who bore a snake on each shoulder.
If the snakes were well fed
their master ceased growing older.
Alizeh squeezed her eyes shut, pulled her knees to her chest. He wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t shut him out.
What they ate no one knew, even as the children—
“Please,” she said, begging now. “Please, I don’t want to know—”
What they ate no one knew,
even as the children were found
with brains shucked from their skulls,
bodies splayed on the ground.
She inhaled sharply and he was gone, gone, the devil’s voice torn free from her bones. The room suddenly shuddered around her, shadows lifting and stretching—and in the warped light a strange, hazy face peered back at her. Alizeh bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.
It was a young man staring at her now, one she did not recognize.
That he was human, Alizeh had no doubt—but something about him seemed different from the others. In the dim light the young man seemed carved not from clay, but marble, his face trapped in hard lines, centered by a soft mouth. The longer she stared at him the harder her heart raced. Was this the man with the snakes? Why did it even matter? Why would she ever believe a single word spoken by the devil?
Ah, but she already knew the answer to the latter.
Alizeh was losing her calm. Her mind screamed at her to look away from the conjured face, screamed that this was all madness—and yet.
Heat crept up her neck.
Alizeh was unaccustomed to staring too long at any face, and this one was violently handsome. He had noble features, all straight lines and hollows, easy arrogance at rest. He tilted his head as he took her in, unflinching as he studied her eyes. All his unwavering attention stoked a forgotten flame inside her, startling her tired mind.
And then, a hand.
Hishand, conjured from a curl of darkness. He was looking straight into her eyes when he dragged a vanishing finger across her lips.
She screamed.
Excerpt fromAn Emotion of Great Delight
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“A bluntly powerful read that shouldn’t be missed.”
—ALABooklist(starred review)
December
2003
One
The sunlight was heavy today, fingers of heat forming sweaty hands that braced my face, dared me to flinch. I was stone, still as I stared up into the eye of an unblinking sun, hoping to be blinded. I loved it, loved the blistering heat, loved the way it seared my lips.
It felt good to be touched.
It was a perfect summer day out of place in the fall, the stagnant heat disturbed only by a brief, fragrant breeze I couldn’t source. A dog barked; I pitied it. Airplanes droned overhead, and I envied them. Cars rushed by and I heard only their engines, filthy metal bodies leaving their excrement behind and yet—
