A Fall of Night

He shrugged slightly, little more than an inclination of his shoulders. "The thing we saw was a wraith. It's a liminal creature, a creature that exists in the gaps between...places," he said, swallowing, sipping his coffee. "They are the spirits of evil men, caught between this world and the next - trapped."

"How do you know that?"

He chewed his croissant. "How do you know anything? It's knowledge I've been given - now you know it," he said, his voice artificially light. She shook her head. "That's not what I meant, Nick, and you know it."

For a moment he looked at her, judging, assessing. "I know," he said quietly. For a moment longer he stood in silence. Then he exhaled slowly, looked at her. "Do you believe in magic?"

"What, like David Blaine?"

He paused again. "No. Real magic, like in fairy stories."

She looked at him oddly. "Of course not."

"Even after last night?"

She paused. "I don't know, Nick... What happened last night, why was that thing there?"

"That's difficult to explain," he said, slowly.

"I'm not stupid, Nick - try me." A touch of steel in her voice. He looked at her.

"That's not what I meant, Dorien. Some of this has to do with you," he said, carefully. "You said that you could feel the wraith before it manifested?"

"I suppose."

"That shows you may have a certain talent, a certain sensitivity - I'm not sure what yet, I'm not good with that sort of thing, but it's rare."

"Nick, you're not making any sense."

"I told you it was difficult to explain," he said, smiling a little. "Okay, let's just say that you're sensitive to the presence of liminal creatures, to creatures like last night, okay?"

"Okay..."

"That's a start. But there's more than that. You being a virgin is significant," he said, his face pensive. "Something changes when you lose that, something that affects your talent. I can't explain it... But it matters with whom you lose your virginity - what talent they possess."

She looked at him oddly, a flicker of tension in her eyes.

"I refuse to believe that your presence at the bar that night, your losing your virginity with me is a coincidence - it means something," he said, his eyes intense. "I just don't know what."

Again, for a moment he thought she looked guilty, as if a shade had passed over her face. Then it was gone and he couldn't be certain.

"Uh... What talent do you have?" she said. He didn't answer. For a while he stared at her, his face curious, his eyes dark - flickering with suspicion. She couldn't meet his gaze, sipped her coffee to hide her discomfort. Eventually he went through to the lounge, stared out of the window.

The sun was low in the sky, bright enough but touched with haze. Below him he could see people passing through the park, families gathering, people walking or jogging, a hotdog stand being wheeled into position.

The view of the park was what had persuaded him to buy this apartment, but it wasn't the only thing that drew him here. The apartment stood between the urban city and the rural park, a liminal area, an area of power, power that he could use. A place neither one thing nor the other. Boundaries between states of being, states of existence. His apartment wasn't unique. Venice was so powerful, so significant, because it was one huge liminal zone, between the land and the water. Virginity, or its loss, the state between adolescence and adulthood, held its own power. And now he and Dorien stood in a liminal zone of their own - the boundary between lovers and strangers.

He heard Dorien join him, the sound of her feet little more than a whisper on the floor.

"Dorien, what's going on?" he said.

For a time there was silence. Then: "Nothing, what do you mean?" she said quietly, close behind him.

"Is there something about our meeting that I need to know?" Far below, he watched two cops approach the hotdog stand man.

"Of course not," she said. Unseen, her eyes closed. She felt like she was choking, glad he couldn't see her face.

For a moment the silence stretched between them. "Nick, what talent do you have, since you took my...uh...virginity?" she said, wrapping her arms around his waist, resting her chin on his shoulder, deliberately trying to divert his suspicion. He smelt manly, musky, a little of sweat.

The two cops appeared to have resolved their business with the hotdog man, moved away along the paths into the trees. She felt so good pressed against him, her body warm and soft through his tee-shirt. Unbidden he felt himself lean into her. For a time he remained still, poised in the liminal zone. Finally, he loosened her arms, turned to face her.

She was close enough to touch, a shadow of uncertainty deep in her eyes, her stance nervous. He looked at her with serious eyes, holding her arms lightly.

"Nick...what?" she tried for a smile, felt it wither in the cool from his eyes. Oh God, Nick, she thought, can't you see how much I don't want to lose you? How frightened I am of that?

He lifted his hand, palm upward between them.

"Nick?" she said.

