Free American Gothic by Michael Romkey Page A

left, the sound of pain and pleasure merging into one. The hair stood up on the back of his neck, like static electricity in the air a moment before lightning strikes.
    Refusing to be diverted by whatever was going on inside that room, Peregrine walked straight to the door between the braziers at the end of the hall, a sixth sense telling him that was where he would find her. He put his hand on the knob. It was cast brass, cool to his skin. He ran his finger over the decorative metal raised along the outer edge of the casting. There was no turning back if he opened the door and went inside. No, he thought. That was an illusion. He had passed the point of no return long before that moment.
    Behind him, a door opened. Peregrine felt a pair of eyes upon his back, but he did not look around. Instead, he grasped the ornate doorknob, pushed forward, and stepped into the monster’s inner sanctum, closing the door behind him.
    The chambermaid greeted him with bowed head.
    “Good evening.”
    She did not answer. Her coffee-colored face was a blank mask, the same as the other servants in the house. If Peregrine hadn’t seen her move, he would have taken her for a wax model of the sort displayed at Madame Tussaud’s in London.
    Peregrine found himself in a sitting room furnished like the rest of the house with elegant European chairs and tables. A low couch with brocade pillows faced the fireplace. The oil paintings on the walls were landscapes except for a portrait of a noble-looking man from another time over the mantel.
    “Have you found my scarf,
chéri
?”
    The woman’s voice had come through an open door Peregrine hadn’t noticed because it was mostly hidden behind a Japanese screen. She spoke with the slight French accent once common to old Creole families in the Delta. Peregrine recognized the voice. He would have known it anywhere.
    “No, I thought I had it, but—well, I’m sure
you
understand.”
    He was glad that his voice was firm and level. He was not worried about sounding frightened or uncertain—although he feared he might sound crazy.
    The woman did not answer. Peregrine wondered what she was doing in the adjoining boudoir. He stared hard at the Oriental carpet, trying not to picture her in there with someone like Evangeline or even Mrs. Foster, draining them of their blood and life as he stood next door, waiting his turn to die, but secretly harboring obscure hopes that he would learn some great secret and it would all turn out miraculously different for him.
    The servant went to the sideboard and poured a snifter of brandy. She put it on the low table before the couch, curtsied to no one in particular, and went out the hall door, closing it behind herself. Peregrine sat down unbidden, for that obviously was what he was supposed to do, and picked up the glass. The cognac tasted rich and warm, and he felt its effect almost immediately. He took a second swallow, this time bigger, and leaned back to wait.
    “My dear general.”
    The woman seemed to have materialized in front of him.
    Peregrine put down the glass as he stood up and bowed. She was smiling up at him when he straightened, more beautiful than ever. She had come out of the bedroom with her long hair undone, so that it tumbled over her bare shoulders. Her skin was as translucent as a cameo held to light. Her lips were shining and full, her profile of such classic shape that she might have been the model for a statue of Aphrodite—and for all Peregrine knew, she might have lived long enough to have been the original goddess. Her sharply drawn eyebrows and lustrous eyelashes served only to accentuate the size and color of her green eyes. She was simply dressed in a plain white gown with raised bodice, the sort of dress a vestal virgin might have worn, golden slippers on her tiny feet. Only two pieces of jewelry adorned her body: a golden bracelet around her wrist in the shape of a serpent chasing its own tail, and a simple golden cross.
    “I am