Firefly.

May reconsidered. "Yes. That"s no way to stand guard. We"d better have a third person." She glanced at Geode and none.

"Geode can do it!" none said immediately. "I"ll stay here at the house." For she had just thought of a way.

"But that would leave you alone," May protested. "We don"t want anyone left alone."

"If I came too, you know what Geode and I would be doing," none said, and the others had to nod in agreement. "That would be no good either. You need someone who isn"t-otherwise occupied. The house here is secure; we can have the alarm system on, so nothing can get in without setting it off."

Frank nodded. "That does make sense. You safe, us ready for the firefly. With luck we"ll wrap it up, and the threat will be over."

"Tomorrow night," none agreed.

So it was decided. The others left. Geode turned to her. "But if you think you"re-"

"I suddenly realized that the security system is the key!" she said. "If nothing can get in, nothing can get out! When you go, you leave me inside, and if I try to leave, the alarm will go off and everyone will know. So if I"m the firefly, I"ll be caught, as I deserve to be."

"I don"t like this!"

"Geode, it"s the only way to be sure. If I"m not the firefly, this will prove it, because it will come to the cabin and you will kill it and I"ll still be here. But if I am, you must either confine me or kill me. I"ll be safe here, either way, and you"ll know."

"I can"t believe you are the firefly. I love you!"

"And if this proves me innocent, I"ll be yours forever," she concluded. "Geode, you"ve got to do it!"

He remained doubtful. But she told him another story, and made love to him again, and wheedled him winsomely, and slept naked in his arms, and he agreed to go along with it. Any man would have, with such persuasion. The daughters of Eve knew their business.

The following afternoon they set it up. Frank and May drove out to the cabin together, and Geode agreed to join them within the hour. May was going to be the decoy again, with Frank armed with knife and pistol in the cabin and Geode in the pickup truck. They would all be in contact with each other, the two men watching May from their respective positions. If the pheromones increased, they would know the firefly was coming, and would be especially alert. If Geode saw the other two having s.e.x, he would know the firefly was near, and would try to intercept it. There was no prudery here, no false modesty; they all knew what they faced and what they had to do. One way or another, they intended to get the job done. Pride no longer mattered; they were in a conspiracy of sorts, and none of them would make any issue of s.e.x, just of survival. There was the distinct possibility that the firefly would try to take two oblivious people together, as they copulated uncontrollably. But then the third one would get it.

All this they agreed on. What none feared did not affect it. She intended to see that she hurt none of them.

"Now put me in the special room and tie me up," none told him.

"But-"

"Do it, Geode. It"s the only way. You know I know the layout here; I could avoid the seeing-eye and break out a window without opening it, and I"d be out without setting off the alarm. You need to put me where I can"t escape."

Reluctantly, he took her to the special room. This was a large windowless closet off the room above the one Geode slept in. The alarms were normally off in the rest of the house except for the night or when it was empty, but the alarm was always on in this room. It could be disabled only with the use of a special key, and Geode carried that key on his person. When he put her in there and "locked" her in with the security system, she would be unable to leave without setting it off.

The room had its own air conditioning vent and fluorescent light. They brought in cushions so she could lie down. "I can bring in a book for you to read," he said.

"No. Tie me up. Get rope from the garage and tie my wrists and ankles so I can"t escape."

"But-"

"Suppose I found a way to make a hole in the door without opening it? I could climb through it. Then the alarm wouldn"t go off. This has to be sure. Tie me."

"Oh, none, I hate this!"

"If you truly believe me innocent, this will prove it. Nothing can get in or out. In the morning you can disable the alarm and come in and untie me. Then we will be together."

Obviously loath, he fetched cord and tied her hands and feet. "Tighter," she said. "Make sure I can"t escape."

Finally he had it done to her satisfaction. She had circulation in hands and feet, but no leeway to struggle. She was securely bound.

"Kiss me, turn out the light, lock me in, and don"t come back until morning," she said.

