You are mine you are mine you are mine.
Something toxic shifted to her throat and caught there. Breathing became a chore, and she focused on it until it felt like a natural action once more.
“You were afraid of me then,” he said.
Her memory of that time was green as new grass. How quickly she taught herself not to feel. How quickly she understood that the worst evil was to become him, the worst mistake to feed him with fear or grief or pain. And when it was over, she’d embraced the fears that haunted the streets she’d walk as a ghost, a girl child who survived her own death.
“No,” she said. “I wasn’t afraid. You know that.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “And now? You’re afraid now, aren’t you?”
“Not of dying,” she said, which was true.
He tilted his head back and breathed in through his nose, swallowed as if drinking her. “Not afraid of dying,” he murmured. “Then what?”
She considered. When the worst had already happened, the time for fear was past. “I’m not afraid at all,” she said. “Not anymore.”
He wrinkled his nose, as if something unpleasant had been dropped into the stew he was sniffing. He raised a hand toward her, palm out. She tensed against it, closing herself, all thought, all emotion, contained in a space she held inviolable. She would not let him taste this.
She felt him pushing against her, this creature who cared for nothing but feeding and not dying.
She struggled with her body, feeling the life go cold and empty with his, and with great effort, she brought a hand up and slapped him hard in the face.
He stepped back, hissed. Testing. He was still testing his power against hers.
She laughed. “You can’t have me by killing me, and you won’t get me without killing me.”
“You’re wrong,” he said. “You’re mine already. I made you mine long ago. Now, I’ll make you live that.”
He reached down and grabbed her wrist, speaking inside her.
You will become me, know what I know, become what I am and live forever. So much you could do, so many children you could save. Think of it Jaguar. Think of it.
What he knew of power. All the time that was his. It could be hers. And perhaps in her hands it would be a different kind of power, wielded differently. It would be hers, wouldn’t it? All the children she could keep from him. All the children she could save.
She knew what he was doing. He’d tested the stick. Now he was letting her sniff the carrot. Neither one interested her.
She jerked her wrist from his grasp. “If I do what you want, I’ll feed like you. I’ll be you.”
His faced worked its way through anger and into another smile. “Everyone has to eat, Jaguar. Do you fault me because my food is different than yours?”
“Yes,” she said, cold now, echoing Daro. “And I will not become you.”
He laughed. “The boy is dead because of you,” he said. “The boy, and Clara. If you continue to refuse me, who do you suppose is next?”
He moved his hand across her eyes and she saw the faces he already knew. Rachel. Gerry. Jake and One Bird. And Alex. Of course, Alex.
He couldn’t kill her, but he could and would kill all she cared about to get her. He would go after all of them. Go after anyone she loved and kill them the way he killed Daro and Clara and she would be helpless to stop him. Unless she agreed to become him.
You can save them, Jaguar. Or you can watch them die.
Defeat settled into her. Any direction she moved was catastrophe. She’d fought him in her childhood, fought the results of what he did to her all her life. And he won anyway. He was right. She was bound to him.
She raised her face to his and he breathed in with deep pleasure, witnessing her defeat.
“Before I—“ she stopped, started again. “I have some things to take care of,” she said.
“You can settle your affairs before you come to me,” he said. “I know how to find you. But don’t try any tricks or you’ll regret it. And don’t take too long. When I’m tired of waiting, they’ll start to die. Alex will be first.”
He turned his back on her and went into his house, closing the door in her face.
Chapter 12
Planetoid Three—Toronto Replica, Zone 12
Alex stood at the window in his office, looking out and looking down. Looking for Jaguar. He felt as if he’d been standing there all of his life. Looking out and looking down. Looking for Jaguar.
She’d already filed her official research report, full of facts and absent any feeling. Daro was dead. Dr. Senci would not be coming to Planetoid 3. She’d made brief empathic contact with him, letting him know ahead of time what was coming, but even in that she stayed distant, official, clearly working hard to hold it together. He knew what shape she was in. Bad was the main word that came to mind. But he’d see for himself soon enough. She’d come back now. Her job was done.
She wouldn’t forget, though. Like her namesake, she latched on until death. They’d have to come up with some way to get Senci. When she came back.
He looked away from the window and glanced at his computer screen, which listed his unfinished reports file. He swore softly, moved his gaze back to the window and stared out some more. The sky was blue and big, empty of intent or emotion. It carried no unfinished reports, no failed assignments or incomplete files on matters of the heart.
He left the window and took a seat behind his desk. Everything was normal. He’d get some work done while he waited for her.
His telecom buzzed and he picked it up. On screen, unexpectedly, he saw Jaguar.
“Hi,” she said. “You got the report?”
He leaned forward on his elbows and studied her. Her eyes were dark with defeat. “I got it,” he said. “How do you feel?”
“As if I’ve been taking a bath in a vat of toxic waste. As if I never want to feel anything again.”
Reaching out to her, Alex felt the coldness that still surrounded her. It was the cold of willing relinquishment. The cold of the Greenkeeper. “Where are you?” he asked.
“Still in Toronto. Waiting for a flight.”
“When will you get in?” he asked.
She shook her head. “That’s why I called. I didn’t want you to worry. I’m taking some time off.”
Time off made sense, he thought. Time to heal, to cleanse the stink and ache of the case from her bones. If that’s all it was, he’d be fine with it, but he knew her, so that was a fairly big if.
“Where will you go?” he asked.
“New York first,” she said.
“Why there?”
“Because it’s not here,” she said. “Besides, it’s a hub city. I can go anywhere I want from there.”
