Every time Marco Conti looked around there was another demon, usually holding a bottle of Bass Beer or laughing it up with a young American-styled cheerleader. Amongst the demons there were other fiendish things, but his eyes kept being drawn back to the pointed ears and prominent fangs, the red tongues and the horns.

It was Freshers' Week at King's College. Marco Conti had been in the city for less than a week and he now found himself drawn into a party culture he hadn't been aware of. Back home, in Mantova, there had been festivals like the Festival della Letteratura where the people opened their arms, ears and hearts to the classics of long ago from the Divine Comedy to the more suspect tales of Shakespeare. His grandmother had been involved in the organisation of such events for years. There were also carnivales, with masks both hideous and beautious, but the first year students here seemed to slip too easily into the skins of their characters. The demons seemed too comfortable with their excess, the angels too distant, the cheerleaders too lood, the young man with the bull's head too drunk.

Perhaps it was the drink, he thought. In his own hand was a plastic cup filled with the brown beer he was supposed to come and love here in London. Marco lifted his head to scan the room one last time before leaving the cup resting on a mantlepiece. The girl from yesterday, the one who had slipped him the yellow flyer with information about 'The Greatest Fresher Party Ever', hadn't shown her silver wings tonight. He moved his way through the throngs of teenagers, smiling politely at the ones who yelled something at him, and guiding away the others who had no idea he was there. At the door he didn't look back. He pushed it open and breathed in the dark fresh air of the night beyond.

It wasn't late, especially during Freshers' Week, but Marco's body was ready to sleep.

He slipped off his domino mask and tossed it in the rubbish bin at the end of the first street corner. Two costumed guests sauntered behind him, swerving from one edge of the footpath to the walls of the shops: a zig zag journey that was punctuated with laughs and the rising of incomprehensible voices. Marco cast them a quick glance and noticed there were three now, where before there had only been two. A demon had his arms around the waists of a gaudy princess and some kind of 1980s homage to punk culture. They passed him as he stood there. He smiled and looked down, and the demon winked at him.

The walk to his shared apartment wasn't very far, although he had already found himself lost a few times since arriving. The further he moved away from the party the more he felt like sleeping. It was because of the move, he knew; the transplantation of his whole life from semi-rural Lombardy to the centre of the universe which was London. He had no one here, at least not yet. The room mates were friendly but still a little vague. He had his own room and they all had their spaces behind closed doors. The communal room was littered with 'someone else's mess' so Marco rarely stayed there long. Mostly he had brief moments at the front door in the mornings when he said a quick hello to one of the others as he was leaving and they were getting back from some all-night rave. No, he didn't have anyone here, and that was why he felt tired all of the time. His grandmother, his nonna, had died three years before. She had been his anchor: a person he could confide in, or not if the mood took him. She was always there, looking over the rims of her flat-topped glasses, her eyes the colour of warm chocolate. He wished she could have seen him here, in London. It was due to her, of course, that he was here; that he had won a scholarship to King's College. At least, that was what he knew in his heart. On the piece of paper he had received it hadn't explained the full story of how he had come to be awarded the two-year scholarship, but like his nonna always told him, Marco 'filled in the blanks' with his imagination.

It was eleven in the evening when he struggled with the front door, nearly snapping his key. The others weren't home, of course, so Marco allowed himself a few choice curses as he pushed his way inside, accidentally kicking a backpack which had been dumped in the hallway. He pulled out his key again and jarred his elbow. In disgust, he scooped up the letters and junk mail which lay strewn on the floor underneath the mail slot, and then kicked his way to his room. There was no point going to the kitchen: earlier there had been an egg-like smell that Marco just didn't need to investigate and had no wish to clean up.

His room was small, as advertised. He had a bed across the far wall which left no room at either end. Above it was a window which looked on to the back courtyard, full of weeds and a half-dead tree. There were three plastic trundle crates under his bed which he had bought and which now housed his clothes. The room had no space for a wardrobe or set of drawers. Behind the door, which couldn't be seen unless the door was closed, was Marco's small desk (or scaffale, 'shelf', as he liked to call it since it was so narrow) and his laptop tucked up in its satchel. A mirror was attached to the roof above the bed, apparently by the previous tennant, and Marco hadn't been able to prise it loose yet. Looking up at it as he pulled off his jacket and hung it onto the hook on the back of the door, Marco saw himself as a little naive. Why had he expected to enjoy the night? Was it the girl?