He kissed her, trussed on the cushions; then he went to the switch, and hesitated. "You aren"t afraid of the dark?"

She reconsidered. "I am afraid of the dark now! When I"m without you beside me. Very well, leave the light on; it won"t make any difference."

He went out the door. "I love you, Geode," she said. "Never doubt that, no matter what happens." "

"I love you, none," he replied, a catch in his voice. Then he closed the door. She heard the faint click of his key in the security lock, and then his footsteps going away. He would arm the main alarm system, then drive to the cabin to help watch for the firefly.

She was alone.

She was afraid.

* 43 - IT WAS QUIET. Unable to do anything else, none drifted to sleep, woke, and slept again. It was timeless here, because she couldn"t see her watch, and because the closed room with the constant light made it impossible for her to judge the progress of day or night outside.

Had she done the right thing? Now that she was so thoroughly committed, she was uncertain. Where would she, a dull housewife, have found such things as a flesh dissolver or pheromones unknown to science? Why would she use them to go on a rampage of killing? Why every three days? It really didn"t seem to make much sense now. Oh, maybe she had hated her husband for his faithlessness, when she had offered him several times as much s.e.x as any man could use, but killing him certainly hadn"t brought him back. She would have done better to use those pheromones to go on a rampage of s.e.x herself, uncorking the vial under the nose of any man she might hanker for, causing him to fornicate with her uncontrollably. She could have used it on Paris himself, keeping him so worn out s.e.xually that he had none left over for Helen. That would have been a truly suitable ploy! "Have you been having at your wife again, you poor excuse for a philanderer?!" Helen would have demanded angrily, gazing at his limp member. "What will everyone think?"

none"s fantasies were like that; why not make them reality, if she had the means? Most women had fantasies, but few actually wanted them to come true. They dreamed of being raped, and loving it, being freed from any responsibility of the sin of s.e.xual appet.i.te, so they could enjoy it without guilt. But real rape was violent and painful, and carried formidable risks. Fantasy rape was merely a mechanism, a token act without its ugly aspects. Fantasy rape was the only kind that was worthwhile. Much the same was true of being the object of unbridled pa.s.sion by many men. A dream of facing a crowd of naked, virile men who were all desperate for her s.e.xual favor was a turn-on, because it meant she was infinitely desirable and had control of the situation; she could have anything she wanted. But a similar reality was apt to be disgusting. Men o.r.g.a.s.ming simultaneously in her v.a.g.i.n.a, her a.n.u.s, her mouth, on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, in her hands as she squeezed their stiff members, their s.e.m.e.n fountaining-what a mess that would be! Who would clean the sheets, the bed, the floor, the walls, after? More was not better in real s.e.x; love was better. As for the fantasies of monstrous p.e.n.i.ses, animal p.e.n.i.ses, huge amounts of s.e.m.e.n jetting as from firehoses-those would be painful at best. No, none of it made sense in real terms.

But with the vial of pheromones to compel the ultimate attention of any man she chose-there was a fantasy whose realization was practical! What delight it had been, pa.s.sing near the cabin with Geode, he become potent at last, having at her twice before the cabin, once at it, and twice more after it before his s.e.xual exhaustion and their removal from the cloud of pheromones had allowed them to complete their travel in peace. That had been her dream of bliss!

Then, having proved his potency, she had made love to him again in the evening, and in the night, and in the morning, arousing him whenever she chose. He was so glad to be able to perform, and he loved her-the two were certainly linked, once the two of them were free of the pheromones, but it had been the pheromones that forced the breakthrough-so he had done his best. There was the realization of yet another aspect of her fantasy: to cause an impotent man to make love to her repeatedly. What did that say for a woman"s desirability?

So even if she had an evil facet of her personality, hidden from the others, she shouldn"t have used the discoveries to harm others instead of benefiting herself. To be evil was not to be stupid. So now she questioned her hypothesis on two grounds: she was unlikely to have gotten those vials of acid and pheromones, and she wouldn"t have used them to kill.

