I.
       About noon on Tuesday, the doorbell buzzes, and Dixon is standing on my front porch. I open the door and see that it's a gorgeous day, blue and bright. I decide I could read in the garden instead of the library. But first, there's Dixon and the gym bag he has slung over his shoulder. I step back, and he comes inside. I bolt the door behind him.
       I move the book I'd been reading--an eighteenth-century folio on botany from Florence--to the desk and motion for Dixon to have a seat at the library table. He digs into the bag and produces a cardboard box, about a foot square, and sits it in the middle of the table. I squint at the box, then lift it carefully. It weighs three to four pounds. I placed it back on the table.
       "How long?"
       Dixon gives a half-shrug. "Three days."
       "Is that three days firm, or three days more or less?"
       "Oh, firm."
       I nod. "Any special requirements?"
       "Line of sight," he says.
       "Should I be expecting company?"
       He gives that idiotic half-shrug again. "Possibly. I've tried to prevent that." Which means, of course, I'll have company. So much for my afternoon in the garden. I decide that's going to cost him. It's a very pretty day.
       "Anyone else have pickup rights?"
       He doesn't shrug this time: "No."
       "Ten," I tell him, "Half upfront, half Friday."
       Dixon digs into the bag again and comes up with a rubber-banded wad, and starts counting.
       "If you're not here Friday, I sell whatever it is to the highest bidder Saturday morning." He says nothing. He already knows the rules.
       After he leaves, I double-bolt the front door and check the windows. Once everything is locked down, I turn on the alarms. I carry the box under my arm as I move through the house. I take line of sight very seriously. From one perspective, I can't help feeling it's silly, in light of all the other security measures I have in place, but customers who want additional peace of mind pay a premium for that extra bit of my attention. It would be unprofessional to take the money and not deliver the service, so for the next few days, the box and I will be inseparable. I decide it will be a good size for a footrest while I sit on the can. I have to keep it safe, but that does not mean I have to treat it like a baby.
       If it were delicate, Dixon would have said so.
       I pick an armchair in the corner of the library, with a good view of the full room. The Florentine Botanical is too large for a lap read, so I fish the shelves and come away with a copy of Podmore's Studies in Psychical Research. I always find his skepticism refreshing, even if he's often wrong.
       
       II.
       2:37 AM. I'm awake, but at first, I'm not sure why. Then I hear it: a scratching sound. It isn't subtle. Someone is in the hall outside the bedroom. This can't be because no one can be in the hall without first getting into the house, and no one gets into the house without setting off an alarm. But so it goes. The gun, a heavy .45 made heavier by a silencer, is already in my right hand. I reach out to the nightstand with my left and verify that the box is still there. It sounds as though someone is walking slowly down the hall, scraping at the wall or floor with something as he comes. Then the sound stops abruptly, and all I can hear is the faint breathing of the intruder. I still don't see anyone because of the angle, but it sounds as though he is just outside the half-open door.
       For a long moment, nothing at all happens. Every nerve in my body tingles. I breathe slowly, silently, through my nose. My hand holds a steady sight on the middle of the door, but I'm starting to wonder if I should change my pillow gun to something lighter for the future. Assuming, that is, I have a future.
       "Lights," I finally say in a clear, firm voice. As they come on, the door begins to swing slowly inward.
       My first thought is that he's an ugly one. A mop of black hair sits atop a puzzle of a face, an incongruously mottled assembly of mismatched features--the eyes too deep, the mouth too red, the nose a misshapen blur. Then as my pupils adjust, I see it's a mask, and then the realizations come in microseconds as I recognize the mask, and his hand jerks, and the chainsaw stutters life. He steps more fully into the room. I'm so stunned that he takes two more steps with me sitting there like the worst b-movie meat before I remember the gun and let him have it. He takes three neatly-clustered rounds through his already-bloodied apron but keeps coming for two more steps before he drops to his knees. His upper body pitches forward, and he catches the bed's footboard chin-first.
       I give the guy credit. He keeps a professional grip on his roaring weapon as he goes down, and it doesn't sputter to a stop until he's tipped over and splattered onto the floor.
       I've got lots of questions--like how did Leather Apron, the most frightening horror-movie maniac of all time, wind up dead on my bedroom floor?--but no time for reflection. I jump out of bed and kick the saw across the room. He's on his back, and he's not moving. I feel for a pulse and find none. Then I think about how often I've seen the bastard go down and then get up and start killing again, and I pump a couple more rounds into him for good measure. I know it's just some dude in a mask, but it puts me on edge. I have to clear the house, so I start down the hall. There are gouges in the plaster created by the chainsaw having been dragged along the wall. I'm halfway to the stairs before I remember and double back.
