“He said, ‘Strength alone isn’t enough to defeat me.’ And part of the reason he gave is
that I can’t change bodies. But that doesn’t hold up. I can kill his body with a thought, and
that same thought will force him to attack me on a mental level. My territory.”
“That sounds promising.”
“Yes, but he knows it as well as I do. That means he has some other reason for his confidence. The only thing I can think of is my own ignorance. I just don’t know how to take him. He’s not a Patternist, he’s not a mutehe’s bound to have some surprises for me. If I go after him, the chances are I’ll be dead before I can figure out how to kill him. He knows so much more than I do.”
“But he’s never faced anyone like you before. You’d be as new to him as he is to you.”
“But killing is a way of life to him, Karl. He’s damned good at it. And he has killed people who he thought were dangerous to him before. He claims I don’t even have the potential to be dangerous to him personally.”
“Do you imagine he’s never made a mistake?”
“He’s still alive.”
“No wonder. Look how good he is at scaring the hell out of his opponents before he faces them. If you accept him as all-knowing and invulnerable, you’d better be able to live without recruiting for as long as he says. Because you’ll be in no shape to face him. You’ll have already beaten yourself!”
We stared at each other for a long moment, and I could see that he was as worried as he sounded. “You know I’m not going to give him my life,” I said quietly. “Or the lives of my Patternists. If I have to fight him, it will be a battle, not a rout.”
“You’ll take strength from us.”
I winced, looked away. “Some of you at least.”
“The strongest of us. Beginning with me.”
I nodded. To protect them, I had to risk them. They could be killed even if I wasn’t. If I was desperate and rushed, as I probably would be, I might take too much of their strength. And I would be killing them. Not Doro. They were my people, and I would be killing them.
Doro stayed at Larkin House that night. We still kept his room ready for him though he didn’t use it much any more. He didn’t intend to use it that night. Instead he came across the hall to my room. I was sitting in the middle of my bed in the dark, thinking. He walked in without knocking.
He and I hadn’t made love for over a year, but he walked in as though there had been no break at all. Knowing him, I wasn’t surprised. He sat on the side of my bed, took off his shoes, and lay down beside me fully clothed. I was stark naked myself.
“I checked on a few of your searchers,” he said. “I see they’re starting for home.”
I didn’t say anything. I had mixed emotions about his just being there. I had promised Karl that I’d use my “lever,” try to change Doro’s mind. Now looked like a good time for that. But, since he was Doro, I wouldn’t get anything past him that I didn’t mean. If I was going to be able to reach him at all, it had to be with truth.
“I’m glad you’re cooperating,” he said. “I was afraid you might not.”
“I got the message you left with Emma,” I said. “Although I think you laid it on kind of thick.”
“I wasn’t acting. I wasn’t trying to scare you, either. I was honestly worried about you.”
“Why make impossible demands of me and then worry about me?”
“Impossible?”
“Hard, then. Too hard.”
He just looked at meat what he could see of me in the light from the window.
“Hard on the others, too.”
He shrugged.
“You’ve stayed away from us too long,” I said. “It’s easy for you to hurt us, because you don’t really know us any more.”
“Oh, I know you, girl.”
That didn’t sound too good. “I mean you used to be one of us. You could be again, you know.”
“Your people don’t need me. Neither do you.”
“You’re our founder,” I said. “Our father. We teach the new Patternists about you, but that isn’t enough. They should get to know you.”
“And me them.”
“Yes.”
“It won’t work, Mary.”
I frowned down at him. He was lying flat on his back now, looking up at the ceiling. “If you get to know us as we are now, Doro, you might find that we really are the people, the race, that you’ve been working for so long to build. We already belong to you, and you can be one of us. We haven’t shut you out.”
“It’s surprising how eloquent you can become when you want something.”
I hung on to my temper. “You know I’m not just talking. I mean what I’m saying.”
“It doesn’t matter. Because it’s not going to change anything. The order I gave you is final. I’m not going to be talked out of it. Not by getting to know your people better. Not by renewing my relationship with you.”
“What are you doing here, then?”
“Oh, I intend to renew our relationship. I just don’t intend to let you charge me for it.”
I kicked him out of the bed. We were positioned perfectly for it. I just let him have it in the side with both feet. He fell, cursing, and got up holding his side.
“What the hell was that supposed to prove?” he demanded. “I thought you had outgrown that kind of behavior.”
“I have. I only give it to you because it’s what you want.”
He ignored that, sat down on the bed. “That was a stupid, dangerous thing to do.”
“No it wasn’t. You have some control. You can control your mouth too when you want to.”
He sighed. “Well, at least you’re back to normal.”
“Shit!” I muttered and turned away from him. “Pleading for my people isn’t normal. Acting like a latent is normal. Stay with us, Doro. Get to know us again, whether you think you’ll change your mind or not.”
“What is it you want me to see that you think I’ve missed?”