"Shh," he whispered, finger of his off hand touching his lips. "You wanted to know my talent..."

She nodded.

On his upraised palm a flame appeared - standing, flickering like the flame of a large candle. It seemed to leach light from the room - making it seem dimmer, darker.

Dorien gasped, staring.

The flame danced, as if caught in a breeze. "Real magic, like in fairy tales," he said. "Real magic like this."

She reached out tentatively, felt the heat from it, her eyes wide and dark and incredulous. "My God, Nick."

The flame winked out, the room suddenly brighter. He lowered his hand, touched her arm.

"Dorien, I wanted you to see that, to know it... Do you understand?"

She took his hand in her own, her fingertips brushing his palm where the flame had stood. "Yes, Nick" she said quietly, looking at him, her eyes shining. "I do." She kissed his palm, pressing it against her cool cheek, wrapping herself in him.

******

Alexandrov was waiting next morning. He chose to meet her at a cafe not far from her campus, which assisted her with the pretense of packing her things for Venice.

When she entered he was sat in an armchair near the window, the paper open in front of him, but as soon as he saw her he stood, smiling in welcome.

"Miss Janssen, how nice to see you again." She could see the resemblance to Nick, now. It was more than just the eyes, she saw, Alexandrov shared Nick's strong bones - but it was as if someone had drained the softness, the humanity out of him.

"Mister Alexandrov," she said, sitting opposite. He still made her nervous, made her skin crawl, but she felt less intimidated after meeting Nick.

"Have you completed your, um, 'assignment'?"

She nodded, placing her purse on her lap, opening it.

"And how is Nikolay?" he said, his face still.

She stared at him. For the first time she heard real emotion in his voice, a contrast with the mocking jollity with which she was familiar. She considered this for a moment.

"Nick is... He's well," she said.

"Ah. He doesn't call himself Nikolay anymore then..." he said, his voice tinged with sadness. "That's hard for a father to hear."

Dorien shrugged apologetically. "Mister Alexandrov, when did you and Nick last speak?"

Alexandrov smiled sadly. "A very long time ago. We haven't seen eye to eye for a long time. I know it's hard to believe now, but we used to be close. Before... Well, before his mother was, uh, lost," he said, his voice melancholy.

"Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to reopen old wounds."

"No, it's okay Miss Janssen. I just haven't thought about these things in a long while," he said. Then: "Is he happy?"

Again she shrugged. "He seems as happy as anyone..."

Alexandrov laughed at that. "A good answer. What about you, was he good to you?"

"I did what you asked, Mister Alexandrov. I lost my virginity with him. He was kind and gentle, if that's what you mean."

"Yes. Yes, I suppose. He's been alone a long time, you know... Since before he and I last spoke."

She looked at him carefully, his face open, earnest. She was intrigued despite herself. "Why did you do this?"

For a long while he was silent, staring off through the coffee shop window, face pensive. When he eventually spoke it was slowly and as if to himself. "There are many reasons, Miss Janssen. So many that I find it difficult to know which inspired me at any particular time or which is ultimately to blame for what I've done." He looked at her then, his eyes focusing on her with familiar intensity. "Part of it was the wish of a father to see his son happy. I know you will find that hard to believe in the coming days. You see, I believe that you are meant for him, Miss Janssen, and him for you. What you choose to do with that is for you to decide."

He reached down and folded his paper, businesslike again.

"Well. Did you obtain my last request, my proof?" he said finally. She sensed a strange eagerness in his voice, almost a hunger, though his face was fixedly reasonable.

She pulled the tissue wrapped condom from her purse. Alexandrov extended his hand. For a second she hesitated, wracked by sudden doubt, insecurity. Her heart was racing, pounding in her chest. What was she doing? She tried to swallow, her throat suddenly dry.

"Miss Janssen?"

Oh, God. What would Nick do if he found out? She felt dirty.

"Uh, Mister Alexandrov, I, uh, don't -"

He reached out with a swiftness that startled her, plucking the condom from her fingers.

"- think... Huh?"

"Thank you, Miss Janssen. That concludes our business together," he said, rising. "I will arrange for the outstanding four million to be paid into your account later today. Is that acceptable?"

Numb. She felt numb. She nodded vaguely.

Nick, what have I done?

"Good. And good day, Miss Janssen."