"Idiota..."

Kicking off his shoes, he reached for his iPod and released some of the night's frustrations with a deliberate exhale: something he learned from his mother after one of her business trips to Siena. "Let it out, Marco... let the toxins back out into the world." He always wondered what was so great about releasing toxins into the world. Wasn't he supposed to be a good global citizen? Living in Lombardy often led to the experience of the 'creeping smog' when the 'toxins' from cities found their way into the valleys. Farming life had given way to the cheap industrial alternative. He gave up the thought and crumpled on to the bed in his boxer shorts. Looking into the mirror he felt a little more comfortable. In a way it was like his room back home: a space for himself.

In the last few years things had become more complicated. His mother had remarried a business guru from the South (which seemed something of an oxymoron). The step father had brought three children into the new arrangement, so suddenly Marco was crowded in his own house. Worse than that, though, was the decree which saw his nonna move out; not to a nursing home, of course, but close enough. Marco knew where he stood in the new world.

He closed his eyes and surrendered to the music.

Il Nostro Caro Angelo.

His fingers ached for his guitar: the strumming, the rise and fall of Battisti's voice which was always a reminder of his parents' collection of vinyl. As a boy he would lie on the floor and close his eyes, offering an air guitar rendition of the songs. And always in the company of his nonna. She would sit in her chair mending something or reading, and she would smile as he gave himself up to the music - a boy pretending to be a pop star.

Il nostro caro angelo
si ciba di radici e poi
lui dorme nei cespugli sotto gli alberi
ma schiavo non sarà mai.

The young angel secretly gourges himself on the fruits of the bushes and trees, but he will never be enslaved.

The small apartment slips away from thought, replaced by a growing warmth which could be from the open fire place of his home. With eyes still closed Marco can feel his nonna's presence again, can smell the whisps of her perfume. She is humming softly and he smiles in his sleep, comfort and love so obviously surrounding him. His nose is tickled and he moves his head to the side as the edge of his nonna's quilt slips from her lap. He knows that quilt. Isn't it the very extension of his nonna's person? He allows his hands to search it out blindly, running his younger fingers across its raised symbols. Somehow he is a boy again. Squares within squares, threads of gold and magical writings that he could only ever guess at. His nonna indulged his fantasies, laughing with him as he imagined great creatures of myth leaping from the symbols. But when he tired her with his incessant imaginings she would take the quilt away, without obvious frustration, of course, but there was a sense of fatigue that even as a child he could recognise.

Marco is alone again, but he recognises sleep. Almost at the same time as this realisation occurs to him there is the sound of cheering, or perhaps chanting. A rising sound which washes towards him like waves and along with it comes a set of different smells: leather and horse, the trappings of a rider. Marco hadn't ever had a horse and only ever rode when visiting family in the east, but he could recognise the smell instinctively. His body moved in sleep, the sensation of riding overwhelming him suddenly. His body stronger now, older than before, and weighted down with metal straps across his chest.

With a start, Marco's eyes snapped open and he looked back at himself, although changed. His eyes were darker, older. His face was the same though: dark olive skin, wavy brown hair... although it was reined in by a golden circet around his forehead. His arms were bare, the muscles tight as he pulled on the leather straps linking him to the horse which still thundered beneath him. Behind his reflection Marco could see a city from the past, pillars and marble, but there were flames in his room and a sense of being trapped. His reflection leapt towards him: a Roman centurion charging through the mirror, and in that second Marco woke up a second time in a cold sweat.

He choked for air and sat shivering at the end of his bed, legs drawn up to keep from falling asleep again. Above him, the mirror reflected his huddled body, an outline of sweat on the sheets behind him. The room was silent. No sign of smoke or fire. No remnants from the dream.

