With the Sun, the blood planet Mars — named after the mythical god of war — the planet Jupiter, and the upper limb of the Moon all in the constellation Scorpio at the time of his birth, Henri Cazaux was a quadruple Scorpio — highly intelligent, secretive, passionate, and powerful. Vega had never seen a chart like his before. If a person could pick all the traits he or she ever desired — the tendency toward great wealth, tremendous sexual energy, animal determination, godlike invincibility, and intelligent introspection — Henri Cazaux had them. Only a few men in history ever had an astrological chart like Cazaux — such multiple-planet generals like Napoleon Bonaparte, Ulysses, and Alexander, politicians like Hitler and Lincoln, military thinkers like Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz. His astrological chart was confirmed by a palm reading and the tarot, but one look at the man would be confirmation enough for anyone. And if his scarred body did not say that his past lay in some expertise in the combat arms, his chart definitely said his future would be in warfare. Mars ruled his chart, and all other “peaceful” signs and planets and influences were nowhere to be seen.
Usually Cazaux liked to “rate” astrologers by how many guesses they got correct — he could not even begin to do this with Jo Ann Vega. It was as if she had written his biography, and then written his eulogy and epitaph. The future she painted was not bright. It was filled with adventure, and excitement, and wealth, and power, but it was a short, violent, lonely life. She said she understood all of those things, and said her life was rich and full despite her loneliness.
She also seemed to understand perfectly when he attacked her. She was so good at her profession that now she knew too much, and when the snarling, cornered beast in Cazaux emerged, she accepted it with professional patience.
Other than killing, raping a woman is tactically the best way to ensure her silence — few women report a rape, especially if they are alone. It is usually the best way to terrorize a woman into silence and cooperation. Cazaux was forceful and violent, but was careful not to cause any visible wounds that might compel others to act. He made her undress for him, made her perform fellatio on him, made her spread her legs and beg him to rape her — not because he enjoyed any of it or thought she might enjoy acting submissive, but because it further implicated her, further shamed her, gave her more events of which most women will not speak, more things for a woman’s consciousness to work harder to suppress. As helpless as she was, she was, in a horrible and brutal way, a party to what was happening to her.
The rape was an act of violence — none of it could be considered in the least sexual — but the motivation was not robbery or murder or assault or any other crime. It was an initiation into the life of the world’s greatest terrorist, a message that she was now, willingly or not, an acolyte of Henri Cazaux’s, a minister to the human incarnation of Satan himself. She could accept the fact, and live, or deny it, and die — but he did not have to tell her these things. Jo Ann Vega — in fact, all of Cazaux’s helpless victims — knew this when they looked into the killer’s eyes. The rape was an act of violence, yes, but it was more of a promise of the violence to come if the spell was broken.
He made her clean him with her mouth, then departed without saying a word — no threats, no taunting, no innuendos — leaving a small throwing knife stuck into the woodwork around the window behind the back door. It was a tiny warning to her, and a promise that he would return.
He did return, two to three times a year. The violence was gone, and they became lovers. They slept and bathed together, experimented with sex, and talked about each other’s worlds in intimate detail. Making love with Henri Cazaux was like trying to wrestle with a bonfire or control a crashing ocean wave — the heat, the power, the sheer energy he released was enormous. Vega was his spiritual adviser, his charge of quarters, his aide-de-camp, but she also got to experience the man when he unleashed his raw, unchained spirit only toward her, and no one else.
Although they shared each other’s passion, he was never close—“settling down” was never an option, although he did see to her needs and offered a level of security and protection unlike any other man in the world. He provided her with money — not enough to leave her little storefront or call attention to herself — but enough so she would not have to rely on reading horoscopes to survive. Some of Vega’s enemies — a city councilman who tried to have her kicked out of the city for being a drug dealer because she had refused to run a house of prostitution for him, a neighbor kid who liked to get drunk and would occasionally try to break her door down to get at her — both mysteriously disappeared. Jo Ann had never mentioned them to Cazaux.
Jo Ann knew that Henri Cazaux was coming to her, knew this visit would be different. She often read his cards in between visits, and she had just completed a reading on him before she had learned of the attack in San Francisco. She knew he had engineered the attack long before the news told the world so. The cards told of fire, and blood, and darkness. They did not tell of his death, as they usually did. In fact, none of the dark elements of Cazaux’s chart — a short lifespan, pain, loneliness — were present. The man coming to visit her soon was a man no longer — he had been transformed. The cards said so.
It was dark outside, and the rain was pounding down so hard it was forcing itself into the house through closed windows. Vega was just finishing a cigarette in her tiny living room/bedroom between the partition to the reading parlor and the kitchen, and was heading back to the kitchen to clean out the ashtray, when she turned and saw him standing in the doorway, watching her. He was already naked from the waist up — he had obviously been there several minutes, judging by the size of the puddle of water under his feet — but he was as silent as a snake. A small automatic pistol was stuck in his jeans waistband.
“Welcome home, Henri,” Jo Ann said, a touch of warmth in her eyes and voice. “I’m glad to see you.” He did not respond. That was typical — he rarely said ten words to her even on a chatty day. He looked thinner, but his chest was as muscular as ever, his stomach as rippled and hard as an old-fashioned washboard. He had shaved off all his hair. He changed his hair length and style often, although military short-cropped hair was his norm. But Vega’s eyes were drawn back to his chest, his rock-hard arms, and his flat stomach. For a brief instant, she felt her nipples erect and felt the slight ache of desire between her legs. She looked into his eyes, and the questions in her head only continued. Cazaux’s eyes were on fire — not from anger, or from fear, but from desire. Was it sexual desire? Sometimes she could feel the heat of his need from across a room — Scorpios were all powerful sexual animals, and multiple Scorpios sometimes had an aura of sexual energy that was palpable. Henri was soaking wet, but he was definitely on fire…
No, it was not sexual energy this time. He was after something else, something much more significant than Jo Ann. The fire in his eyes seemed to come from visualizing something so vividly that you could see it, touch it.
“Get out of those wet clothes,” she suggested. “I’ll make us some tea. I have hamburger if you’re hungry.”
As if he had read her thoughts, he pulled the gun from his waistband, then unbuttoned his jeans and pulled them down to the floor. My God, Vega breathed, he was magnificent! But her eyes were drawn from the bulge between his legs to the bandages wrapped around his left leg, with quarter-sized spots of blood soaking through. “Henri, you’re hurt. Go into the bedroom.” The big man silently complied.