"She didn't teach you much, did she?" Artemisia stated, bluntly. She was reading my mind again.

"She taught me how to survive." I said, defensively.

"She didn't teach you enough," she stood up, and walked over to the window, "there is a lot that you haven't even faced yet; a lot for you to know if you really are to survive. For starters, it is best that you do not think of yourself as immortal. You are not."

"What do you mean?" I asked, "Look at you, what about Judith, how old is she?"

"You will learn that in time." She turned to look at me, "Just know that you can die, Andrew, that this gift is not the gift of immortality. It will be better in the long run if you know this." She stared out of the window. I walked slowly up to her, stopping a few steps behind.

"How did it happen to you? When did you meet Judith?"

She turned to face me. She looked through me, past me. She slowly left the window and walked to one of the large leather chairs in the center of the room. A small cloud of dust outlined her perfect figure as she sat down.

"I'll tell you what I can," she began, "there are some parts that I do not know, others that I do not wish to recall."

Her eyes seemed to lighten as she spoke. She grew motionless, her lips barely moving as her voice escaped them.

"To begin to understand me, to begin to understand Judith, to begin to understand why I did what I did and why I made the choice that I made, you have to understand where I was when I met her. I was very lucky as a child, my father, Orazio, raised me to be an artist, and he made sure that I was given the opportunities for training and education that were normally reserved for boys. He was very wonderful in that respect. And he was scorned by many of his neighbors and acquaintances for it as well. Women were not supposed to be educated in that day.

"My mother died when I was very young. As his only daughter, my father decided to give me every opportunity afforded my brothers. In part, I think, to keep an eye on me! He took me with him, introduced me to his friends, and allowed me to watch him work. I met some wonderful people, wonderful artists. Carivaggio, especially, was very influential to me; he was incredible. His use of dark and shadow in his work was amazing. It was he who suggested that I use my talent to portray subjects that I found appealing, and gave me the courage to strike out a little from the mold. He was very supportive, almost as much as my father.

"It was another of my father's friends that started the horrific chain of events that led to where I am now. I use the term friend loosely, you understand, he was not much more than an acquaintance when my father asked him to give me instruction. Agostino Tassi. His name on my lips even now taste almost as bad as his lips did then. I would kill him again in a second, given the opportunity." Artemisia stared off at the window, "but I get ahead of myself.

"The year was 1611. I was in Rome with my father. He was working on the Sala Regia at the Quirinial Palace with a few other artists, most notably Giovanni Lanfranco and Carlo Saraceni. And then there was Tassi. He was an ugly dog of a man, but he was a relatively skilled landscape painter and so my father asked him to work with me as a tutor while we were there. He was intent on educating me in more than just painting, though, and despite repeated refusals of his unwelcome advances, he grew ever more insistent to take my bed.

"One afternoon, I awoke to see his bloody eyes peering at me from directly over my bed. He quickly clasped my mouth when I started to scream and pinned me down. Oh, how I wish that I had my present strength then. I found later that one of the servants in our own household had let him in; he had convinced her that he was there to give me a lesson. I can still feel the sweaty grime on his hands as he ripped my bedclothes and raped me.

"Afterwards, I was in shock and exhausted from my struggles. Things were not then as they are now. He had spread rumors that he wished to marry me; that he had already graced my bed; that I was in love with him. I thought no one would believe me. I thought maybe, just maybe, I could take his promises to marry to heart. I was ignorant. I was in shock.

"I told no one of the rape. My father was so caught up in his work that he barely noticed that I spoke no more at meals, asked no more of the progress of the work. It was not until weeks later, after Tassi had entered my bedchamber three more times, each time wooing me with promises to marry, that my father suspected something and confronted Agostino and me. His true intentions were soon suspected, though, and my father pressed rape charges against him.

"I could not even charge him myself. I could barely speak to defend myself. Over the six or seven months of the trial, I was accused of all sorts of behavior that I cannot repeat here now. Suffice it to say, I was not portrayed well. A woman had so very few rights then."

Artemisia's voice faded. Her eyes shifted back to me. I was beginning to feel the pangs of hunger but I wanted her to go on, I wanted to know what happened.

"He got off." She began as suddenly as she had stopped, not blinking. "I fled the court, and my father. I sought to escape and I knew only one method to take my mind away from my troubles. I let it be known that I was seeking a model for a painting that I wished to do inspired by one of the works Carivaggio had been working on when last I had seen him. She had to be strong; she had to be everything that I had failed to be in my eyes to that time. I wanted to paint the story of Judith, the Jewish heroine who had saved her people from the siege of Holofernes by cutting off his head. A head that, when I was done, looked remarkably like Tassi.

"She came to me then, one evening, alone. She never told me how she had heard that I was searching for a model, in fact, I'm not even sure that she told me that she wanted the job. She was perfect, her look, her attitude; everything about her was exactly what I had in mind. With hardly a word spoken between us we began work that very night. It wasn't until the next morning, after working most of the night, that it occurred to me the oddity of the coincidence that her name was the same as the subject of the painting."

"Are you telling me that she is Judith? That the two are one and the same?" I interrupted, stunned by this conclusion's implications.

"It's my story, Andrew. Don't make assumptions," she smiled, "open your mind and listen, I'll try not to bore you with too much detail."