The front door opened with a double set of bangs as his house mates returned from wherever it was they went. Marco wiped his face quickly and pulled on his t-shirt, in case they should decide to cheerily inform him of their return. It had happened before. But this time the noises quickly subsided and Marco was alone again. He turned on the wall lamp by his bed and bathed his little room in fluorescent light. It flickered once but then remained firm.

The dream had plagued him for a few weeks now, although he thought that a change in country may have displaced it. Normally he would be in the dream for longer, enough to witness his demise. The Roman would charge into a forum on horseback, in full centurion regalia, in front of hundreds of citizens. The ground in front of him had ruptured and a vision of hell, or the underworld, would greet him as he inevitably rode into the abyss. Every time he had felt the rise of heat as the dream ended. Every time he would wish to return to the dream and experience the smells and sights, the sense of accomplishment even in the face of certain death. The dream made him feel like a champion, like someone who led rather than followed.

But, in the end, it was a dream, and Marco would wake up.

He tried to exhale the toxins again, but gave up. Instead, he took up the letters from earlier and looked through them, noting the bills which would need to be paid, until he came across one addressed to him. The envelope was slightly larger than the others. Holding it in his hands, Marco felt the nudging of another memory. He opened the seal and carefully pulled out the letter. It was an invitation, but not hastily photocopied on to canary-yellow paper like the last invite he had received. It was an invitation to a meeting. Marco read it carefully twice, noting the signature at the end. Duvalle.

<'Mr. Conti,
     Your presence is requested at the demesne of one Jeffrey Duvalle, President of the non-profit organization, The Phoenix Foundation. A casual dinner will be followed by a business proposal. Please call 065-333-4563 for directions. The appointment will be Friday, August, 21st at 8:00 pm.>

The invitation was written in perfect Italian. The script flowing and elegant, but obviously masculine. The tone of the letter grew more personal as he continued to read.

    <My heart weeps for your loss. Your grandmother was an aquaintence, much loved, and I regret not being able to make her funeral to pay my respects to her and her family. It is my wish that you accept my invitation not only as a way to make up for my absence, but for your future as well. Your Nonna had great dreams for you, and I'd like to assist you in achieving those dreams. As a first step forward,  I have a proposition I'd like to discuss with you. I ask only that you come with an open heart and mind.

Yours in sincerity,

Jeffery Duvalle
President, The Phoenix Foundation>

Marco's eyes flittered across the text, backward, forward, up and down.  He picked out strange comforting words: regret, open heart, weeps, much loved, great dreams, Nonna, your future...

It didn't make sense.  He dropped it on the floor with the bills and other postal refuse, and then lay back on the damp mattress, his eyes open and staring at himself through the mirror.   He stayed like that for an hour or so before falling back into sleep, but the sleep was undisturbed and when he awoke the next morning to the sounds of a reversing rubbish truck, Marco felt refreshed.

He loped out of his room after changing into his running clothes, and navigated his way out the front door and into the bright but ineffectual morning sun.  Summer was retreating fast, he thought.  In less than a week he would be in school again, and the thought gave him an odd sense of excitement and anxiety.  He had to admit to himself that he didn't exactly know what he expected to get out of moving to King's College for two years.  It wasn't going to reduce the overall number of years he'd need to study - in fact, it extended his degree to four and a half years.

Crossing a street, Marco paused and looked at a police cordon.  The bright yellow tape caught his attention and he leaned against a shopfront trying to maintain his heartbeat.  He had been running faster than he usually did and realised his anxiety had disrupted his usual morning equilibrium.  There were a few other bystanders: casual gawkers and disgruntled types who felt the police cordon was somehow an affront to their personal selves and a way to make them late for work.  Marco wiped his face on his t-shirt and walked slowly closer.  A bobby was listening to the complaints of a neighbour.  Marco could see the slightly glazed look in the policeman's eyes.

Two women near him huddled over coffee in styrofoam cups.  Marco heard them talking about a dead girl.

"What happened here?" he asked. 

The women looked at him like he had surprised them in some secret and compromising situation.  One of them hid her surprise by taking a long sip from her cup.  The other screwed up her face and looked him up and down.

"You fink I'm your fecking secretary?" she spat.

"You'll be reading about it in the papers," a more helpful young man said from behind.  Marco nodded a thanks to the man in the suit and turned back to the scene.  He was about to move on when the young man touched his arm.  "It was a party murder.  Third one this week."