"Uh... Mister Alexandrov," she said, her voice suddenly desperate. "Will you tell Nick what I've done... Will he find out?"

He looked at her for a long time. "So... I see his opinion matters to you a great deal," he said quietly. "Yes. I am going to have to tell him, but believe me when I say that it is for the best for you, too, Miss Janssen. No relationship built on deceit can ever last."

She swallowed. Oh, God.

"Good day, Miss Janssen."

For a long time after he left she didn't move, a horrible sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Finally, forcing an optimism she knew in her heart was misplaced, she returned to the campus, collecting her clothing and passport.

******

By the time she returned to Nick's apartment she'd managed to convince herself that everything was going to be alright. It was a brittle facade.

He met her at the door, smiling, and it felt as if someone had walked over her grave. She shivered, her heart aching. She knew now, knew he was going to hate her, knew he was never going to look at her like this again...

"Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost," he said, half smiling, half worried.

She managed to nod, afraid to speak. It felt like her heart was in her throat, choking her with each beat. When he kissed her, his lips warm and soft, she had to stop herself from grabbing him, from clutching him to her with the strength of the despair she felt. Instead she stood, uncomfortable, fidgeting, trying to ignore his far too perceptive gaze.

His bag, a soft holdall, was packed and ready in the hall. He took hers from her and placed it on the floor next to his own.

Before coming she had selected a recording of her playing, a CD made by the college. At the time it had seemed important, as if that small intimacy could shore up their relationship against her betrayal. Now, standing there, the CD held awkwardly in her hand, neither offered nor withdrawn, she felt silly, inadequate. It wasn't going to make up for her betrayal, nothing was going to do that.

"What's that?" he said, nodding to the CD, looking at her strangely, sensing her anxiety. His hand brushed her cheek. "Any problems?"

She shook her head, handed him the disc. "Don't like flying," she said, catching his hand, holding it.

"You should have said. If it helps I can make you sleep... Wake you when you get there - only if you want."

"We'll see..." she said. "It's a recording of me playing the flute... I wanted you to have it."

"Thank you," he said seriously, turning the disc over in his hand. There was a picture of her on the front. She blushed again.

He placed the CD in the player in the lounge. In moments the apartment was filled with her playing, the sound rich through concealed speakers.

"Like Carnegie Hall," he said.

She winced. "I hate hearing myself - I keep hearing errors, mistakes..."

He stood for a while, listening, his face wistful. "Jacques Ibert, solo piece for flute," he said at last.

"How did you know that?" she said, quizzical.

"It says so on the cover notes..."

She grinned, then stopped. "No it doesn't, Nick, they're blank."

"I know..." His face turned melancholy. "My mother, she loved the flute, played very well. She loved this piece..."

Dorien's heart was racing. What the hell was going on here? What had Alexandrov done?

"I'm sorry Nick, I didn't know."

"Don't be. It's not your fault... I like to hear the flute, and your playing is exquisite." He smiled at her.

"What happened to her, Nick?"

His eyes drifted to the painting at the back of the sofa. "She painted that, you know. It was her home," he said, his face distant. In the background the music soared. "I was born there in that croft..." He looked away, shrugged. "That was a long time ago..."

His smile was plastered to his face. "Have you got your passport?"

She nodded slowly, her eyes searching the canvas. "Yeah, sure." What happened to her? Why was nobody willing to say?

The phone rang when she was in the bathroom.

She told herself that it could have been anyone, phoning for anything, but it was as if someone had soaked her with cold water. A feeling of dread settled on her like a sodden blanket. Her skin cold, clammy. It was him and she knew it.

Too soon, she thought. She wasn't ready - though she knew in her heart that she was never going to be ready, not to face Nick, not after he knew.

She'd have liked to have had Venice together at least.

Oh, Nick...

In the bathroom mirror she'd gone white, a ghost standing in for her living self as if something had died with the sound of the phone. A single tear slipped out and she caught it, wiping it aside.

They had never really had a chance, she thought. Alexandrov had seen to that. She caught a second tear, her dark eyes wet, the tightness in her heart was making it hard to breathe. She knew that she wouldn't be able to say what she wanted to say, not now, not to Nick. Not when it mattered.