“The fact that your kids really have grown up, man. I know actives and latents didn’t use to be able to do that. They had too many problems just surviving. Surviving alone. We weren’t meant for solitude. But the Pattern has let us grow up.”
“What makes you think I haven’t noticed that?”
I looked at him sharply. Something really ugly had come into his voice just then.
Something I would have expected to hear in Emma’s voice but not his. “Yeah,” I said softly. “Of course you know. You even said it yourself a couple of minutes ago. It must have come as kind of a shock to you that after four thousand years, your work, your children, were suddenly as finished as you could make them. That they … didn’t need you any more.”
He gave me a look of pure hatred. I think he was as close to taking me at that moment as he had ever been. I touched his hand.
“Join us, Doro. If you destroy us, you’ll be destroying part of yourself. All the time you spent creating us will be wasted. Your long life, wasted. Join us.”
The hatred that had flared in his eyes was concealed again. I suspected it was more envy than hatred. If he had hated me, I would already have been dead. Envy was bad enough. He envied me for doing what he had bred me to dobecause he was incomplete, and he would never be able to do it himself. He got up and walked out of my room.
KARL
In only ten days Karl knew without doubt that Mary’s suspicions had been justified. She wasn’t going to be able to obey Doro. She had begun sensing latents again without intending to, without searching for them. Sooner or later she was going to have to begin pulling them in again. And the day she did that would very likely be the day she died.
She and how many others?
Karl watched her with growing concern. She was like a latent now, trying to hold herself together, and no one knew it but she and Karl. She kept shielded, and she was actress enough to conceal it from the othersexcept possibly Doro. And Doro didn’t care.
Mary had already talked to him and been refused. That tenth night, Karl went in to talk to him. He pleaded. Mary was in trouble. If she could even be given a small quota of the latents that Doro valued least
“I’m sorry,” said Doro. “I can’t afford her unless she can obey me.”
It was a dismissal. The subject was closed. Karl got up wearily and went to Mary’s room.
She was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Just staring. She did not move as he came to sit beside her, except to take his hand and hold it.
“What did he say?” she asked.
“You’ve been reading me,” he said mildly.
“If I had, I’d know what he said. I was coming upstairs a few minutes ago. I saw you go into his room.” She sat up and looked at him intently. “What did he say, Karl?”
“He said no.”
“Oh.” She lay down again. “I knew damned well he would. I just keep hoping.”
“You’re going to have to fight.”
“I know.”
“And you’re going to win. You’re going to kill him. You’re going to do whatever you have to do to kill him!”
Like a latent, she turned onto her side, clutched her head between her hands, and curled her body into a tight knot.
The next day, Karl called the family together. Mary had gone to see August, and Karl wanted to talk to the others before she returned. She would find out what had been said. He planned to tell her himself, in fact. But he wanted to talk to them first without her.
They already knew why Mary had called in her searchers. They didn’t like it. Mary’s enthusiasm over the Pattern’s growth had infected them long ago. Now Karl told them that Mary’s submission could not last. That Mary’s own needs would force her to disobey, and that when she disobeyed, Doro would kill her. Or try to.
“It’s possible that with our numbers we can help her defeat him,” Karl said. “I don’t know how she’ll handle things when the time comes, but I have a feeling she’ll want to get as many of the people away from the section as she can. Doro has told us that actives couldn’t handle themselves in groups before the Pattern. I know Mary’s afraid of the chaos that might happen here if she’s killed while we’re all together. So I think she’ll try to give the people some warning to get out of Forsyth, scatter. If any of you want to scatter with them, she’ll almost certainly let you go. The idea of other Patternists dying either because she dies or because she takes too much strength from them is bothering her more than the thought of her own death.”
“Sounds like you’re telling us to cut and run,” said Jesse.
“I’m offering you a choice,” said Karl.
“Only because you know we won’t take it,” said Jesse.
Karl looked from him to the others, let his gaze pass over them slowly.
“He speaks for all of us,” said Seth. “I didn’t know Mary was in trouble. She hides things too well sometimes. But now that I do know, I’m not going to walk out on her.”
“And how could I leave the school?” said Ada. “All the children …”
“I think Doro has made a mistake,” said Rachel. “I think he’s waited too long to do this. I don’t see how any one person could resist so many of us. I don’t even see why we have to risk Mary, since she’s the only one of us who’s irreplaceable. If the rest of us got together and”
“Mary says that wouldn’t work,” said Karl. “She says it wouldn’t even work against her.”
“Then, we’ll all have to give her our strength.”
“To be honest, she’s not sure that will work either. Doro says strength alone isn’t enough to beat him. I suspect he’s lying. But the only way to find out for sure is for her to tackle him. So she will gather strength from some or all of us when the time comes. We’re the only weapons she has.”
“If she’s not careful,” said Jesse, “she won’t have time to try itor time to warn the people to scatter. Doro knows she’s in trouble, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“He might decide there’s no point in waiting for her to break.”