Still, she wasn"t only proving her innocence to herself, she was also proving it to Geode. If the firefly struck tonight, she would be exonerated even if they didn"t manage to kill it, because there was no way she could be responsible. Then she could be free of her doom of death, free to love Geode forever. She had never really believed in that, being sure that anyone she truly loved would die, or that she would die if truly loved by anyone. Yet now she had reenacted the love of her childhood, and in the process expiated the geis that had burdened her for thirty years. The spell had been dissipated, and she could now love normally. Geode had to know beyond any question that she was innocent of any harm to others, and this would be the proof.

There was a faint sound. At first she wasn"t sure whether she imagined it, but it was getting louder. A keening, as of the edge of a radio station. Maybe the security system was adjusting itself.

Yet she felt deja vu. Hadn"t she heard that sound before, maybe in her sleep? She had forgotten, but now it seemed she had.

Then she realized that if she were not the firefly, something else must be. Those deaths had certainly occurred, and those pheromones certainly existed. There was a monster. That being the case, whom would it attack next? The three who were ready for it-or the one who wasn"t?

none struggled in her bonds, but only chafed her wrists. Geode had done his work too well; she could not escape.

But if some other person had found those vials and was using them to kill, how could he get in here? If he drove in by car, the gate would not admit him. If he climbed the fence and walked in, and forced open a door, the alarm would go off, dialing the security folk and summoning the authorities. If he broke in a window without opening it, he would still be caught by the infra-red eye, and the alarm would sound. If he was smart enough to bypa.s.s that, and came up here and opened the door, the alarm would go off. There really was not much way a man could do it-and if he were an expert in breaking in without activating the alarm, and knew exactly what to do, why should he waste his time coming after her, instead of robbing the house? How would he even know she was here? If he did, why should he take the risk of dispatching her, when the others could return at any moment?

For if he were here, he would not be there at the cabin, and they would give up their stakeout and return here. So it made little sense to take that risk for so little.

The sound intensified. Now she started feeling s.e.xy.

The pheromones! There was no mistaking that eroticism. That was the hallmark of the firefly. She thought of Geode, of his poor flaccid p.e.n.i.s, and how she had made it stand tall. She thought of touching it, kneading it, kissing it, climbing on it, absorbing it, flinging her legs around his waist, kissing him, clenching her internal muscles, drawing from him the most avid spurts of pa.s.sion. Of falling down with him, and riding him, his member still in place, and forcing him to a second climax, and a third. She felt her v.a.g.i.n.a wet with eagerness for him. "Oh, Geode, come into me!" she breathed clenching her legs together in an effort to hold him there.

But at the same time, on another level, she thought of the firefly. The pheromones were its flashes, its signals to its prey. Once the prey saw those flashes, it was helpless; it had to come in and try to mate, though it died of the effort. If the prey did not come to the firefly, the firefly came to the prey, and took it anyway.

A man might find vials of acid and pheromones, but how could he find a vial of that keening sound?

But suppose it wasn"t a man, but a creature, as the others had conjectured? Something like a monstrous slug that slid along the ground without leaving a trace? That made no sound, other than its feint keening as it traveled? Suddenly that interpretation was making sense!

Yet how could it get past the security system? It had to come in a door or a window or something, and that should set off the alarms. If it were an animal, it wouldn"t know about such alarm systems; none herself hadn"t known much about them until she had come here and Geode had told her. It would just come on in, any way it could, maybe down the chimney into the fireplace, and then the infra-red eye would catch it and h.e.l.l would break loose in the house.

Yet it had never broken anything before, or left any other evidence of its presence. Just the bones of its victims. It didn"t seem to use doors or windows-yet it had enough ma.s.s to be able to consume a full human body in the course of a night. How did it do that? By squeezing flat under the door?