Marco raised his eyebrows.

"Really?"

"Name's Buster Knowles," he said.  "I'm sort of with the Daily News."

"A journalist?"

"Yeah, right.  A journalist.  You've got the wide-eyed look of a victim, kid.  Here's my card."

Marco took the card and wasn't sure what to say.  Knowles looked at the two women who had continued to stare at Marco, and then guided him away from the scene.

"I saw you at the party last night.  You rushed out of there just as I was coming back from the john.  You see, kid, the reason I'm interested in you is because you fit the bill for the next victim."

"What?"

Marco edged away from the journalist.  Knowles was amused and stuck his thumbs into his trouser pockets.  Marco assumed he was in his thirties.  Grey streaked his hair at the temples and he wore his smile with creases at each end of his mouth.  The laugh-lines were even more evident at his eyes and Marco had the feeling that Knowles was quite comfortable being amused at other people's expense.  Apart from the suit the journalist looked more like a street fighter.

"You're new to London."

A pause.  Marco reluctantly nodded.

"And you're enrolled at King's."

Knowles wasn't asking questions, but stating facts.

"The kid from last night was at that party, and the victim from last week was a girl from Slovenia.  No one else has put one and one and one together, but I'm not a regularly-paid professional.  I've got to rely on other things than simple arithmetic, which led me here.  To you."

"I'll take your card, yeah?" Marco said.  "But I don't think I'll be going to any more parties, thanks."

"Suit yourself," Knowles said.  "But keep that number close."

Marco nodded and then gave the police cordon one last glance before jogging across the street to start his way back to the apartment.  He wished he had bothered to bring his iPod or any other way to block out the streetscape he passed.  Everything seemed convoluted: the sense of deja vu dominated him as he turned down street after street.  He seemed to pass the same people in the street.  Everyone started to look the same.

At last he arrived back at the familiar and stubborn door, but instead of kicking his way through like usual, he was happily surprised to see his housemate, Rez, at the door.  The middle-eastern medical student smiled and opened the door wider.

"Just getting in?" Marco asked, and Rez shrugged, not sommitting to anything in his usual manner.  Marco noticed Rez had a morning newspaper under his arm.  Together they moved inside and Rez mumbled something about breakfast to which Marco found himself agreeing to something he immediately forgot.

After a shower Marco followed the sound of a hissing urn and wandered into the kitchen.  The smell was still there but Rez didn't comment on it.  Marco wondered whether it had been there for months and had become just another quirk of the house.  He laid the mail on the table and sorted it into bills, which went in a special envelope on the refridgerator door; and other personal letters which stayed on the table until collected by their owners.

Marco sat and traced his finger around the letter he had received from the Phoenix Foundation.  Rez brought a stained cup filled with black coffee and slid it across to Marco, and then sat and went through the mail.

Duvalle.

He remembered the man well enough from the day before his nonna's funeral, but he had never heard from him again and never really expected to.  It had been three years, but now Marco had an invitation to meet the man, but to meet, to enjoy a meal and then hear a business proposal.  It was absurd, of course.  What business could Marco enter with such a man, he wondered.

Vendetta?

It had grown in his mind for the first few months after his nonna's death.  Marco would try to recall the British man's face, his voice and movements.  Why had the man slipped his hand into the coffin?  Why had he arrived just as Marco had crossed that forbidden line and opened his grandmother's coffin?  And why had there been such a sense of relief in the man's very body upon seeing Marco's dead grandmother?

Something had been done, Marco knew, and he realised that as a sixteen year old it had been easy for Duvalle to have manipulated or hoodwinked him.  Marco had been so distraught with the death and the resultant visions that he hadn't questioned Duvalle's appearance.

"Are you going to another party?" Rez asked, popping the memory bubble which had slowly enveloped Marco.  When Marco had lifted his eyes to look at his housemate, Rez had taken the advantage and smiled before sliding the invitation across to his side of the table.  Marco watched it go and was surprised to see how quickly Rez reacted.  "Wow, this is posh," he said.

"Have you heard of the Foundation?"

Rez shook his head.

