CHAPTER 57
STARING AT PASTOR LAFFITE’S
eyelids as his eyes moved nervously beneath them, Deucalion said, “Many theologians believe that dogs and some other animals have simple souls, yes, though whether immortal or not, no one can say.”
“If dogs have souls,” Laffite suggested, “then perhaps we, too, might be more than machines of meat.”
After some consideration, Deucalion said, “I won’t give you false hope…but I can offer you a third chocolate.”
“Have one with me, will you? This is such a lonely communion.”
“All right.”
The pastor had developed a mild palsy of the head and hands, different from his previous nervous tremors.
Deucalion selected two pieces of candy from the box. He put the first to Laffite’s lips, and the minister took it.
His own piece proved to have a coconut center. In two hundred years, nothing he had eaten had tasted as sweet as this, perhaps because the circumstances were, by contrast, so bitter.
“Eyes closed or open,” Pastor Laffite said, “I’m having terrible hallucinations, vivid images, such horrors that I have no words to describe them.”
“Then no more delay,” Deucalion said, pushing his chair back from the table and getting to his feet.
“And pain,” the pastor said. “Severe pain that I can’t repress.”
“I won’t add to that,” Deucalion promised. “My strength is much greater than yours. It will be quick.”
As Deucalion moved behind Laffite’s chair, the pastor groped blindly, caught his hand. Then he did something that would never have been expected of any of the New Race, something that Deucalion knew no number of centuries could erase from his memory.
Although his program was dropping out of him, though his mind was going—or perhaps because of that—Pastor Laffite drew the back of Deucalion’s hand to his lips, tenderly kissed it, and whispered, “Brother.”
A moment later, Deucalion broke the preacher’s neck, shattered his spine with such force that instant brain death followed, assuring that the quasi-immortal body could not repair the injury.
Nevertheless, for a while he remained in the kitchen. To be certain. To sit a sort of shiva.
Night pressed at the windows. Outside lay a city, teeming. Yet Deucalion could see nothing beyond the glass, only darkness deep, a blackness unrelenting.
CHAPTER 58
AFTER THE UNKNOWN
thing in the glass case spoke her name and made its ominous claim to her, Erika did not linger in the secret Victorian drawing room.
She did not like the roughness of the voice. Or its confidence.
At the threshold of the room, she almost hurried boldly into the passageway before she realized that the rods bristling from the walls were humming again. A headlong exit would result in a contest between her brilliantly engineered body and perhaps several thousand volts of electricity.
As extraordinarily tough and resilient as she might be, Erika Helios was not Scarlett O’Hara.
Gone with the Wind
had been set in an age before electrical service had been available to the home; consequently, Erika was not certain that this literary allusion was apt, but it occurred to her anyway. Of course she had not read the novel; but maybe it contained a scene in which Scarlett O’Hara had been struck by lightning in a storm and had survived unscathed.
Erika stepped cautiously across the threshold and paused, as she had done when entering the farther end of this passageway. As before, a blue laser speared from the ceiling and scanned her. Either the ID system knew who she was or, more likely, recognized what she was not: She was not the thing in the glass case.
The rods stopped humming, allowing her safe passage.
She quickly closed the massive steel portal and engaged the five lock bolts. In less than a minute, she had retreated beyond the next steel barrier and had secured it as well.
Her synchronized hearts nevertheless continued to beat fast. She marveled that she could have been so unsettled by such a small thing as a disembodied voice and a veiled threat.
This sudden, persistent fear, disproportionate to the cause, had the character of a superstitious response. She, of course, was free of all superstition.
The instinctive nature of her reaction led her to suspect that subconsciously she
knew
what was imprisoned in the amber substance within that glass case, and that her fear arose from this deeply buried knowledge.
When she reached the end of the initial passage, where she had originally entered through a pivoting section of bookcases, she found a button that opened that secret door from here behind the wall.
Immediately that she returned to the library, she felt much safer, in spite of being surrounded by so many books filled with so much potentially corrupting material.
In one corner was a wet bar stocked with heavy crystal glassware and the finest adult beverages. As a superbly programmed hostess, she knew how to mix any cocktail that might be requested, though as yet she had not been in a social situation requiring this skill.
Erika was having cognac to settle her nerves when from behind her, Christine said, “Mrs. Helios, pardon me for saying so, but I suspect that Mr. Helios would be distressed to see you drinking directly from the decanter.”
Erika had not realized that she had been committing such a faux pas, but on having it drawn to her attention, she saw that she was, as charged, guzzling Rémy Martin from the exquisite Lalique decanter, and even dribbling some down her chin.
“I was thirsty,” she said, but sheepishly returned the decanter to the bar, stoppered it, and blotted her chin with a bar napkin.
