Dark Rivers of the Heart

hands became ever more beautiful. Somehow he answered her questions, followed instructions, and appeared to be listening to the wisdom that she imparted. She must have thought him dim-witted or drunk, because his speech was thick and his eyelids drooped as he became increasingly intoxicated by the sight of her hands.
        Roy glanced at Chester, suddenly certain that the man-perhaps Guinevere's husband-was angrily aware of the lascivious desire that her hands engendered. But Chester wasn't paying attention to either of them. His bald head was bowed, and he was cleaning the fingernails of his left hand with the fingernails of his right.
        Roy was convinced that the Mother of God could not have had hands more gentle than Guinevere's, nor could the greatest succubus in Hell have had hands more erotic. Guinevere's hands were, to her, what Melissa Wicklun's sensuous lips were to her, oh, but a thousand times more so, ten thousand times more so. Perfect, perfect, perfect.
        She shook the bag of runes and cast them again.
        Roy wondered if he dared ask for a palm reading. She would have to hold his hands in hers.
        He shivered at that delicious thought, and a spiral of dizziness spun through him. He could not walk out of that room and leave her to touch other men with those exquisite, unearthly hands.
        He reached under his suit jacket, drew the Beretta from his shoulder holster, and said, "Chester."
        The bald man looked up, and Roy shot him in the face. Chester tipped backward in his chair, out of sight, and thudded to the floor.
        The silencer needed to be replaced soon. The baffles were worn from use. The muffled shot had been loud enough to carry out of the room, though fortunately not beyond the walls of the house.
        Guinevere was gazing at the rune stones on the table when Roy shot Chester. She must have been deeply immersed in her reading, for she seemed confused when she looked up and saw the gun.
        Before she could raise her hands in defense and force Roy to damage them, which was unthinkable, he shot her in the forehead. She crashed backward in her chair, joining Chester on the floor.
        Roy put the gun away, got up, went around the table. Chester and Guinevere stared, unblinking, at the skylight and the infinite night beyond. They had died instantly, so the scene was almost bloodless.
        Their deaths had been quick and painless.
        The moment, as always, was sad and joyous. Sad, because the world had lost two enlightened people who were kind of heart and deep-seeing.
        Joyous, because Guinevere and Chester no longer had to live in a society of the unenlightened and uncaring.
        Roy envied them.
        He withdrew his gloves from an inside coat pocket and dressed his hands for the tender ceremony ahead.
        He tipped Guinevere's chair back onto its feet. Holding her in it, he pushed the chair to the table, wedging the dead woman in a seated position. Her head flopped forward chin on her breast, and her cornrows rattled softly, falling like a beaded curtain to conceal her face. He lifted her right arm, which hung at her side, and put it on the table, then her left. Her hands. For a while he stared at her hands, which were as appealing in death as in life. Graceful.
        Elegant. Radiant.
        They gave him hope. If perfection could exist anywhere, in any form, no matter how small, even in a pair of hands, then his dream of an enti'rely perfect world might one day be realized.

    He put his own hands atop hers. Even through his gloves, the contact was electrifying. He shuddered with pleasure.
        Dealing with Chester was more difficult because of his greater weight.
        Nevertheless, Roy managed to move him around the table until he was opposite Guinevere, but slumped in his own chair rather than in the one Roy had been using.
        In the kitchen, Roy explored the cabinets and pantry, collecting what he needed to finish the ceremony. He looked in the garage as well, for the final implement he required. Then he carried those items to the round room and placed them atop the wheeled chest in which Guinevere stored her divining aids.
        He used a dish towel to wipe off the chair in which he had been sitting, for at the time he had not been wearing gloves and might have left fingerprints. He also buffed that side of the table, the crystal ball, and the snowflake crystals that he had