PROLOGUE
  THE CANYON
  
  	It is night in Coldheart Canyon, and the wind comes off the desert.
  	The Santa Anas, they call these winds. They blow off the Mojave, bringing 
malaise, and the threat of fire. Some say they are named after Saint Anne, the mother of 
Mary, others that they are named after one General Santa Ana, of the Mexican cavalry, a 
great creator of dusts; others still that the name is derived from santanta, which means 
Devil Wind.
  	Whatever the truth of the matter, this much is certain: the Santa Anas are always 
baking hot, and often so heavily laden with perfume that it's as though they've picked up 
the scent of every blossom they've shaken on their way here. Every wild lilac and wild 
rose, every white sage and rank jimsonweed, every heliotrope and creosote bush: gathered 
them all up in their hot embrace and borne them into the hidden channel of Coldheart 
Canyon.
  	There's no lack of blossoms here, of course. Indeed, the Canyon is almost 
uncannily verdant. Some of the plants here were brought in from the world outside by 
these same burning winds, these Santa Anas; others were dropped in the feces of the wild 
animals who wander through-the deer and coyote and raccoon; some spread from the gardens 
of the great dream palace that lays solitary claim to this corner of Hollywood. Alien 
blooms, this last kind-orchids and lotus flowers-nurtured by gardeners who have long 
since left off their pruning and their watering, and departed, allowing the bowers which 
they once treasured to run riot.
  	But for some reason there is always a certain bitterness in the blooms here. Even 
the hungry deer, driven from their traditional trails these days by the presence of 
sightseers who have come to see Tinseltown, do not linger in the Canyon for very long. 
Though the deer venture along the ridge and down the steep slopes of the Canyon, and 
curiosity, especially amongst the younger animals, often leads them over the rotted 
fences and toppled walls into the secret enclaves of the gardens, they seldom choose to 
stay there for very long.
  	Perhaps it isn't just that the leaves and petals are bitter. Perhaps there are 
too many whisperings in the air around the ruined gazebos, and the animals are unnerved 
by what they hear. Perhaps there are too many presences brushing against their trembling 
flanks as they explore the clotted pathways. Perhaps, as they graze the overgrown lawns, 
they lookup and mistake a statue for a pale fragment of life, and are startled by their 
error, and take flight.
  	Perhaps, sometimes, they are not mistaken.
  
  	Perhaps.
  	The Canyon is familiar with perhaps; with what may or may not be. And never more 
so than on such a night as this, when the winds come sighing off the desert, heavy with 
their perfume, and such souls as the Canyon hosts express their longing for something 
they dreamed they had, or dreamed that they dreamed, their voices so tenuous tonight that 
they're inaudible to the human ear, even if there were someone to hear them, which there 
never is.
  	That's not entirely true. On occasion somebody will be tenacious enough to find 
their way into this vale of luxury and tears; a tourist, perhaps even a family of 
tourists, foolishly determined to discover what lies off the prescribed route; looking 
for some famous heart-throb's love-nest, or a glimpse of the idol himself, caught 
unawares as he walks with his dog. There are even a few trespassers over the years who 
have found their way here intentionally, guided to this place by hints dropped in obscure 
accounts of Old Hollywood. They venture cautiously, these few. Indeed there is often 
something close to reverence in the way they enter Coldheart Canyon. But however these 
visitors arrive, they always leave the same way: hurriedly, with many a nervous backward 
glance. Even the crassest of them-even the ones who'd claim they don't have a psychic 
bone in their bodies-are discomfited by something they sniff here. Their sixth sense, 
they have discovered, is far more acute than they had thought. Only when they have outrun 
the all-too-eager shadows of the Canyon and they are back in the glare of the billboards 
on Sunset Boulevard, do they wipe their clammy palms, and wonder to themselves how it was 
that in such a harmless spot they could have been so very afraid.
  
  
  PART ONE
  THE PRICE OF THE HUNT
  
  ONE
  	"Your wife did not want to look around the Fortress any further, Mister Zeffer?" 
Father Sandru said, seeing that on the second day the middle-aged man with the handsome, 
sad face had come alone.
  	"The lady is not my wife," Zeffer explained.
  	"Ah..." the monk replied, the tone of commiseration in his voice indicating that 
he was far from indifferent to Katya's charms. "A pity for you, yes?"
  	"Yes," Zeffer admitted, with some discomfort.
  	"She's a very beautiful woman."
  	The monk studied Zeffer's face as he spoke, but having said what he'd said, 
Zeffer was unwilling to play the confessee any further.
  	"I'm her manager," he explained. "That's all there is between us."

  	Father Sandru, however, was not willing to let the issue go just yet. "After the 
two of you departed yesterday," he said, his English colored by his native Romanian, "one 
of the brothers remarked that she was the most lovely women he had ever seen..." he 
hesitated before committing to the rest of the sentence "...in the flesh."
  	"Her name's Katya, by the way," Zeffer said.
  	"Yes, yes, I know," said the Father, his fingers combing the knotted gray-white 
of his beard as he stood assessing Zeffer.
  	The two men were a study in contrasts. Sandru ruddy-faced and rotund in his dusty 
brown habit, Zeffer slimly elegant in his pale linen suit.
  	"She is a movie-star, yes?"
  	"You saw one of her films?"
  	Sandru grimaced, displaying a poorly-kept array of teeth. "No, no," he said. "I 
do not see these things. At least not often. But there is a little cinema in Ravbac, and 
some of the younger brothers go down there quite regularly. They are great fans of 
Chaplin, of course. And there's a...vamp...is that the word?"
  	"Yes," Zeffer replied, somewhat amused by this conversation. "Vamp's the word."
  	"Called Theda Bara."
  	"Oh, yes. We know Theda."
  	In that year-which was 1920-everybody knew Theda Bara. She had one of the most 
famous faces in the world. As, of course, did Katya. Both were famous; their fame tinged 
with a delicious hint of decadence.
  	"I must go with one of the brothers when they next go to see her," Father Sandru