flesh floating in a cloud of smoke and fog and midnight-black hair, obliquely slanted black eyes cold as the grave—she aroused no desire with her weird nudity; he’d never wanted a woman less.
Bespi. You carry my curse. Do you wish to be free of it?
A low moan came from his throat.
My curse shall follow you wherever you go. Her eyes grew until they filled his entire field of vision, black and like looking into hell. He felt ghostly hands running down his arms, leaving chill trails behind them. When you sleep, I shall be there—waiting. When you wake, I shall follow; in all your comings, in all your goings, I shall be one step behind you, making you careless, making you nervous, until one day you will make a mistake—then my fingers will close about your throat—
“Wait!” he yelled. Panic snatched at him now. Dread he had never felt in dealing with the living, or the soon-to-be-dead, closed around his heart and squeezed it like an invisible hand reaching through his chest-wall. He panted. Whimpered . . . “I’ll do anything you want!”
The eyes receded and again she floated before him in her cloud of smoke and hair and magic. Then guard my sons.
That caught him off guard. “Huh?” he replied stupidly, unable to fathom the puzzle.
My sons live, Harrow. Bespi who was. Guard them. Guard them well. Keep them from harm. Keep the Montagnards from their throats. Only then my curse will leave you.
“I don’t—I mean I don’t even know what they look like. How . . . how do I find them!”
There—she pointed and something began forming out of the smoke and the dark beside her. The foggy image of an adolescent—sixteen, seventeen, maybe. A dead ringer for Lorendana. That is Marco.
Bespi/Harrow gasped as he recognized the boy. The one who had killed Gianni! The boy with the great reasons! Harrow could now understand why he had been witness to the sight.
And there—
Beside the first, a boy about two years younger; Carlo Sforza as a kid.
That is Benito. Guard them, Harrow. Your life on it, or you will carry my curse forever.
He had barely sworn to it, when she faded away and his grasp on consciousness went with her.

Luciano was well pleased with himself. That had been one of the better vision-quests he’d sent Harrow on. The former assassin hadn’t fought him, he had responded beautifully to all the suggestions.