I came to the top of the stairs so my hand rested still on the wooden railing. I gripped it, trying to make sense of the peculiar place I had stepped into. My upper body was in a room, a huge room that seemed to be a living room with a parquet floor and tall windows. There were low tables and cushions and what appeared to be a kitchen alcove.

Two women embraced right in front of me on the cushions. I recognized Valentina immediately, as she was facing me, though I had never imagined her in a white silk robe with floral embroidery. Her head rested limb against the shoulder of another woman, dressed in a grey business type suit. The other had her black hair in a sophisticated yet simple bun at the nape of her neck. She was running her middle finger through her own lip.

I was about to back away as quickly as I could, but the stranger turned and met my gaze before I could retreat.

"Please. Come in. I have just a moment for you now, Mimosa."

She carefully let Valentina's head and upper body down to rest on a scarlet cushion and rose to meet me.

"I didn't meanto. Iamsorry. I..."

She closed the short distance with the grace and speed of a dancer and I suddenly found myself mesmerised by her dark eyes. Up close she seemed young. Her face still had the roundness of a teenager.

Yet she had none of the skin problems of a teen. Hers was smooth porcelain. And again I experienced the same uncanny feeling I had with Plume of looking at something absolutely symmetrical. Like Plume, she too had contacts.

"What did you see, Mimosa?" She asked. Her voice was smooth and perfect like her skin, but devoid of any tonality. It resembled her face that didn't alter in a smile or frown.

"I saw noth..."

She put a finger to my lips.

"You saw something. You have come here looking for it. Don't leave as you came. What did you see, Mimosa?"

"How do you know my name?" I asked when she withdrew the finger.

"We have met. Years back. When you lived here, in this house. I gave you my name then and a calling card. But I doubt you can recall it. I am a friend of your brother's, but he isn't here. Now, please, look and make deductions."

I hesitated, still standing on the wooden steps. She extended a hand for me.

Then she smiled. The expression was absolutely natural and changed the mood completely. If her face had been an expressionless mask, now there was suddenly almost too much movement to it. Still, somehow I had the feeling that the expressionless visage I had seen before had been the genuine face and that now the movement was what hid it. The expressing, smiling features were an illusion, masking a truth I couldn't comprehend.

I shuddered. But let my own hand fall on hers. She didn't draw me up but simply guided my hand delicately as I ascended the remaining two steps.

Valentina hadn't woken up. She rested her head on the cushion, her plaited hair neatly laid beside her.

"Why is she here?" I asked.

The mysterious woman in a business suit didn't answer. She sat on a cushion on the other side of the table and gestured with a hand that I should see for myself.

Valentina lay on the cushions. She was pale, and wasn't moving.

I kneeled beside her, placing my shins on the parquet.

It was so silly.

But I still turned her head to a side. It fell heavily against the pillow so her neck faced the lamplight above us.

The wound I found wasn't torn. It wasn't edged with jagged black lines. It seemed like made with an extremely sharp metallic spike that had been driven in twice. But maybe a few days ago. The marks were slightly swollen and red. They were covered with scar tissue.

I glanced at the eerily smiling Asian woman. She inspected me with seemingly kind eyes.

My hand felt for the pulse of the young victim in front of me. I tried searching for it in her wrist.

"Here."

Her hand suddenly covered my own. I let the business woman take hold of my hand and guide my fingers back to Valentina's throat.

"Try here. Can you sense it now?"

First I thought I couldn't. I was just about to draw my hand away, but then a soft pulse pressed against my fingers. Another.

I pressed my free hand against my own throat. My pulse beat rapidly. I felt it quicken as the realisation struck me.

"Your friend is well, Mimosa. She will recover when dawn comes and my reign loses its grip. And she will know why she feels groggy then. She will remember my fangs in her neck. Knowing her, I would wager she will recover from the experience by tomorrow night, just in time to return for a practice session with other people linked to my world."

Her breathing breezed softly against the nape of my neck when she spoke by my ear.

"She has pacted with many monsters, and never become one. The one you are looking for has made worse pacts and become something else. But you won't find him here."

She turned herself so that it became easy for me to look into her dark gaze.

She put a hand against my chest.

"He is in there, Mimosa. You can chase us through the City, find all our lairs, and be no closer to the answer.

"Or you can ask the great Goddess Iris to return to you a secret. Your old god won't give it to you, because this here–what you just saw–is not part of his kingdom as you know it. This is a world allowed to exist by a different god. And here I am not the Devil. You are."

She reached to swipe a stray strand of my hair behind my ear.

"There are christians who believe everyone is equally sinful and can only be saved by the grace of God. Timothy will give you no such promises. If you do find him, you are lost. You are one face of his Devil, a part of his reason for having become your Eve with the forbidden fruit of knowledge. This knowledge will bring you both great sadness. You two have hurt each other immeasurably deeply.

"It's a path of betrayal, distrust and confusion. Imperfect love."

My eyes were tearing. I had never been equally frightened in my life. I wished she would just do what I now knew would happen.

She licked her lips.

"You will walk it, Mimosa. You have already made the choice. Tomorrow, next week or next month you will wake up, as if from a dream, and your world will be made of monsters. And it won't be your brother who is the ugliest. I will help you then, to seek his forgiveness for remembering him. But I cannot help you forgive yourself."

She held me now by my chin, still smiling warmly. Her fingers were soft but her hold on me iron.

"I give you one answer now: What I will do next, Timothy never did to you. Back then you were a subject of the Christian God and thus protected from us. Iris won't do you the same favour. I am her demigod of death, her reaper of lost souls. And I welcome you to your quest in knowing yourself and the goddess in you.

"Welcome to Iris' Atlantis."

There was a moment of sharp pain, but it went like a sudden burn of spilled hot oil. In its wake followed soft warmth. I felt nothing, saw nothing.

Except for grey eyes. They turned red. Then back to grey.

Then they too were engulfed in the soft dreaming.