A second son, of a second wife, Daniel was given to the monastery at six. He was taken up in the lama's train three years later. From New Drepung, on the banks of the Sauk River in Washington State, they travelled the country, then the world, looping messily among the faithful.
On his travels, Daniel learned how to polish brass, to string beads, to play the guitar, piano, and violin, to craft tormas from both butter and barley flour as well as papier mache, and to chant in time and tune. Winters were spent back home, polishing, chanting, meditating, studying. He was well-suited to this life, though no one remarked on it; to do so would have been inappropriate. Small and quiet, his hands made quick work of sandalwood beads, butter and dough, the strings of new instruments. His eyes were wide and watchful.
The spring that Daniel was fifteen, the lama dreamed three nights running that blood ran heedless through dirty sand. They left on the fourth morning for Verona Beach on a mission not so much of conversion (they don't do that) as comfort.
Daniel stayed. He told Lama Ben that he had never seen colors like these, that the illusions resident here yearned to be studied. Ben nodded and ran his hand over the back of his skull, through his rattling dreadlocks. *It is unorthodox,* he had said, *but perhaps you are right. We'll return for you.*
It is warm here, like it is in India, and the ocean is like bathwater. The people are vivid in their faith, their lives. They dance in the streets and solicit favors in broad daylight. Or in the dead of night; early-morning hours when he walks home from work - he spins two nights a week at Noise Enough and barbacks another four - there is always something happening. Women weeping, children shooting cap guns or, sometimes, real ones, men falling to their knees in prayer.
Within the templar quiet of his skull, these events flutter like moths, wings neon-bright and antennae quivering. Daniel watches and remembers.
*
It was nearly a week before the tall stranger spoke to him. After each morning's study for his first-order Geshey, Daniel went to the beach every afternoon. He read in the shade of the old ferris wheel, non-tantric volumes he found in dustbins and on charity tables, and he noticed the man right off.
He let time take its course.
He saw the man at Noise Enough one night; Daniel was hidden behind the speakers, tracing out rhythms and sorting echoes on the turntables, but he could see the dance floor well enough. Beside the tassels to one of the canopies, the tall man lounged in a silver suit and blue shirt open at the neck. A slighter, darker man, about his age, wreathed and twined around him, all in crimson and copper, drawing loops of sparks in the air around them, sliding his palms beneath the tall man's shirt, licking his lips like a man condemned to thirst.
This day was no different than any of the previous ones, during which the man had sat on the patio of Rosencrantzky's, a cup of soda in his hand, gaze fastened on Daniel. Hours at a time, rarely sipping from his cup, only occasionally turning the pages of the newspaper in front of him.
Daniel would forget him for hours as well, as he became absorbed in Classics Illustrated or the second volume of Carlyle's French Revolution. There is so much he never knew about the world; there are so many questions and so much pain.
Yet whenever he looked up, the man was still there. Dark glasses hid his eyes, but his posture was turned, focused, intent.
Daniel finished the Carlyle, slid the loose, brittle pages back into the spine, and set the book next to him on the sand. Within moments, the stranger rose from his seat and made for him. He wove in and out between impromptu dancers, hands in his pockets, before reaching the paint-peeling sign to the Furious Fickle Wheel and leaning easily against it.
"I have a library, and many books," the man said. "You're more than welcome there."
Daniel considered this, the man far more than the offer. A lined face, dark-green eyes set in starbursts of wrinkles, like paper folded again and again and then roughly smoothed out. Wild hair, well-raked by nervous hands, stuck up around a pair of sunglasses, dark lenses catching and spattering the sun's light. His clothes were soft, tactile, inviting; a blue-and-pink-flowered shirt, cut gently as a pyjama top, clinging to broad shoulders and still-narrow waist, and well-worn black jeans. Creased black boots sinking a little in the filthy sand.
"What's your name?" Daniel asked, folding one arm over his chest. He was underdressed by comparison, just an old undershirt and a pair of red trousers the community at St. Athanasius's had donated to him.
"Gilles." Pronounced as if it were French, or Russian; Daniel has heard a lot of languages but picked up few. *Zheels*, the 's' below a whisper.