"Then how do you know it's ... er, posh?"

"The paper, man.  Feel the grain on this baby.  So is it a philanthropic thing, part of your scholarship deal?"

Marco took the invitation back with a smile.

"I suppose so," he conceded, although the Phoenix Foundation hadn't even been mentioned to him before, and Duvalle was just a name from long ago.  "It's hard to know with all this bureacracy."

"I hear you."

Marco mumbled his thanks and pocketed the invitation.  He wasn't expected anywhere so he wandered back to his room and booted up his laptop, all the time wondering about the relationship between Duvalle and his nonna.  There was obviously something genuine there - a love, perhaps.  Would it have been too much to ask that someone else in the world missed his nonna as much as Marco did?

The programs whirred into action and he typed Duvalle's name into a search engine.

As the results revealed variant spellings and incongruous information, Marco thought back to the funeral home and Duvalle.  He wanted to feel joy about meeting the man, but there was something nagging at the back of his mind, a sense that Duvalle had taken something from his nonna, from the very resting place that should never have been violated.

He gave up and left the room, shouting out a farewell to Rez who was singing in the shower.

Out in the open, Marco unclicked his phone and called the number from the invitation. 065-333-4563.  He crossed the street as the connection went through.

"Ah, yes, hello," he said after a woman answered.  "My name is Marco Conti and I am calling this morning to confirm an appointment with Signore Duvalle for Friday."

"Of course, Signore Conti." The woman, whose name was Madigan, responded cheerfully. "Mr. Duvalle has been quite anxious. He'll be happy to know that you've accepted. Do you have transportation? If not, Mr. Duvalle has arranged for a car to pick up some of the other dinner guests." 

"I suppose that really depends," Marco said.  "I'm new to the city so I have a feeling that I may get lost, even with directions."

Marco was weighing up his options as he spoke on the phone and walked towards the station.  His chances of missing the entire meeting was high if left to his own devices, but he wasn't fully comfortable with accepting a lift when he was still concerned about Duvalle's motives and his connection with Marco's nonna.

"Yes, please," he continued.  "I feel that if I am to make this meeting it would be better for you and your people to organise transportation.  Could you tell me where I should meet the car?"

Madigan's pleasant voice came back quickly. "Why not in front of the Administration building say half past five?  That should allow plenty of time to pick up the others and get you to your destination in plenty of time."

Marco found himself agreeing to the appointment and then hastily ending the call with a polite grazie.  He slid the phone into the back pocket of his jeans and jogged across the street, passing a pair of waddling nuns who were discussing a musical CD.  On the other side of the road he checked his watch for the second time in thirty seconds.  He felt like he had lightning in his body, ready to act on this strange invitation.

But time was still plodding along, he knew, just like the women in their black and white habits as they passed him.  His eyes darted up and down the street, wondering how he could keep moving and not give in to waiting and watching a clock.  His studies hadn't begun; he hadn't received his text books; and he had no real desire to return to his apartment.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Across the street, Buster Knowles grinned around his cigarette and took a handful of rapid shots, capturing the young Italian at the traffic lights.  It was nine o'clock and he figured he had done quite well for a half hour's work.  He checked the photos on the camera and matched them with the ones from the dossier.  It was the same kid, no doubt about it.  The ones from the employer were passport photos and looked to be a few years out of date, but there was no mistaking Marco Conti.

His phone vibrated in his pocket.  He knew exactly who would be calling.

With a flick of his wrist he opened the connection and crunched out his cigarette.

"Hello love," he said.  "I guess you already know who I met this morning."

His eyes followed Marco as the kid moved down the street.  The voice on the phone was soft and hesitant, but the pauses came from a reluctance to engage directly with him, Knowles knew, and had nothing to do with a lack of confidence.

"I love working with psychics," he laughed into the phone.  "You know what you're paying for, and you know how it all ends."

The caller said something and ended the call, leaving Knowles to look with something akin to pity at Marco.  The kid was still looking awkward at the edge of the street.  He had been looking at his watch like some kind of ritual, like a man on death row.

Knowles figured it was a good analogy.

"Shit, kid," he said, lighting up again.  "You are one poor bastard."