“We’ve been searching for you, Mrs. Helios, to inquire about dinner.”
Alarmed, glancing at the windows and discovering that night had fallen, Erika said, “Oh. Have I kept Victor waiting?”
“No, ma’am. Mr. Helios needs to work late and will take his dinner at the lab.”
“I see. Then what shall I do?”
“We will serve your dinner anywhere you wish, Mrs. Helios.”
“Well, it’s such a big house, so many places.”
“Yes.”
“Is there somewhere I could have dinner where there’s cognac—other than here in the library with all these books?”
“We can serve cognac with your dinner anywhere in the house, Mrs. Helios—although I might suggest that wine would be more appropriate
with
a meal.”
“Well, of course it would. And I
would
like to have a bottle of wine with dinner, an appropriate bottle complementary to whatever the chef has prepared. Select for me a most appropriate bottle, if you will.”
“Yes, Mrs. Helios.”
Apparently, Christine had no desire for another conversation as intimate and intense as the one they’d shared in the kitchen earlier in the day. She seemed to want to keep their relationship on a formal footing henceforth.
Encouraged by this, Erika decided to exert her authority as the lady of the house, although graciously. “But please, Christine, also serve me a decanted bottle of Rémy Martin, and save yourself the trouble by bringing it at the same time you bring the wine. Don’t bother making a later trip.”
Christine studied her for a moment, and said, “Have you enjoyed your first day here, Mrs. Helios?”
“It’s been full,” Erika said. “At first it seemed like such a quiet house, one might almost expect it to be dull, but there seems always to be something happening.”
CHAPTER 59
ALTHOUGH THE Q
&
A
with Arnie’s mother starts well, Randal Six quickly exhausts his supply of conversational gambits. He eats nearly half a quart of strawberry-banana swirl ice cream before another question occurs to him.
“You seem to be frightened, Vicky. Are you frightened?”
“Yes. God, yes.”
“Why are you frightened?”
“I’m tied to a chair.”
“The chair can’t hurt you. Don’t you think it’s silly to be frightened of a chair?”
“Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t taunt me.”
“When did Randal taunt you? Randal never did.”
“I’m not afraid of the chair.”
“But you just said you were.”
“I’m scared of you.”
He is genuinely surprised. “Randal? Why be scared of Randal?”
“You hit me.”
“Only once.”
“Very hard.”
“You aren’t dead. See? Randal doesn’t kill mothers. Randal has decided to like mothers. Mothers are a wonderful idea. Randal doesn’t have a mother or a father.”
Vicky says nothing.
“And,
nooooo
, Randal didn’t kill them. Randal was sort of made by machines. Machines don’t care like mothers do, and they don’t miss you when you leave.”
Vicky closes her eyes, as autistics sometimes do when there is just too much of everything to process, a daunting amount of stuff coming in.
She is not, however, an autistic. She is a mother.
Randal is surprised that he himself is coping so well with all these new developments, and talking so smooth. His mind seems to be healing.
Vicky’s appearance, however, is troubling. Her face is drawn. She looks ill.
“Are you ill?” he asks.
“I’m so scared.”
“Stop being scared, okay? Randal wants you to be his mother. All right? Now you can’t be scared of your own son, Randal.”
The most amazing thing happens: Tears spill down Vicky’s cheeks.
“That is so sweet,” says Randal. “You’re a very nice mother. We will be happy. Randal will call you Mother, not Vicky anymore. When is your birthday, Mother?”
Instead of answering, she sobs. She is so emotional. Mothers are sentimental.
“You should bake a cake for your birthday,” he says. “We’ll have a celebration. Randal knows about celebrations, hasn’t ever been to one, but knows.”
She hangs her head, still sobbing, face wet with tears.
“Randal’s first birthday is eight months away,” he informs her. “Randal is only four months old.”
He returns the remainder of the strawberry-banana ice cream to the freezer. Then he stands beside the table, gazing down at her.
“You are the secret of happiness, Mother. Randal doesn’t need Arnie to tell him. Randal is going to visit his brother now.”
She raises her head, eyes open wide. “Visit Arnie?”
“Randal needs to find out are two brothers okay or is that one brother too many.”
“What do you mean, one brother too many? What’re you talking about? Why do you want to see Arnie?”
He winces at the rush of her words, at the urgency of them; they seem to buzz in his ears. “Don’t talk so fast. Don’t ask questions. Randal asks questions. Mother answers.”
“Leave Arnie alone.”
“Randal thinks there is enough happiness here for two, but maybe Arnie doesn’t think so. Randal needs to hear Arnie say two brothers are okay.”
