The Mephisto Club

between the partially closed wooden shutters. In the gloom above her bed, a fly buzzed, circling in anticipation of a taste of her damp flesh. Her fear. She sat up on the thin mattress, shoved back tangled hair, and massaged her head as her heartbeat gradually slowed. Sweat trickled from her armpits, soaking into her T-shirt. She had managed to sleep through the worst heat of the afternoon, but the room still felt suffocating, the air thick enough to smother her. I can’t keep living this way forever, she thought, or I’ll go insane.
    Maybe I’m already insane.
    She rose from the bed and crossed to the window. Even the ceramic tiles beneath her feet radiated heat. Throwing open the shutters, she gazed across the tiny piazza, at buildings baking like stone ovens in the sun. A golden haze leafed domes and rooftops in umber. The summer heat had driven the sensible locals of Siena indoors; only the tourists would be out now, wandering wide-eyed through narrow alleys, huffing and sweating their way up the steep incline to the basilica or posing for photographs on the Piazza del Campo, their shoe soles melting and tacky on the scorching brickwork: all the usual tourist things that she herself had done when she’d first arrived in Siena, before she’d settled into the rhythms of the natives, before the heat of August had closed in on this medieval city.
    Below her window, on the piazzetta, not a soul moved. But as she was turning away, she spied a twitch of motion in the shadow of a doorway. She went very still, her gaze fixed on the spot.
I can’t see him. Can he see me?
Then the inhabitant sheltering in that doorway emerged from its hiding place, trotted across the piazzetta, and vanished.
    Only a dog.
    With a laugh, she turned from the window. Not every shadow hid a monster.
But some did. Some shadows follow you, threaten you, wherever you go.
    In her tiny bathroom she splashed lukewarm water on her face, pulled back her dark hair in a ponytail. She did not waste time with makeup; over the past year, she had shed any habits that slowed her down. She lived out of one small suitcase plus a backpack, owned only two pairs of shoes, her sandals and sneakers. Jeans and T-shirts and sweaters took her from the heat of summer to the sleet of winter. When you got right down to it, survival was all a matter of layering, whether it was with clothes or emotional defenses. Keep out the elements, ward off attachments.
    Stay safe.
    She grabbed her backpack and stepped out of the room into the gloomy hallway. There she paused, as she always did, and inserted a torn bit of cardboard matchstick into the lower jamb as she closed the door and locked it. Not that the ancient lock would keep anyone out. Like the building, it was probably centuries old.
    Bracing herself for the heat, she walked outside, into the piazzetta. She paused, scanning the deserted space. It was still too early for most locals to be out and about, but in another hour or so, they would stir from their meal-induced naps and start back to their shops, their offices. Lily still had some time to herself before Giorgio expected her back at work. It was a chance to walk and clear away the cobwebs, to visit her favorite haunts in her favorite city. She had been in Siena only three months, and already she could feel the town slipping away from her. Soon she’d have to leave it, as she’d left every other place she’d loved.
    I have stayed here too long already.
    She walked through the piazzetta and headed up the narrow alley leading to Via di Fontebranda. Her route took her toward the town’s ancient fountain house, past buildings that once housed medieval craftsmen and later slaughterhouses. The Fontebranda was a Siena landmark once celebrated by Dante, and its waters were still clear, still inviting, even after the passage of centuries. She had walked here once beneath the full moon. According to legend, that was when werewolves came to bathe in the waters, just before transforming back to their human forms. That night, she’d glimpsed no werewolves, only drunken tourists. Perhaps they were one and the same.
    Moving up the hill now, her sturdy sandals slapping against griddle-hot stones, she walked past the Sanctuary and House of Saint Catherine, the patron saint of Siena, who had survived for long periods on no other food but the Blessed Sacrament. Saint Catherine had experienced vivid visions of Hell and Purgatory and Heaven, and had lusted for the glory and