For a while longer she looked at her reflection, listening to Nick in the room beyond shouting in a language she didn't know. He sounded... What? Angry. Disbelieving. Bitter. Finally she took her lipstick from her makeup bag, wrote quickly on his bathroom mirror, her writing as small and neat as she could make it.

By the time she'd finished she was struggling not to cry, failing.

Finally, she tidied herself up, tucking her tee shirt into her jeans, brushing her hair back from her face. She felt sick.

He was standing by the window, gazing out onto the park, tension visible in the set of his shoulders, the rigidity of his stance.

"Nick?" She stood at the threshold, afraid to enter. Nervous, anxious. The apartment crackled with tension, crawling over her skin like something alive. Oh, God.

"I could have forgiven you the money, you know," he said, not turning, speaking to the glass, his voice hollow, empty. "Accepted it as the price of our meeting. If you'd told me..."

"Nick, I'm so sorry." She almost reached for him but something in his stance warned her off.

"You gave him my seed Dorien!" he said, a peculiar emphasis on the word seed, an edge to his voice she'd never heard before - something dangerous. For the first time she felt fear creep up her spine. "I shared myself with you and you did that... How am I supposed to forgive that?"

She took a step toward him. A step further from the door. He turned, half a step towards her and she recoiled - his eyes burned with fury, with a force barely contained, raw and deadly. Oh, fuck.

"Why?" Incredulous. But at least he was talking, she thought.

She took a step backwards. "Nick, please -"

"I trusted you, you know." His voice snapped, low and hard. Something, some instinct, told her that she was in real trouble now. He was circling her, predatory in the way he was moving. This wasn't the Nick she knew, something was very wrong.

"Nick?" With difficulty she swallowed around the lump in her throat, kept backing towards the door, afraid to turn her back on him.

A flick of his shoulders saw his jacket slip to the floor, still pacing her. His eyes were on fire, they seemed to be shifting colour, from grey to gold, the small motes growing in prominence, the whites disappearing. "You have no idea what you've done, do you?" A whisper, something deadly hidden inside.

She shook her head, tears trickling unnoticed along her cheeks. If she turned her back he'd kill her, she was certain of it.

"Nick, please don't hurt me," she said, pleading, desperate. "I love you."

It was as if she'd slapped him.

He stopped still, frozen. "What?" His face changed, the gold slowly clearing from his eyes. "Oh my God! Oh, Dorien, no..." His face was stricken, the predatory aspect gone.

"Please Nick, I'm so sorry, you'll never know-"

"Get out. Get out, now!" he said, voice savage, vicious, so she didn't know if he was helping or hating her. "Go!"

Behind her the door to the apartment flew open, bouncing off the wall

"Nick..."

"Get out!"

She turned and ran, pausing only long enough to grab her holdall before she was at the door. At the threshold she turned, looking back into the room. He knelt in the middle of the floor, his head in his hands, shoulders shaking. She stopped, started to go back in.

He looked up, saw her, his face anguished, lost.

What the hell had she done?

Then something was propelling her along the corridor. One second she stood at the threshold, on the verge of going back, on the verge of reaching for him, the next she was stumbling along the plush carpet towards the lift. The force was inexorable, unstoppable but not ungentle, not violent - she felt no urge to hurt her, knew that had he wanted to, he could have.

It was little enough, but she clung to it desperately.

The door slammed behind her.

The sound had a horrible finality to it.

******

For a long while Anna stood at the door unnoticed, listening. She'd been in there for hours, playing with a manic energy - each piece more melancholy than the last, every note wrung with pain, wailing with loss. Dorien was one of the college's star students, the flute her chosen instrument. The effect was shocking. Even Anna, down to earth, practical Anna, felt like crying as she listened, felt her heart aching in sympathetic loss.

Finally Dorien stopped, her chest heaving, her cheeks marked with tears, her eyes dark with loss.

"What the hell has he done to you?" Anna said, shutting the door behind her.

She wasn't crying any longer, didn't think she had any tears left to cry. Crying had given way to a kind of numbness, a despairing realisation that she'd done something terrible.

"Dorien?" Anna touched her shoulder.

"It's over, Anna," she said.

"Well I didn't think you were torturing yourself like this because he'd proposed..."

Despite herself Dorian chuckled. Anna felt relief rush through her.

"Right, I'll get you a coffee," she said. "Then you can tell me what happened."