Suddenly she knew it did. That it was completely malleable, like a gelatin dessert that hadn"t quite firmed up. A jellyfish that could go on land. That was why it was so quiet and left no footprints. It might have no hard parts at all, no claws or teeth. That was why it needed the acid, to dissolve the victim"s flesh and turn it liquid so it didn"t have to be chewed, it could be sucked up through a straw. And the pheromones, so the victim wouldn"t try to flee. Did a dog flee from a b.i.t.c.h in heat? Did a man flee from a woman with her legs spread? These pheromones were multipurpose; they made women get just as eager as the men usually were. How well she knew! If the victim didn"t know that it was more than s.e.x which offered, that it was death- The keening seemed loud now, and close. Actually it wasn"t loud, it was faint to the verge of inaudibility, but things were relative; she was tuning in on it all too well. It was directionless, yet seemed to come from the direction of the stairs. What could come up those stairs without alerting the infra-red eye? Well, the sensor actually tuned in on heat and motion. If something seemed not to be distinct from its background, if it seemed like no more than a wrinkle in the carpet, it might slowly flow up stair by stair without making enough of a stir to trigger the sensor. A human body was big and hot and clumsy, but something shaped like a rug, perhaps even looking like a rug, maybe even coming up under the rug- She struggled again, but again her bonds were tight. She could not free her hands or her feet. But maybe she could save herself. If she rolled over, got on her feet somehow, and hopped to the door, she could crash it open and set off the alarm herself.

She struggled with more direction now, not trying to free her extremities but to achieve a position. But her hands were tied behind her. Had they been tied in front of her, she could have moved like an inchworm and humped her way to the door. It wasn"t physically locked, just latched; any thief who yanked it open would bring the authorities down on his head in short order. With her hands behind her, she couldn"t inchworm, unless she did it on her face. The moment she squirmed off the cushions, she was uncomfortable, with her arms jamming into her back.

She rolled over, and found herself p.r.o.ne, her face on the rug. She couldn"t go anywhere this way! She tried to lift herself up to her knees, and couldn"t. And if she could, what then? Now that she was closer to the position, it seemed to her that to inch along she would have to put more of the weight on her head than on her feet, and how would she do that? There must be a better way!

She rolled onto her side. The repeated efforts flexed her legs and b.u.t.tocks against each other, and the effect was unfortunately suggestive. She was on the verge of s.e.xual spasming, though she knew that was not smart right now. G.o.d, she wanted a man in her! She could not afford to let s.e.x distract her from her effort to escape.

The keening changed quality. It seemed to be right in the room with her.

Then her gaze fell on the door. She gulped in horror. Something was flowing under it! Something brownish, like dilute chocolate syrup, squeezing under, forming a bubble inside. As she watched, the bubble swelled, sucking more of itself through.

It was the firefly. She had no doubt of that. And it was between her and the door.

She rolled onto her back. She pressed her head down, and her feet, arching her back so as to lift her midsection off the floor. She could inch along this way. But where could she go? The monster had her trapped!

Could she try to plow through it to the door? But then she would b.u.t.t her head against the door, and not be able to escape, with the muck of the monster all around her. It would surely trap her before she could get away.

How could she open the door, anyway? The handle had to be turned. It was a handle, not a k.n.o.b, so if she could get any part of her body against it, she could shove it up, and then the door would open and the alarm would go off. Then she could heave herself outside, and keep flopping around so as to win clear of the firefly, until help came.

The bubble of liquid flesh continued to expand. Now its total ma.s.s was approaching that of a human being, if a person could be melted down into liquid. And of course that was possible; this was the thing that did it. She was about to join Cyrano and Bull Shauer and her husband.

Join that trio? No way!

What she had to do was scoot herself down to the door feet first, then lift her feet to shove up the handle and push open the door. After that she could just flop around as long as she could, not giving the thing any purchase on her, basking in the sound of the alarm. Even if she died, she would take the firefly with her. She felt no fear-or if she did, it had been locked into some other personality. She knew she could not afford to be hampered by that. She had one chance to save herself, and she meant to make it count.

