(14) Crucia

"What do you mean by that?" said Ambrosia.

 The inflection of her voice was not one of inquiry, Sanguineus noticed, and that could only be because she knew the meaning of his question well enough, but didn't want him to know that she did. 

"Marianne is your rival for Fabienne's affection and loyalty," Sanguineus asserted, reaching back to lay his Glock on the chair seat. He placed a hand on the pillow beside Ambrosia's head and leaned over her. "I'm guessing, but Marianne would like the girl to see her teacher as the possessor of the Spirit of Beauty. Marianne wants to be Crucia. She wants this gorgonian power, the petrifying eyes of Medusa. But so long as Fabienne believes that you are the possessor of this spirit, this Crucia, Marianne has no hope of convincing the girl otherwise. Marianne is probably trying to turn Fabienne against you." 

Ambrosia gave a soft snort. "She is failing, then. Fabienne loves me." 

Sanguineus nodded. "So how can Marianne win over the loyalty of Fabienne while you're still alive?" 

Ambrosia touched his lips with the tips of her fingers as her expression darkened. "You're saying that Marianne wants me dead." 

"She was seen tonight in a car with Agape and three thugs. She was in the back seat, between two men, and that could mean that she's being taken somewhere against her will. If Marianne is a threat to your plans, and if Agape supports you, then her days are numbered. But there's a joker in the pack. I need to know who this person is. Who had the motive for killing Pella? Agape dumped Pella in favor of you, so I don't see any sensible reason why you would pop her. But if her affair was discovered by Grigoris, her husband, then it might be that out of reasons of jealousy and spite he arranged for Pella's murder. The anonymous witness who fingered you for the murder might have been someone close to Grigoris." 

Ambrosia seized his shoulders, her eyes wide with astonishment. "Who's the crazy one now? How absurd! Grigoris wanting me killed? That's insane! If you believe that, then you don't know him as well as you think." 

Sanguineus leaned back, a hand on the silk sheet between her thighs. "A strange comment coming from one who intends to crucify him," he remarked. 

Her smile came slowly. She squeezed the wrist of the hand that caressed her heated loins. 

"Your affair with Agape might have been a motive for him," Sanguineus continued, "especially if he was still determined to get back at Agape for having a fling with Pella. Consider that Grigoris dropped out of the race horse drug ring. He goes off to Patmos to be a wise old hermit. He wants the hitman involved in Pella's death to be killed, so that if the investigation into Pella's murder should ever be revived by the police, he will be free of any whiff of scandal. There was one eyewitness to the shooting whose testimony was all the authorities had to go on. The shooter was a woman. The anonymous witness who contacted our ICS investigator after Grigoris signed the contract claimed that the woman was Ambrosia Kastri." 

"But... your Miss Bern told Christofer that the killer was Berenice." 

"A deception," Sanguineus explained. "Sally Anne Bern wanted Agape to believe she was cooperating with him. She did this by giving him honest answers to everything except the one essential thing, the identity of the target. She didn't want him to know that the target was you, his girlfriend, his lover." 

"My lover," Ambrosia said through a breathy laugh. "Well, he tries. And you don't think he was the one who killed Pella?" 

"Agape? No. It was someone hired by Tragos the Goat. But that he would hire a woman, not to mention a woman who was close to him, is very unlikely. He hired a man who was probably involved with the underworld. Grigoris may have used connections associated with his gangster uncle, the Sicilian. But it was a woman who shot Pella. This woman is almost certainly the anonymous witness who fingered you as the shooter. All things considered, that anonymous witness is Marianne Limani, who happens to be close to Grigoris. Very close. Maybe closer than you have imagined." 

