Chapter One
Death was his art.
For too long he’d waited for recognition of his gift, even—yes—the adulation his extraordinary talent deserved. He wanted his due, and had worked and suffered to share his vision, his genius with the world, only to see lesser talents rewarded while he faced rejection.
Rejection, criticism, and worse, tepid, patronizing, infuriating advice.
He took some comfort knowing so many of the great masters had faced the same ignorance, the same blindness during their lifetimes, only to be lauded after death.
At times he fantasized about sacrificing himself on the altar of his art as others had before him.
Van Gogh, Maurer, Goetz, and more.
He wrote long, vituperative suicide notes, placing the blame for his death on the cruelty of art critics, gallery owners, art patrons, and collectors.
He considered hanging, swallowing pills, a leap from the rooftop. Heconsidered, most seriously, slicing his wrists, then using his own blood to paint his final self-portrait.
It would serve them right, all of them.
The drama of it spoke to him. And oh, the copious tears that would fall over the tragedy. He envisioned that last, stunning portrait in a place of honor and wonder in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Millions would gaze at it, and weep for the incalculable loss.
But he didn’t want to die. He didn’t want fame and recognition after his death.
He wanted it now. He wanted to bask in it, bathe in it, luxuriate in it.
He would wait no longer.
Not his death, no, not that. But death and art would merge in their ultimate beauty and mystery. And he would give to others the gift of that beauty, others who found themselves ignored, overlooked, devalued.
He would, with his genius, immortalize them.
So he planned, and he planned, and he spent months on every detail of what would be his new period. And at last, with all in place, with all perfection, the time had come.
Wandering his studio, admiring paintings he’d created, he took a pill for energy, for clarity. He often wondered how anyone could create without that lovely boost.
Riding on it, he prepped his canvas.
He’d acquired all the costumes for his models, and now painted the background for the first, created the negative space for her head, her shoulders, the trail of the scarf from her headpiece.
By re-creating a masterpiece, improving on it, he would prove himself a master without peer. And the model he chose would become, fortunate girl, immortal. She would live on well beyond a September night in 2061.
Indeed, she would live forever.
Pleased, he cleaned his brushes.
He dressed carefully and without his usual flair. It wouldn’t do tostand out. He chose black to blend with the night, and worked his fall of golden brown hair into a braid, then wound the braid into a tight circle at the base of his neck.
He studied himself in the triple mirror on the bedroom level of his home and imagined what she would see.
While the glass reflected an ordinary face, a man of small stature and slim build, he saw a young, beautiful man with a poetically pale, perfectly symmetrical face. He saw deep blue eyes he’d trained, when younger still, to telegraph innocence.
She, he thought, would see the beauty, and the opportunity.
He’d spotted her when he’d scouted the streets for the right one among the poor, the unfortunate, the ones who worked to eat, those who worked to simply survive another day.
He often wondered why they didn’t just kill themselves and be done with it.
