his eyes from her, he deposited the crucifix in a ceramic jar on the coffee table, with uncanny accuracy. “The dress is beautiful, but that thing doesn't suit you.”

She was angry but afraid to protest. Let it lie, she thought. It's not important enough to fight over. And she moved away to sit in an easy chair with the coffee table between them.

To her relief he didn't follow, but sat on the couch and looked around the room. He relaxed into the cushions like a cat at home, all nervousness now gone. He seemed especially interested in the paintings on the walls. He rubbed his hands as if warming them by a fire. “I have a painting too,” he said unnecessarily.

The Ramones filled the air around them with pulsing music. “I love rock,” he said. “I have ever since it started. There's something elemental about it. It's the pounding of blood through veins. Before that there was the blues, and jazz—I liked that, too, but not this way. Not this heart-thumping way. They didn't allow music in the village I was born in, you know, but I've had plenty of time to make it up since.”

“Psychotherapy. Psychotherapy,” the lyrics pounded.

He turned dreamily to face the painting he had set up on the couch. “I wanted you to see this.”

Slow motion, Zoë thought.

“Come look.” He beckoned her.

Curiosity lured her, and she knelt on the floor in front of the couch, pushing the small glass-topped table askew with her feet. The frame was battered and chipped, and one corner had been crushed. The painting within looked old. It was a family portrait: a stern man in black, with a large white collar, stood by a chair where a woman, also in black, sat with a baby in her lap. A small boy of about six stood proudly in front of his father, dressed in the same severe clothes. He reminded her of someone. The painting was full of shadows. The furniture was sensible, and their expressions somber. Well, perhaps not the woman's. It seemed like she was trying very hard not to smile; her eyes sparkled, as if she were too merry to stay solemn for long.

Zoë looked up questioningly at Simon.

“My family,” he said.

“You mean your ancestors?”

“My parents and brother.”

Zoë frowned. She wasn't sure if she really felt like dealing with this. “Like those fake old photos you can have taken?” she asked. “Dressed up like cowboys or something?”

Simon turned the painting around and handed it to her. There was faded brown writing on the back, a date—1651—and words that curled in unexpected ways.
Edmund Bristol Gentleman and his ladie wyfe
(she couldn't read this part)
their sons
(unintelligible again).

“It was the year Old Rowley came back behind a Scottish army,” Simon said. She stared at him. “He became Charles II,” he explained, “but not that year. Cromwell sent him running at Worcester.”

Zoë waved him quiet, impatiently. “What does that prove? People can fake that stuff.”

He took back the painting firmly and turned it around again. He looked at it longingly. “That's me,” he said, pointing at the baby.

Oh, no, she thought.

“And that's your killer,” he said, pointing at the other child. “My brother, Christopher.”

“How can you expect me to believe that?” she cried, and started to stand up. He grabbed her hand in an icy grip and held her there while he awkwardly slid the painting between the end table and the couch. This was a mistake, she thought, a stupid mistake.

“He waits by dark places,” Simon continued.

Oh, no, it's not you. Please, it's not you, Zoë begged silently.

“He tells women he's lost, then he takes advantage of their kind hearts.” Simon's eyes burned, terrifying her. “He leads them into the dark and slaughters them, then cuts their throats.” His grip tightened with the urgency of his words. “He looks like a child, but he's old as sin, and he's bloated with filth and corruption. They think he's only a child.”

Zoë grew colder and colder, as if the chill of his hand
were seeping into her. She saw back to the little boy at the alley's mouth, talking to Lorraine. “I'm lost,” he had told her. She trembled. He's tricking me somehow, she thought. But no, she'd never told him about that. How could he know? My God, she realized. It could have been Lorraine lying there dead. No, it wasn't true.

“He killed my mother,” Simon was saying. “She was overjoyed to have him again, but he killed his own mother in the filthiest way. And he knew who she was. I have followed him for a long time, and now I have found him. But I failed, Zoë. I tried to kill him, and I failed. What am I to do?”

Let me go, she wanted to scream.

His grip softened. His hand moved up her arm. She tried to move back but found herself leaning forward instead. She saw a crackling of summer lightning in his eyes—the heat lightning she had felt the night he walked her home. He needed her. After weeks of not feeling needed by others, it seemed welcome. His lips touched hers, cool, soft, almost chaste. I can't believe I'm doing this, she thought. He moaned slightly, as if it were his first kiss, long denied, and she gently folded into him while he put his arms around her. Her mouth parted. He nibbled her lip.

“Ouch!” She pushed him away.

His eyes were large, dark, and compelling. He blinked, and suddenly she felt like she was waking from a dream. He looked ashamed. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I made you
kiss me. I wasn't going to. I wanted you to come to me of your own free will. But the chance was slipping away. I was afraid I was losing any chance with you.”

“That's absurd,” she said indignantly. “You didn't make me kiss you.” Her heart beat fast, and her lip tingled where he had bitten her. “What makes you think you could do that?”

“I am not like you,” he said. “I am not human anymore, I think.”

She frowned. She didn't want to be reminded of his strangeness; she wanted to be held, and to forget it. She had never enjoyed a kiss like that before. She climbed up beside him on the couch, but embarrassed by her desire to be kissed, she found she couldn't look at him directly. She absently brushed her mouth, and it left a smear of blood on her hand. He leaned to her and gently licked her lip. She felt like she was melting, but he shivered as if he were cold. She pulled back, afraid of her response.

“I will tell you a story,” he said, with a slight tremble to his voice, “and then you will believe me.”

10
Simon