Ambrosia sighed, her eyes lingering on the tattoo on his forearm. Sanguineus watched her process of thought working its way through a series of brief emotional flare ups. At last she said, "I know Grigoris better than you, perhaps better than anyone. If he hired an executioner, or whatever, to kill Pella, he would not want Marianne, or me, or anybody else, to know about it. He told me that he wanted justice for Pella, that his friend Fredrico Rolgo had arranged it. Well, if he told ME, he might have told Marianne, too. That would frighten her, wouldn't it, if she was the shooter. She would want me to be the target of revenge, if, like you say, she is my rival for Fabienne. So! It was Marianne who shot Pella." 

"But it was the Goat who set the murder in motion. They are both guilty. And now I have to decide which one to kill." 

Ambrosia's eyes brightened with a light akin to joy. "Marianne," she whispered. "Let the old goat be crucified. His death will heal Fabienne. You killing Marianne will satisfy justice." 

Sanguineus turned her suggestion over in his mind. 

"I need to sleep on this," Ambrosia said, sensing his uncertainty. "Why don't we stop talking and you get in bed with me." She began unbuttoning his shirt. 

"When are these crucifixions to take place?" he asked. "The goat and the witch... By 'witch' I suppose you mean Berenice." 

"Yes, but now I'm thinking..." She dug her fingers into his hard hairy chest. 

"You're thinking that Marianne should take the place of the witch," Sanguineus said. "That might explain why Marianne was in the car tonight with Agape and his thugs. But won't it depend on Fabienne? I would think she would rather it be her teacher than her mother who gets crucified." 

"That's because you don't know what her mother has done to her," said Ambrosia angrily. Then she smiled at him. 

"When is this ritual to happen?" he asked again. 

"Take your clothes off. The full moon. It's in three days. Don't interfere or you'll break the heart of poor Fabienne. You don't want to be the cause of her not being healed, do you? Don't think of the crucified. Think of Fabienne and what this means for her." 

Sanguineus stood, unbuckling his belt, unzipping his pants. "I'd rather think of you," he said. 

It was after one o'clock in the morning when they coupled under the white silk sheet. He was not unaware that she had stretched her arms out in the cruciform position, her thighs pressed together and her vulva like a closed hot mouth on the rhythmic drive of his penis; an intense pleasure that played all around his mind as he searched the eye left open for him. The rigorous touch of their tongues had that amber eye out of focus. But clarity wasn't needed. It was the passion within it that absorbed him. It was a dark light, a growing power that made his thrusts stronger and harder. It was a generous Medusa. She made him hard as stone where it most mattered. The rest of him was winged. His lovemaking was a gallop on weightless hoofs. She was the enchanted ground that received his headlong rush, his prone pillar of stone that led the charge. Her back arched and shook with each ruthless penetration...

Sally Anne sat up at the sound of a prolonged moan. She got up off the lower step of the staircase and stood staring at the dark hall that led to the source of what she could only fantasize about.

A child's voice spoke to her in Greek.

She had thought she was alone in the sitting room, waiting for what seemed forever for Sanguineus to finish his 'interrogation' of Ambrosia. But here was Fabienne in a pair of blue pajamas with winged ponies on them, standing staring at her while repeating those unintelligible words.

"What are you doing out of bed?" said Sally Anne. But that was all she was able to say, and all she was able to do. She tried with all her might to look away, to look anywhere but at those terrible eyes. 

Sally Anne felt a cold stiffness come over her. Her heart seemed to be slowing down as her sternum and ribs became like ice, so cold that they felt on fire. Her vision blurred. The one lamp in the room that had been left alight was as dim as a moon. A painful dizziness had her disoriented, swaying on feet that were too numb to feel. 

She was certain that she would die. Death was seizing her, but even her emotions were frozen. 

Fabienne rose up off the floor in the hands of Rolgo and was carried quickly to her bedroom, her back to him.

Sally Anne felt a warm but slight breeze blowing through her, as if her lungs were exhaling within her body.

She was going to live. As her emotions thawed she gasped, and grateful for the weakness in her knees she collapsed to the floor. 

"Stay in your room or you will be punished," she heard Rolgo say as he closed the girl's door.