       Leather Apron is on his feet and standing by the nightstand, his hands reaching for the box. I empty the rest of my clip into the back of his head, reload, and tuck the box under my left arm. I make a note to myself to see what kind of body armor he's wearing.
       When I reach the top of the stairway, the motion detector picks me up and gives a warning tone. I proceed down to the control panel and check status. To my surprise, all zones are running and showing clear, which doesn't seem possible. I turn the detectors off and do a sweep of the house. There are no other intruders. Nothing seems out of place. All entry points are correctly locked down. Nothing larger than a fly should have been able to enter without triggering an alarm. And a fly would have had to come through one of the attic vents.
       None of which helps explain the dead guy in my bedroom. Even if someone had figured out that Dixon was bringing me something to keep and somehow holed up in the house before I'd set the alarms, he should not have been able to move around undetected. And why the Leather Apron get up? Effectively unnerving, but it didn't seem to make much practical sense.
        Puzzling out what had happened will have to wait. I have a body to get rid of. As I climb the stairs, I'm wondering if it's someone I know. Prior familiarity with the house may have helped them figure out a way in. I might not ever know. I doubt he has much of a face left after those headshots. When I walk into the bedroom, though, I see it doesn't matter. There is no body. Even the chainsaw and the pool of blood are gone. All that remains is the faint scent of gun smoke and, strangely, a smell I remember from my childhood: the faint but unmistakable odor of black walnuts. I carry the box back downstairs with me to the library. I have some reading to do.
       
       III.
       By noon I feel pretty firm about my research results, and I need some sleep. If I am on the right track, I won't have to worry about anything until sundown. If I'm on the wrong track, I still need to rest. I make certain the alarms are activated and set the clock to get me up at seven. The sleep, and a quick shower, leave me energized, ready.
       She comes well after midnight. She doesn't so much walk in the door of the library as materialize in the doorway, and the moment I see her, I know that my research was spot-on--not because she's tall and big-breasted and has red hair that spirals in long tendrils down to her lower back, but because of the briefcase she's carrying. Whatever's in the case is the prize here, not the girl. Fournier: From deepest fear, the thief's desire, greatest and dearest of all, becomes the trial of the second night. I have my guess.
       The way she slinks across the room makes it clear that she wants me to think of herself as part of the deal. When she gets to where I am sitting, she dips. I could consider it a bow, but it's mainly an invitation to look down her dress. The view is impressive. When she straightens up, she lays her briefcase on the table next to Dixon's box.
       "You have something I want," she says. I like a woman who gets to the point.
       "Have a seat," I tell her. She does.
       Her eyes are still on the box when she says, "Thank you, Mr. --"
       "John," I tell her. "Just John."
       "John." She smiles and blinks her big browns at me. It's good enough to make the whole world pause for a moment to see.
       "You?"
       "Oro," she said with a smile.
       I smile because it suits her.
       "I suppose," I say, "you have something for me."
       "John, it's the most wonderful thing," she says. Her long, pale fingers stroke the leather attaché case. "I think you'll want it."
       I rarely give in to temptation. For me, reason trumps desire. But there's something more here, something deep in her eyes that drives me toward her, toward it. In the moment, I can only take comfort in the idea that I can bring things to a stop whenever I want. For now, I want to see it. And she knows this. She's already opening the locks before the words "show me" tumble out of my mouth.
       She pulls out a grey clamshell box, unsnaps it, and swings open the lid as she turns it toward me on the desk.
       "Just for you, John," she says with a smile. Her teeth are impossibly white.
       I gaze down into the box at the unmarked goatskin of the cover. Half of my brain is reminding me that it's a fake. The other half is screaming like a teenage Beatlemaniac who just found the fab four hiding in her bedroom closet. After all, how do I know it's a fake? Magically speaking, is it easier to manufacture a copy of a fifteenth-century manuscript or to spirit it away from the MS collection at Beinecke Library? I'm not the one to say.
       "May I," I ask.
       "Certainly," she says as her smile widens.