Now the thing seemed to be all inside. It extended a slow pseudopod toward her.

She stared at that swelling thing, and thought of a p.e.n.i.s. The urge to mate took her with gale-like force. Why not let that s.e.xy thing go up into her, the world"s most potent member? If it wasn"t hard yet-well, neither had Nymph"s lover"s thing been hard after it jetted, but she had gotten it into her and then it had solidified inside her. All she had to do now was spread her knees, open her legs where it counted despite the tied ankles, get her cleft wide- No! Once that thing got into her, it would never get out again! Not while she lived! She had to fight it, no matter how horribly s.e.xy it seemed.

none started her motion. She was not in a position to roll; the available floor s.p.a.ce was too narrow for her to roll sidewise, and she needed her hands free to manage somersaults. So she lifted her back and shoved with her head and bucked herself down toward the monster.

In a moment she landed on the pseudopod. She gritted her teeth, expecting it to squish, but could feel nothing; it must have flattened so readily that it offered no resistance. She continued to hump as well as she could, subst.i.tuting vigor for skill. The firefly was gelatinous; it had no bones. It couldn"t jam into her, it had to insinuate. External contact wouldn"t hurt, as long as she gave it no chance to get internal.

Her posterior began to feel good. This was surprising since she was b.u.mping fairly hard on the floor and might be abrading her skin under the clothing. Maybe the banging was making it numb. She paused, wondering. It was almost as if she had found a new cushion, a water-cushion, warm and medicinal.

The good feeling spread around her b.u.t.tocks and into the cleft between them. It reached her genital area, and intensified. It was as if the most wonderful man in all the world were stroking her and seeking to enter.

She spread her legs to the extent possible, to facilitate that entry. Something slid into her v.a.g.i.n.a, bringing rapture. Never in her life had she experienced as gentle, steady yet intense pleasure; it was like an interminably sustained o.r.g.a.s.m.

Then she realized what was happening. She had planted her bottom on the firefly, and it was reaching up past her clothing to have its kind of s.e.x with her. This was how it had taken the others; it had brought them such genital delight that they simply hadn"t wanted to move.

But though she lived for good s.e.xual experience, she also knew that this was death. She had seen the bones! So her mind overrode the joy of her v.u.l.v.a, and she tried to struggle free.

And could not. For with the pleasure came anesthesia. She willed her legs to move, her back to arch, but the response was partial; only the upper portion of her body moved. The lower portion subst.i.tuted joy for action.

She was, after all, caught. She had paused for that critical moment, savoring the pleasure, and that had been her undoing.

What could she do? Her body was no longer hers. Only the upper part of it. Even her hands were going numb and happy, for they were now in the region of the firefly. All she had, really, was her head.

"Help!" she called. But there was no answer, and could be none, for she was alone in the house and no one else could enter. Geode was miles away, staking out the cabin. The firefly had outsmarted them all, coming for the lone bound person instead of the three ready ones. What a fool she had been, to set herself up for it!

The rapture was radiating from her v.a.g.i.n.a to her womb. She wanted to give herself up wholly to the pleasure, but fought it. The moment she stopped fighting, she would be truly lost. It was ironic: all her life she had sought the pleasure of the penetration of that region; now she had it in greater measure than ever before, and she was trying to escape it.

If she couldn"t call for help, maybe she could defend herself. With her mind, and her mouth. She would talk to the firefly.

"Oh Firefly," she said. "Listen to me, for I am not one to be taken lightly. Hear me, for I have better for you than my flesh."

The burgeoning o.r.g.a.s.m was spreading out through her abdomen, into her intestines and organs.

"I have information for you, I have entertainment, I have insight into the human condition, which you hardly understand. You will surely be caught and killed if you do not learn more about our species and how it thinks. Listen to me, or feel me think, oh Firefly, or you will die as surely as I."

