victim rising from the slab.

He sucked in his breath sharply and his eyes grew wide with

shock. It was merely a trick of manipulation, he told himself at

fust; she was merely moving the body like a puppeteer. But then he

saw that the corpse of the young woman breathed and her eyes,

which seconds earlier had been filmed with the mask of death, now

gleamed with life as they gazed at him. He saw the unacceptable

reality before him as she climbed down off the pedestal and he

knew it was not possible, and yet, she lived. She had no heart. He

himself had torn it from her chest, yet he could see that something

pulsed within the gory cavity where her heart had been, something

vague and indefinable, something seen and yet not seen, like the

misty tendrils of an early morning mist. Something dark and

terrible.

“It cannot be!” he said as the resurrected woman, naked and

blood-spattered like a piece of butchered meat, approached him

slowly. “No one has the power to reanimate the dead! No one!”

“No human has the power, ” Leila said from behind him. “But

there is nothing an Immortal cannot do.”

The reanimated corpse came up to Kanno and placed her hands

upon his shoulders, then brought her bloody lips to his. He cried out

with revulsion and shoved her away.

“Your thirst for power has set you on the Path of Darkness, ”

Leila said, her throaty voice echoing throughout the shadowy and

long-deserted mall. “And I am that to which your path has led. I

can grant you power beyond your wildest dreams. I can fulfill your

heart’s desire. In return, all I require is your unquestioning

obedience. Serve me, Kanno, and I can give you anything.

Observe.”

She stretched her hand out toward him and a beam of pure

thaumaturgic force leapt from her fingers, striking him and bathing

him in an incandescent aura. It burned like a cold fire. For an

instant of searing agony, it felt as if his skin were being flayed

away, and he sank, screaming, to his knees.

It lasted but an instant, and then the aura dissipated. The pain

went with it. Kanno kneeled, doubled over on the floor, gasping for