       I don a pair of cotton gloves and open the cover. The tacked-in library label telling me that this is a gift of Hans P. Kraus looks legit, as do the notations scratched above it on the interior. The material on the first leaf is fainter than I expected, the text a shadowy brown, the green ovals faint. The parchment at the bottom is worn, and I see the insect holes. I gently tug at the top corner and turn the page. The color on the obverse is more vibrant, a mix of yellow and green leaves on an uncolored stalk. The odd, looping script is clearer also. I realize that my heart is pounding like a jackhammer. I take a deep breath.
       I go through the whole thing leaf by leaf. After all, we have all night. She's a good enough salesperson to keep her mouth shut and let the merchandise talk. And it does. I certainly don't care if it was stolen from the library, and if it's a fake of some kind, it's a damn fine one. I begin to wonder if the deal isn't really worth a chance. This is, after all, my one shot. It will never come on the market--and if it somehow did, someone with deeper pockets than I would bag it.
       And Dixon? Dixon can go fuck himself. As I turn pages and examine the manuscript's increasingly strange botanical and cosmological drawings, I realize that I don't care at all about his part in this. That surprises me somewhat. I've never cared about Dixon himself, of course, or any of the others. I have, however, always cared about my word and my reputation. It's everything in my business. But now I'm already thinking about how to handle Dixon if.
       I'd have to kill him.
        When I close the back cover, I also close my eyes. I'm learning about temptation's ways and how it devours obstacles with desire's fangs. Ways become clear where before there were reasons not to act. I take a deep breath and hold it.
       When I open my eyes, I snap the clamshell shut. My right hand is on top of it, my left seeks and finds Dixon's cardboard box.
       "Thank you," I say to her. The words hang there in the air for a few seconds. I'm still trying to decide what to say next. "--but no," I add.
       After all, odds are heavy that she'd gut me as soon as the exchange was completed.
       I don't know what I expect to happen, but I guess part of me is braced for pandemonium. I yank the Glock out of my waistband. Oro sits up straighter, stiff in her chair. A loud noise, like two huge stones grinding together, fills the air. Suddenly I can't breathe. It is, for a second, as if something has sucked the oxygen from the room. Then the sound stops, and I can breathe again. The whole time, I keep my eyes fixed on Oro's face. I watch as her eyes fade from living things into black stones, shiny at first but then dulling. In a matter of seconds, the life drains from her and what is left is like the dried husk of a woman. Then just as quickly, that too disintegrates, and in its place flutters a huge Luna moth. The thing's wings are almost a yard across; its swollen body is almost the size of my forearm. It flaps heavily in the air. It dips toward me, and I fire. The shot tears a hole in one massive wing, and the thing surges away toward the ceiling. As it climbs, it grows smaller, shrinking to more normal proportions then, as it flies toward the door, smaller and smaller until it disappears. All that is left is the faint but unmistakable scent of black walnuts, their hulls rotting in the late summer sun.
       A moment passes before I realize that the scent is not, really, all. The attaché case and folio box are still on the table. I flip the top of the box open. Inside is a battered paperback of The Great Gatsby. She hadn't even bothered to remove the thrift store sticker from the front of it. I leave it there and go to bed, but it is a long time before I sleep.
       
       IV.
       I spend the next day getting ready for night three. This involves a lot of bumbling around and guessing at things. My sources are oblique about what to expect. Fortunately, there is some broad agreement. Gudmunsen: on the third and final attempt at recovery, the beast will come in its true form; Fournier: Lacking the strength to transform itself, yuxa will approach the aspirant undisguised; Chen: the conflict on the third night will be decisive, as only one yuxa can survive where only one heart beats. I would feel better if there were some consensus on what kind of creature to expect (I get serpent, dragon, great bear, and the deeply unhelpful were-beest). The good news is that consensus is that if you kill one of these suckers when they're in their true form, they actually stay dead.
       Still, I have no idea what to prepare for and, worse, no idea how one is supposed to kill such a thing. If anyone ever knew, they didn't write it down. With nothing to go on, I do the only logical thing and plan for everything. I gather every gun I own--six in all--strap half of them to my body and leave the others in strategic locations. I do a similar amassing of blades. I even rummage about and
       I ponder a while about what to do with Dixon's box. My first thought is to hide it: stash it in the basement or bury it in the back yard. I decide that's silly. After all, the damn thing is part of her, and my gut tells me she'll know exactly where it is. She's coming for it, so I should keep it with me since I need to be there to stop her. Line of sight.