“Arnie hardly ever talks,” she said. “Depending on his mood, he might not even tune in to you. He zones out. It’s like the castle is real and he’s
inside
it, locked away. He might not really hear you.”
“Mother, you are talking too loud, too much, too fast. Loud-fast talk sounds ugly.”
He crosses toward the door to the hall.
She raises her voice: “Randal, untie me. Untie me
right this minute
!”
“You aren’t acting like a nice mother now. Shouting scares Randal. Shouting is not happiness.”
“Okay. All right. Slow and quiet. Please, Randal. Wait. Please untie me.”
At the threshold of the hallway, he glances back at her. “Why?”
“So I can take you to see Arnie.”
“Randal can find him all right.”
“Sometimes he hides. He’s very difficult to find when he hides. I know all his favorite hiding places.”
Staring at her, he senses deceit. “Mother, are you going to try to hurt Randal?”
“No. Of course not. Why would I hurt you?”
“Sometimes mothers hurt their children. There’s a whole Web site about it—www.homicidalmothers. com.”
Now that he thinks about it, he realizes that the poor children never suspect what’s coming. They trust their mom. She says she loves them, and they trust her. Then she chops them up in their beds or drives them in a lake and drowns them.
“Randal sure hopes you’re a good mother,” he says. “But maybe you need to answer a lot more questions before Randal unties you.”
“All right. Come back. Ask me anything.”
“Randal needs to talk to Arnie first.”
She says something, but he tunes out her meaning. He steps into the hallway.
Behind him, Mother is talking fast again, faster than ever, and then she is shouting.
Randal Six has been in this living room previously. When Mother first regained consciousness, she chattered at him so hard that he had come here to calm himself. Now here he is again, calming himself.
He hopes that he and Mother don’t already have a dysfunctional relationship.
After a minute or two, when he is ready, he goes in search of Arnie. He wonders whether his new brother will prove to be Abel or Cain, selfless or selfish. If he is like Cain, Randal Six knows what to do. It will be self-defense.
CHAPTER 60
CARSON PARKED IN
her driveway, shut off the engine and the headlights, and said, “Let’s get the shotguns.”
They had put the suitcases and shotguns in the trunk before they’d driven Lulana and Evangeline home from the parsonage.
After hurriedly retrieving the Urban Snipers, they went to the front of the sedan and crouched there, using it for cover. Peering back along the driver’s side, Carson watched the street.
“What’re we gonna do for dinner?” Michael asked.
“We can’t take the kind of time we took for lunch.”
“I could go for a po-boy.”
“As long as it’s sleeve-wrapped to eat on the fly.”
Michael said, “The thing I’ll miss most when I’m dead is New Orleans food.”
“Maybe there’s plenty of it on the Other Side.”
“What I won’t miss is the heat and humidity.”
“Are you really that confident?”
The night brought them the sound of an approaching engine.
When the vehicle passed in the street, Carson said, “Porsche Carrera GT, black. That baby’s got a six-speed transmission. Can you imagine how fast I could drive in one of those?”
“So fast, I’d be perpetually vomiting.”
“My driving’s never gonna kill you,” she said. “Some monster is gonna kill you.”
“Carson, if this is ever over and we come out of it alive, you think we might give up being cops?”
“What would we do?”
“How about mobile pet grooming? We could drive around all day, bathing dogs. Easy work. No pressure. It might even be fun.”
“Depends on the dogs. The problem is you have to have a van for all the equipment. Vans are dorky. I’m not going to drive a van.”
He said, “We could open a gay bar.”
“Why gay?”
“I wouldn’t have to worry about guys hitting on you.”
“I wouldn’t mind running a doughnut shop.”
“Could we run a doughnut shop and still have guns?” he wondered.
“I don’t see why not.”
“I feel more comfortable with guns.”
The sound of another engine silenced them.
When the vehicle appeared, Carson said, “White Mountaineer,” and pulled her head back to avoid being seen.
The Mountaineer slowed but didn’t stop, and drifted past the house.
“They’ll park farther along, on the other side of the street,” she said.
“You think it’s going to go down here?”
“They’ll like the setup,” she predicted. “But they won’t come right away. They’ve been looking for an opportunity all day. They’re patient. They’ll take time to reconnoiter.”
“Ten minutes?”
“Probably ten,” she agreed. “No less than five. Let’s get Vicky and Arnie out of here yesterday.”
When the Mountaineer was out of sight, they hurried to the back of the house. The kitchen door was locked. Carson fumbled her keys from a jacket pocket.
“Is that a new jacket?” he asked.
“I’ve worn it a couple times.”
“I’ll try not to get brains on it.”
She unlocked the door.
In the kitchen, Vicky Chou was at the table, tied in a chair.