"Like Blue-Beard?"
"Precisely. Although, I'd hope, not quite so dangerous."
"Well." Daniel smiled and tilted his head. "Did you ever ride with a warrior girl named Joan?"
Gilles closed his eyes, shaking his head. "As a matter of fact," he said, opening his eyes again, "I did."
"Okay." Daniel extended his hand and Gilles helped him up. It had grown chilly in the shade, prickles of cold piercing the ever-warm air, and Daniel shivered. He was here to learn, to study. To meet illusions head-on and sort out the wrathful from the beneficent.
A large orange cat lived under the rusty, rotting scaffolding to the Mad Flesh Mountain ride, an alpine adventure for the kiddies. His ear was torn and one eye closed to a slashing scar; he greeted everyone but Daniel with a hiss and gobs of spit.
As they passed, twilight gathering and thickening the shadows, Daniel heard the cat's rumble and paused to crouch. He had the remains of his lunch - fried fish - wrapped in an oil-spangled napkin and unrolled the napkin, tipping out the scraps.
Gilles stood to the side and cleared his throat while Daniel stroked the cat's flat skull as it devoured the fish.
"You like animals," Gilles said, something like a question but calmer.
"Yeah, a lot."
"Franciscan?"
"Nope." Daniel shifted his weight back onto his heels and stroked the tom's bellows-swelling side as he squinted upward at Gilles. "Human. You?"
"Jesuit," Gilles said and the cat's back arched before it settled back to its meal. "At one time, that is. Defrocked. Do you know what that is?"
He spoke like he already knew Daniel, knew all about his ignorance and the questions that coiled and shifted, serpentine, in the center of his chest.
"Can't wear a dress?" Daniel asked and took Gilles's hand again, hauling himself up. Close to, and Gilles smelled like limes and alcohol. Mojitos in his paper cup, not soda. Gilles smiled and cocked his head a little; his earring, heavy as a pirate's, glinted a little. "No, I get it. What'd you do?"
They were well away from the beach by the time Gilles finished the tale; the more economical question, Daniel realized, was what *hadn't* he done. Reverse exorcisms, demon-consorting, buggery and study of heretical texts. Daniel clung to his hand as they made their way through the dark; it had been ages - months, actually - since he'd touched another person. Since his roommate Tim left town and headed back to Greece.
In the mews behind Hotspur Street, the shadows were as thick as curtains. Daniel stumbled and Gilles caught him around the waist, breathing citrus and intoxication over his face, before kissing him. A sudden jolt, butter-lamps alight at noon, thunder through gongs, shuddered through Daniel. He wrapped his arms around Gilles and opened his mouth. *This,* he thought, *is something new and good.*
As quickly as he had leaned in, Gilles wrenched away. Something laughed coldly in the dark - a white face, platinum-bright - and Daniel stared. A black-egg being, shimmering and illusory; it was there, laughing, fangs tearing its own lips, and then it was gone, punched to dust under Gilles's hand.
Breathing heavily, Gilles turned back to Daniel. Touched his shoulder with a light, avuncular palm. "Do you know what that was?"
"A demon."
Gilles clucked, an odd, high sound of surprise. "Well, then. Yet you did nothing. A soulless thing, evil, and you -"
Daniel stepped alongside Gilles and toed at the greenish dust. "Not soulless."
"Oh, no?"
"Just - different."
Gilles drew his knuckles over the loose collar of Daniel's shirt, up his neck and over one cheek. Daniel shivered again but returned his appraising gaze.
"You have no sense of self-preservation, do you?" Gilles cupped his hand around the back of Daniel's neck and pulled him in for another kiss. Hotter this time, tasting like the dust overlaying the citrus.
"I do," Daniel said against his lips.
Gilles ran two fingers down Daniel's backbone until he reached the waist of his trousers, then slid his hand beneath the undershirt. Warm, smooth palm, cupping the small of Daniel's back, fingers drawing runes and equations over his night-chilled skin.
Gilles spoke into Daniel's mouth, using only tongue, not sound. "We'll see -"