       I decide that, under the circumstances, that I have a right to see what all the fuss is about, so I take a knife and slice open the top of Dixon's box. Inside is a slightly smaller box of dark wood. I lift it. The wood is smooth and pitted, and very old. There are no markings or handles or hinges, just a seam around the top. When I pull, the lid slides up and off. The inside of the box is lined with plush green cloth, and resting there is a white jade sphere. The entire surface is covered with the most intricate carvings I have ever seen. I lift it out of the box for a better view. A bug-eyed dragon, with a sinuous body, brawny legs, and thick claws glares at me from the top. Flowing banners on lotus leaf cover the sides, accented with blossoms and fish. At the bottom, a quartet of frogs form the base. They balance the whole thing on their backs and gaze upward, hungrily, at the insects hiding among the lotuses. I'm no expert in Chinese art, but the thing strikes me as being very old and quite valuable.
       It is also, I realize as I am holding it, hollow. I shift it between my hands and confirm that it weighs less than a solid body would. I shake it gently and think that maybe, just maybe, I can hear the dry rustle of something inside. The heart of the beast. I wonder for a moment if Dixon knows. Did he just see a chance to lay his hands on a valuable art object and take it, or was he seeking the treasure within? But it's a stupid question. Such things aren't had by chance. They are carefully hidden and protected, and the art of obtaining them requires long thought and careful planning. Dixon knew what he had and knew what he was doing when he arranged for three nights of protection of it. Dixon jumps a few notches in my estimation.
       I see no visible means of opening the orb, although there must be some hidden latch or hinge. I turn it over in my hands several times, searching, but without success. Finally, I lower it back into its velvet nest and replace the box lid.
       On the first two nights, my visitor has waited until the small hours to come, but I am not making any assumptions. As twilight approaches, I drag my favorite chair from the library and place it in the living room against an interior wall. I place the old wooden box, and its treasure, underneath the chair. I turn off the alarms: I know she's coming and, basically, when. Alarms won't deter her. I leave the door unlocked since there's no sense in having it broken down. I sit and wait.
       Waiting isn't hard at all if you know how to do it. Patience isn't hard. It's what comes at the end that's challenging.
       Her smell comes first--thick rot mixed with that odd walnut scent. A wave of nausea washes through me. I consider finding something to plug my nose, but there isn't time. The front door flies inward and shatters, despite my foresight, against the wall of the entryway. Then the Yuxa is there, pushing at the door jam, squeezing her bulk through the yielding wood and brick. A cluster of slit-pupilled, multi-colored eyes--I can't count how many--whirl and then lock on me as I try to rise from the chair. A trio of angry mouths shriek as she charges free of the jamb and into the room.
       Snake, dragon, bear: none of these are even an adequate starting point. I suddenly develop a belated appreciation for were-beest. Her form is vaguely humanoid in that she stands on two legs. She has two pairs of arms. The bottom arm on each side ends in a hand that is surprisingly human, although exceptionally long and thin. Each of the top arms terminates in a wet, toothy mouth surrounded by a multitude of long, multi-jointed fingers. I imagine them grasping food and stuffing it into the waiting maw. The thing's limbs are thin, almost sticklike, despite the strength and bulk of its torso. There is something insectoid in the reedy legs and the way her joints protrude, but she has no exoskeleton. She also has no scales. Her skin is dark and smooth and wet, like that of an eel. I'm sure that if I touched her that she would be slick with slime. I would not, given the choice, touch her for all the world.
       Her third mouth is in the center of her enormous, misshapen head. It is a massive hole rimmed with triangular black teeth, the teeth of a shark. I realize, as I gaze up at the thing, that this is what she reminds me of most of all: an earthbound, mutated Great White. Her eyes, however, are different and beyond anything. And it's the eyes that make me scream. Three rings of eyeballs surround the gaping mouth, each iridescent globe swelling with black knowledge and grim determination. Eons of isolation and death dwell in those eyes. They fix me with a gaze of raw, remorseless power and cruelty. They are hungrier than the mouth they encircle.
       The creature's shrieks fade, but the night is still full of my own screams. My knees don't work right, and I find myself on the floor in front of my chair. I would grovel if I thought it would do any good. I cringe and wail instead. I do not know what I was expecting; somewhere in the back of my mind, I am asking myself that, but I know I do not have an answer. All I know is that I am in far deeper danger than I ever imagined.
       I am light-headed and panting. The thing's breath seems to draw all the oxygen from the room--or perhaps it is just the stench choking me. I manage to point my nine at the thing--I aim for the eyes--and fire. Her head swivels and bobs rapidly. I can't tell if I hit anything or if I've done any damage.