The rapture continued. It was as if her colon were illuminating, becoming a convoluted channel of pleasure. Her bladder was a container of joy, and her kidneys were beginning to tingle. If there were wastes in those parts, they were being dissolved into the glow.

"Our bodies may be familiar to you, but it is our minds that set us apart," she continued. "Other species have preyed on us for a time, but they have inevitably been hunted to extinction, because man is a social animal, and he avenges his own. You, alone, cannot hope to prevail, unless you first come to understand us. Listen, Firefly, and feel our spirit."

The rapture seemed to dim for a moment. Was the firefly listening? Could Scheherazade charm even an alien creature bent on s.e.xual consumption?

"There was a man and his daughter. His marriage had broken up, and such was the situation that the almost automatic propensity of the courts to give children to mothers was reversed; he had fought for his beloved child and won her. They loved each other truly, and agreed never to be separated. Of course, he knew that in time she would grow up and become another person, and then would go her own way, as was proper, but while she was a child he would always be with her.

"Then there was an accident. A drunken driver crossed the center-line and collided head-on with their car. The crash was horrendous. Both were seriously injured. But even as they were extricated from the mangled car, he called to her and held her hand. "It"s okay, honey, I won"t leave you," he said, and she was rea.s.sured. She knew her daddy always told the truth.

"They tried to separate them in the hospital, but both reacted so strongly that the doctors realized that both could die unless they were allowed to remain together. So they were given a room between the adult ward and the pediatric ward, with adjacent beds, where they could reach out and touch each other"s hands. Both were swathed in splints and bandages, so that they could not even see each other, and it was hard for them to talk, because her larynx had been torn and his chest was paralyzed; he had spoken no more after calling to her at the site of the accident. Both had extensive internal injuries, but his right arm and her left arm remained mobile, and they touched hands often, rea.s.suring each other.

"They were taken to surgery together, and while the adult doctors operated on him, the pediatric doctors operated on her. Both were in critical condition now, because of loss of blood and the stress of the surgery. But now he was on a respirator, and was able to talk with the help of a mike, while she had her larynx repaired to some extent. The monitors showed that her heart and respiration improved when she heard his voice and felt the gentle squeeze of his fingers, and his vital signs stabilized when he received her response.

"But she had lost her liver, and was declining. A search was on for a possible transplant, but her tissue type as rare and hope was faint. She was dying. It was impossible to hide this from her; she knew, as the dying generally do. But her father rea.s.sured her. "Don"t worry, honey," he gasped, "I"m going with you. I will not let you go alone to that place." And she smiled through her pain, knowing he always told her true.

"They wound down together, and it was evident that they would die within hours or even minutes of each other. He really was going with her. The doctors shook their heads; they had never seen such a bond between two people. He might have survived, but he didn"t want to; he wanted to be with his daughter, to help see her through the valley of the shadow of death. She went into coma, and when he felt that, so did he.

"Then a miracle happened. A baby died, and its liver matched the girl"s almost perfectly. They rushed the comatose child into surgery and did the transplant. It was touch and go at this late stage, but they worked heroically, and saved her. The new liver functioned, and her vital signs began to improve. She would live after all.

"But her father had not known. He somehow felt her absence; they found his hand outstretched in air, where hers had been. He had thought her absence was because of her death-and he had died himself.

"When she recovered she discovered that her father had honored his commitment to go with her-but she had reneged. He had gone alone to death. "Oh, Daddy!" she cried, grief-stricken, torn by guilt. She tried to die, to rejoin him, but was too young to know how. The doctors maintained her in life-but to what point? She was alone."

The rapture seemed to have paused, as long as none spoke. Now it resumed.

"I have told you of the tragedy of a little girl," she said. "This is one aspect of the way our kind feels about death. We do not take it lightly, and neither should you. But there are other aspects to our nature. We are a species of two s.e.xes, and men have interests too. I will tell you of a man, because I think the man I love would like that. He understands about conversing with animals."