“I’ve thought about that,” said Karl. “I don’t think she’ll let him surprise her. But, to be sure, I’m going to start work on her tonighttalk her into going after him. Preparing herself, and going after him.”
“Are you sure you can talk her into it?” asked Jan.
“Yes.” Karl looked at her. “You haven’t said anything. Are you with us?”
Jan looked offended. “I’m a member of this family, aren’t I?”
Karl smiled. Jan had changed. Her art had given her the strength that she had always lacked. And it had given her a contentment with her life. She might even be a live woman
now, instead of a corpse, in bed. Karl wondered briefly but not seriously. Mary was woman enough for him if he could find some way of keeping her alive.
“I think Doro has made more than one mistake,” said Jan. “I think he’s wrong to believe that Mary still belongs to him. With the responsibility she’s taken on for all that she’s built here, she belongs to us, the people. To all of us.”
“I suspect she thinks it’s the other way around,” said Rachel. “But it wouldn’t hurt if we went to some of the heads of houses and said it Jan’s way. They’re our best, our strongest. Mary will need them.”
“I don’t know whether I’ll be able to get her to take them,” said Karl. “I intend to try, though.”
“When Doro starts chewing at her, she’ll take anybody she can get,” said Jesse.
“If she has time, as you said,” said Karl. “I don’t want it to come to that. That’s why I’m going to work on her. And, look, don’t say anything to the heads of houses. Word will spread too quickly. It might spread to Doro. God knows what he’d do if he realized his cattle had finally gotten the nerve to plot against him.”
Chapter Twelve
MARY
When I woke up on the morning after Karl had talked to Doro, I found that my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I felt the way I had a few days before my transition. With Karl, I didn’t even bother to hide it.
He said, “Open to me. Maybe I can help.”
“You can’t help,” I muttered. “Not this time.”
“Let me try.”
I looked at him, saw the concern in his eyes, and felt almost guilty about doing as he asked. I opened to him not because I thought he could help me but because I wanted him to realize that he couldn’t.
He stayed with me for several seconds, sharing my need, my hunger, my starvation. Sharing it but not diminishing it in any way. Finally he withdrew and stood staring at me bleakly. I went to him for the kind of comfort he could give, and he held me.
“You could take strength from me,” he said. “It might ease your”
“No!” I rested my head against his chest. “No, no, no. You think I haven’t thought of that?”
“But you wouldn’t have to take much. You could”
“I said no, Karl. It’s like you said last night. I’m going to have to fight him. I’ll take from you then, and from the others. But not until then. I’m not the vampire he is. I give in return for my taking.” I pulled away from him, looked at him. “God, I’ve got ethics all of a sudden.”
“You’ve had them for some time, now, whether you were willing to admit to them or not.”
I smiled. “I remember Doro wondering before my transition whether I would ever develop a conscience.”
Karl made a sound of disgust. “I just wish Doro had developed one. Are you going out?”
“Yes. To see August.”
He didn’t say anything to that, and I wondered whether he realized this might be my last visit to our son. I finished dressing and left.
I saw August and spent some time strengthening Evelyn’s programming, seeing to it that she would go on being a good mother to him even if Karl and I weren’t around. And I planted some instructions that she wouldn’t need or remember until August showed signs
of approaching transition. I didn’t want her panicking then, and taking him to a doctor or a hospital. Maybe I needn’t have worried. Maybe Doro would see that he was taken care of. And maybe not.
I went home and managed to get through a fairly ordinary day. I passed a man and a woman to become heads of houses. They had been Patternists for over a year, and I read just about everything they had done during that year. Karl and I checked all prospective heads of houses. Back when we hadn’t checked them, we’d gotten some bad ones. Some
who had been too warped by their latent years to turn human again. We still got those kind, but they didn’t become heads of houses any more. If we couldn’t straighten them out, or heal themif healing was what they neededwe killed them. We had no prison, needed none. A rogue Patternist was too dangerous to be left alive.
That was probably the way Doro felt about me. It went with what he had told Karl. “I can’t afford her unless she can obey me.” We were too much alike, Doro and I. What ever gave him the idea that someone bred to be so similar to him would consentcould consentto being controlled by him all her life?
I passed my two new heads of houses, but I told them not to do anything toward beginning their houses for a week. They didn’t like that much, but they were so happy to be passed that they didn’t argue. They were bright and capable. If, by some miracle, the Pattern still existed in a week, they would be a credit to it in their new positions.
I went with Jesse to see the houses he was opening up in Santa Elena. He asked me to go. I didn’t have to see them. I only checked on the family now and then. And when I did, I could never find much to complain about. They cared about what we were building. They always did a good job.
In the car Jesse said, “Listen, you know we’re all with you, don’t you?”
I looked at him, not really surprised. Karl had told him. No one else could have.
“I just wish we could take him on for you,” said Jesse.
“Thanks, Jess.”
He glanced at me, then shook his head. “You don’t look any more nervous over facing him than you did over facing me a couple of years ago.”
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