       She takes a step toward me on her spindly legs. A long arm and thorny hand reach toward me. I roll away from it and scramble about on my knees, looking for the shotgun. I see it still nestled against the end table. The cup of tea I'd been drinking sits on the table. A bit of steam rises slowly from it--an odd fragment of another life, a life I no longer have. I stumble to my feet, grab the Mossberg, pirouette.
       I see, as I turn, that I'd been mistaken: the yuxa's arm had not been reaching for me. She had, of course, been after the box. She has it now. Or, rather, she has the orb. The smashed remnants of the box lay scattered about the floor. The creature lifts the prize high above her head and roars. I watched in horror as she stretches upward and then hurls the jade sphere at the floor with all her strength.
       It's like Zeus has hurled a lightning bolt into the middle of the room. There's a white flash of energy and a clap of air exploding. The concussion knocks me back against the wall. A dizzy wave of dark oblivion washes over me then recedes. As my vision clears, I can hear nothing but a faint buzzing in my ears. Somehow, this new silence helps me. It's like having one sense freed from the uproar gives me space to think. At least, I suppose that's what happens. Because that is when everything I'd been reading finally clicks together, and I understand.
       The thing is scrambling and fumbling about with her arms. The terminal mouths clack and droll while her long fingers pick through the fragments of jade that litter the floor at her feet. She's searching. I see the Mossberg and pick it up again. I have to wait, but not for long. In less than a minute, she finds what she's looking for and grasps it in those straw-like digits. As the fingers bend to place it in the waiting mouth, I charge and fire. The bulk of the shot hits just where it should, right in the opening mouth and at the rim of fingers surrounding it.
       I pump and plug again. The thing's fingers scatter, and the mouth is reduced to a bloody pulp. She throws a backhanded blow at me. I block it partially with the shotgun. The gun flies out of my hand and hits the wall, but I'm still standing. I dive forward and scramble on the floor among the remnants of the thing's ruined hand, knowing that it must be there. I see it--a small, black husk that looks like a dried chili pepper. My fingers close on it just before one of the creature's other hands can grasp it. I feel a cold, damp hand on the back of my neck. There is no time to think. I pop her heart into my mouth and, with no time to chew, swallow it whole.
       Then everything is happening at once. For my dead ears, it begins like a silent movie. I am both spectator and protagonist. I watch from outside myself as the creature grasps me by the neck and lifts me into the air. I feel myself being lifted as her fingers digging at my lips. She refuses to admit--to conceive--that I have won. But even then, before it really begins, I know I have. A searing pain erupts from my gut and surges through me. It brings with it a wave of scalding hunger. It is as though I am burning like the sun. I watch, I feel, my jaw snap and distend. Her fingers, hand, and arm, once prying and searching, are now pulled into my swelling, toothy mouth. I bite and tear, and my hearing returns amid her bellows of pain. Her black blood runs down my chin, fills my mouth and throat. The desiccated heart in my belly swells to meet the flood, and a new pulse begins to beat within me.
       My body twists and swells. With each breath, my ribs snap and grow and join again in new, inhuman configurations. My back broadens, and my shoulders bulge strangely. My skin glows black and slick as I wrap a hand around the yuxa's throat, then a second, then a third. I become a whirling mass of limbs and wings and mouths, and her blood courses down my many throats to feed the black heart within me. I grow appendages that have no names, become a living arsenal. I become a whirling tide of destruction and death, and I watch as her whirling clusters of eyes swell with the rage of loss and impotence. I see their stunning iridescence and inhuman knowledge slowly leak away, replaced by the dark stillness of death.
       I eat, and when I am done, I sing my victory to the night over the only things left of my adversary, a few puddles of her rancid blood. My tongues slurp them greedily, and they, too, become part of the new me.
       The battle over, I sink, piecemeal, back into human shape. I sit in the chair and sip my cup of tea. It is, curiously, undisturbed in its place on the end table, still warm. Aside from the scattered fragments of wood and jade, the room looks oddly undisturbed. It seems unthinkable so little has changed here while I am so completely altered. New power courses through me with every breath I take. I can feel the glow of my new, bestial heart in my abdomen.
       In a day or two, I will spit it out and find someplace to keep it, someplace safe.
       It occurs to me that although he clearly did not understand everything, Dixon knows far too much. He will be stupid enough to come reclaim the box tomorrow. Killing him will ruin my professional reputation.
       But then, I suppose I'm ready for a career change.