The chiming of the doorbell echoed through the large house. Kat debated ignoring it, but then set aside the book she'd been reading and unwound herself from the sofa. She knew that Isabel and Jean-Paul, both night owls, wouldn't be up to answer the door.
She opened the door and took a step back in shock.
"You," said Kat. "How on Earth did you find me?"
The boy looked terrible. Dark rings framed his eyes and there was a look of general dishevelment about him. "I followed my heart and asked a few questions. You're not hard to find."
"What are you doing here?" asked Kat, her heart racing. She stood in the middle of the doorway.
"May I come in?"
Kat was about to refuse him but feared making a scene out here where the neighbors might see. Scenes, particularly in this neighborhood, were to be avoided. She stepped aside, inviting him in. She led him to the sitting room.
"Nice place," Daniel said.
"It's comfortable." Then she added, lest Daniel think her a snob, "It has been in the family for generations."
"I can imagine."
Kat asked him to sit on the leather sofa and she took a seat on an armchair. "Can I get you anything?"
Daniel shook his head.
He looked pale. The cocksure energy of their first meeting was gone, replaced by energy of a different kind. It was an energy that, without release, would consume him. She had caught hints of it over the last few days as she went about her business in the town. It was nothing she invited or responded to, it was just there like background noise that seemingly grew louder in the absence of distraction. At least that was the way it had started. And once she became consciously aware of its frequency, she found it difficult to ignore. Often there would be nothing more than a muted hum, and then a wave of yearning, focused and intense, would wash over her, particularly in the early hours of the new day. She wasn't surprised that Daniel had found her.
And now its source sat before her.
Kat noticed that Daniel wore a bandage around his hand and made a move to touch it.
Daniel snatched it away, closing his fingers around and wincing as he did so.
She watched him for several moments as he fidgeted on the sofa and looked at everything in the room but her. Finally, his eyes fell on her, eyes suffused with such pain and confusion that it was Kat who had to avert her gaze. "Please don't visit me anymore," said Daniel finally.
"Visit you? I don't even know where you live."
"That's not what I mean."
"What then?"
"At night. You visit me. If you have any decency in you, please stop."
"I've done no such thing."
Daniel looked at her, trying to spot the lie.
"Honest," said Kat.
"And I'm to believe you?"
"Believe what you want. I've never visited you."
He leaned back in his seat, confusion and anger etched on his face.
"Could you have dreamed it?" Kat asked quietly.
Daniel remained silent for a long moment, obviously debating what Kat had suggested. She pitied him.
"It was so real," he said finally, his face betraying loss and relief at the same time.
"You sound almost disappointed." Kat immediately regretted the words.
"Of course you would think so. Imagine someone not wanting to be tormented by you. It was a mistake to have come here, expecting to reason with a demon."
There, it was said, thought Kat. Yet she felt none of the surprise and anger that she would have expected at being identified for what she was. Nor did she feel compelled to deny or dissemble. More than anything, she was curious. For the first time in a long time, she was faced with a mortal who knew exactly what she was.
"Any torment you feel is of your own making," she said. "I have done nothing to encourage you."
"Your very existence torments me," said Daniel. He glanced at her. There was nothing even remotely suggestive about the way she was dressed, yet she felt his attraction to her.
"I feel possessed," he continued. "Don't you understand? You occupy my dreams. You come to me every night and I am powerless."
"These things are in your mind."
"You come to me every night," he insisted again.
Kat felt a sudden wave of desperate yearning. There was more to it than what Daniel had suggested. "And we do things," she said quietly.
"Yes."
"Things both sinful and wonderful."
"Yes."
"Things that you would like to do. With me."
"Yes, but you're evil. That's the terrible thing."
"Do I look evil?"
"You are though. Do you deny it?"
Kat took a deep breath. "No."
If she'd expected her admission to be greeted with triumph, she was disappointed.
Daniel looked thoroughly deflated and cornered. "There's nothing I can do. Can't you talk to a priest or something?"
"I try not to think of you," continued Daniel as though Kat hadn't spoken, "but you can't not think of something. I read the catechism until I can read no more and the minute my eyes close, you're there."
"But I'm not. It's all in your mind."
"I don't believe you. I can't believe you. There's too much detail. Tell me that you don't wear body jewelry, for example. Tell me that your private parts aren't pierced."
"That's ridiculous." Kat was stunned. How could he have known? It was impossible. She hadn't visited him.
"There's a ring," Daniel continued. "It pierces your... clitoris. It has two bumps on it. Please tell me you don't have one. Maybe then I'll believe you."
The ring, a souvenir from her time in what was now the Czech Republic, pierced the base of the clitoral hood where it met the inner labia. The ring had no beginning and no end, and featured two little horns, each tipped with a ruby.
"I can tell by your reaction that it's true."
Kat stared at him hard. There was no way he could have known.
"You are a liar," he said.
Impossible or not, there appeared to be some kind of connection between them. What was going on? Kat wondered.
***
Kat didn't hear them enter. She was still stunned by Daniel's apparent intimate knowledge of her. Only Daniel's look of surprise and fear announced their presence.
She turned. Isabel and Jean-Paul stood, both stone-faced, in the doorway.
Her heart sank. "You heard?" asked Kat.
Isabel nodded and Jean-Paul merely scowled. He did that well.