"Oh, no," I insisted, "I'm definitely not bored!"

"Then I will try to be quick so that you do not starve. Your hunger is apparent on your face as well as in your mind. In a moment we both shall feed, and then I'll be off. But," she held up her hand, preventing me from speaking, "you will see me again after tonight. I haven't searched this long to find a brother only to abandon him to his own foolishness.

"I fell in love with her over the next few weeks. I was able to share with her more than any man I had ever known. I think that she loved me, too, though later events might seem to have proved otherwise. She was beautiful. She spoke with an elegance that I had never heard and have not heard since. She made me feel good about myself again. She made me forget Tassi, and what he had done. Or at least she tried to.

"One night, when the painting was almost completed, we were lying on some pillows near the canvas. Her skin was so smooth, so cool to the touch. To feel it against my own sent shivers to every region of my being. I often fell asleep in her arms after a session; painting can be an exhaustive labor. Usually, when I awoke, she was gone. But this night a particularly bad dream haunted my sleep and suddenly I jerked to consciousness. The first thing I saw in my panic was the bleeding head of Holofernes staring down from my canvas. I think that I have already mentioned that the likeness of Tassi was my inspiration for this beast. My scream startled us both. Judith held my head to her breast and brushed her long fingers through my hair, calming me.

" 'He should die,' she said, matter-of-factly. I looked up at her and she was lost, staring at the painting as if she, too, were reliving my nightmare. 'It is time for you to know me,' she said, standing, lifting me to my feet beside her. I followed her out of the house and out into the darkened streets of Rome. It was well after midnight and I was shivering from the chill in the air.

"It was not long until I realized where we were going. We were suddenly at the gate of Tassi's home. With a shove of her hand it opened and she led me into the shadows of the garden walls. 'You have to decide tonight,' she whispered, 'you have a choice. You can go with me into this house and take back from the beast within its walls what he took from you, or you can leave. If you enter with me, your life will never be the same again. If you leave, you will never see me again. Either way, tonight Agostino Tassi breaths his last breath.' I stared at her in amazement! She was serious! I knew without questioning that she would kill him, and I knew without doubt that I wanted him dead. I had not thought myself capable of this revenge before, but I felt strong beside her, capable of anything. The thought of never seeing her again was horrifying. More so than all of the practical reasons and fears that were creeping into my brain. I cast them aside and shook my head. She did not say a thing. Clutching my hand, she led me to the wall of the house and through a window.

"He was asleep, of course, when we entered his bed. Sprawled like a spent carcass he lay with his pillows surrounding him. It seemed even his linens longed to be away from him, despite the coolness of the air he laid exposed, his flaccid member lying like a dead worm. The thought of it still makes me wish to vomit. Judith let go of my hand and approached him, crawling up into the bed next to him. He barely stirred as she leaned over him.

"Only then did it occur to me that we had brought with us no means with which to commit our crime! She held no knife or dagger, no poison. I started to say something when she placed her hand on his chest, as if to hold him down. I thought at first that she was whispering into his ear. Imagine my surprise when I realized what was really happening. She was biting him; I could see the small trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth on his skin! He lurched, and I screamed, unable to process the sight before me. She was holding him down. Judith, easily more than twice outweighed, held Tassi pinned to the bed like a stuck bug.

" 'Come,' she turned to face me, her teeth red, 'it's time for you, now.' I went to the bed to her side. I told her that I could not bite him and she laughed. 'Of course not!' she said, reaching beneath his pillow and handing me the dagger that she found there. 'Finish it' she said. I remember taking the dagger. I remember the coldness of the steal, and her hand. I remember his eyes looking up at me, panicked and pleading.

"My thoughts left me there. The next I remember, Judith was standing above me, holding me. The sound of the dagger on the stone floor woke me to what was happening. I still had my fingers twisted in his hair. I looked down. The sheets were a swamp of blood. His neck and shoulders at an odd angle, with nothing but his spine and a few strips of flesh between. I yanked my fingers, dropping him face down into the pillows. The snap of the bones broke the silence as his head rolled awkwardly to one side.

" 'Well done,' Judith whispered into my ear from behind, 'you will do just fine, my love.' I turned to look up at her. Her face was different; it frightened me. Dark shadows and angles covered her once beautiful features. It was the light, I thought, just shadows from the light. It hurt only an instant as she bit into my neck."

Artemisia's eyes shut. A small tear formed in the corner of one. She quickly wiped it away, shaking her head as if trying to wake up.

"But, I don't have to tell you what happened next. The next few days and weeks were hell, and it took years for me to realize the full extent of what I had done."

"I remember well the agony of that death." I said, trying to find words to keep her talking.

"I don't like referring to it as death," she answered, "death implies an end, a finality. To call what we went through death is an injustice to the word. Death is an escape, Andrew. You didn't die, you've stepped into a trap."

She stood and walked again to the window. It was late; there was only an hour or two left before sunrise. She stood for a few moments looking out at the brightening sky. I could only see her face from the side; her eyes looked sad, longingly.

"I have to go," she said, bluntly.

I stood to go to her but she was out of the room before I reached my feet. I was suddenly alone, and suddenly scared.