“I’ll meet you,” he said. “I can get the red eye, I think.”
“No,” she said quickly, then added, “I—have to be on my own with this for a while.”
He met her gaze and pressed hard against it. “Where will you go, Jaguar?” he asked.
Her mouth twitched. “I don’t know.”
“None of your plans involve Senci, do they?” he asked. “Because if they do—“
“I don’t have any plans,” she said, her voice tight and high. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
No lie in that. She was on the edge. “Okay,” he whispered. “Okay. Just—remember you’re not alone, will you? Call me. Let me know where you land.”
She held out a hand, asking for a moment. He waited as she closed her eyes, pressed her fingers against her temples and breathed herself back to calm. When she opened her eyes her face had returned to its neutral position.
“I promise,” she said carefully, “I’ll call if you can help.”
That was slippery. Something slippery, stalking the edges of her words, peering around her defeated eyes and neutral face.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” he said.
Lines formed on her f
orehead. “If there is,” she said, “it’s because I can’t. Not yet. It—it hurts too much to talk about it.”
“Then show me,” he suggested, raising a hand toward the screen.
“I can’t. I can’t go over it again and again. Alex, please. Not yet. It would—it would kill me.”
Looking at her face, he believed her. Nor would he risk breaking her just to placate his own worries. “How long will you be away?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. I’ll—I promise you’ll hear from me.”
“If you want me,” he said, “I’ll be there in no time.”
“I know,” she said softly. “That I know. Alex?”
“Yes. I’m here.”
“Thank you,” she said.
And before he could respond, she was gone from the screen.
Chapter 13
Don’t feel, she told herself on the flight to New York. Don’t feel anything. Just think. Do what you need to do. Just think.
She got out her notebook and concentrated on tasks. She considered writing letters—one for Rachel, and one for Alex—but decided against it. No telling what would happen if she started to write. Words were too dangerous right now.
Instead, she made arrangements to transfer her pension and savings to Rachel’s account, postdating it four days. When Rachel got it she’d tell Alex and he’d understand the implications, so she had to make sure it didn’t arrive until he could no longer find her, but also had to still be alive when the funds transferred or it wouldn’t be legal. She sent a letter of resignation to Paul Dinardo on automatic email, also post-dated, using her name as the subject. When Paul saw it he’d take his time reading it, but she wouldn’t be a Planetoid Worker when she went to Senci.
Finally, she sent an email to her lawyer, instructing him to deliver certain items to one Alex Dzarny in the event of her death. Something twisted in her chest, and she pressed a hand to it.
Don’t feel, she reminded herself. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.
She couldn’t allow herself grief. She had to think. Alex was safe. Rachel was safe. Now she had to get the job done. First, she had to figure out what the job was.
Should she give herself to Senci? Would that stop him? Heal him? If he fed from her, would her spirit enter his and heal him? Was it her task to let him become her rather than becoming him? And if not, what would she do? Kill him? But how?
Her knife would be no help unless she could get to his heart and take it. How she’d do that without his noticing and objecting strongly was beyond her. Poison was her best bet. Something that slowed him down enough that she could use her knife. But how would she get it into him? She imagined he’d sniff out any poison in food a mile away, and he was too quick to let her get a hypo in him or let her shoot him with the Cyanide bullets some weapons used.
If she couldn’t heal him or kill him, was she to become his willing slave, living out her childhood nightmare for eternity, bound to him forever?
Davidson said, “Like the biochemicals that give Greenkeepers their name, the memory of fear is green, and its roots difficult of discovery. To weed it out takes a willing plunge into darkness and probable death.”
That, she thought, was pure Davidson—lovely, brutally honest, and unhelpful. But it might also be the most accurate description of what she had to do next. A willing plunge into darkness and death, her only remaining hope that death was swift.
She stared out the window at the smallness of the earth below. She had some promises to keep before she did anything. She told Jake and One Bird she’d go to them. She’d keep her word.
She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.
Planetoid Three—Toronto Replica, Zone 12
Alex completed his work for the day in a state of numb precision, paperwork passing over his desk, people coming in and out and talking to him. He responded automatically, efficiently, and then turned away. No one noticed anything wrong in his carefully held eyes and carefully chosen words. No one saw that he was waiting for something he couldn’t name. Rachel came in to ask if Jaguar wasn’t supposed to be back today, and he told her she was taking some time off. Resting.
Rachel nodded sympathetically. It was a rough case, and Jaguar wasn’t used to failure. Should she try and talk to her?
No, Alex told her. Not just yet. Give her a day or two. Rachel eyed him hard, but agreed.
When the day was over he went home, put himself into bed and slept as if he’d been hit with a rock. When the next morning rolled over him, he got up and did it again. And again. Somewhere at the bottom of his brain he knew he was waiting. He just didn’t know what for.
He went through the week this way, working hard, avoiding Jaguar’s friends, not returning calls from Gerry or Pinkie or Marie, not answering the questions Rachel had in her eyes. He couldn’t act on an inarticulate foreboding, so he had no choice but to wait for it to take definite shape or dissipate.
Toward the end of the week, toward the end of another day with no news good or bad, he felt frustration mounting. He had to do something. He wasn’t one to just react. He wanted, in some way, to act.
He picked up Dr. Senci’s folder and read it again. It didn’t tell him anything new and in anger he swept it off his desk, watched the papers skitter across the room. That was the best thing about hard copy, and probably why people still insisted on it. You could send it flying across the room when you were pissed off. You couldn’t do that with electronic files.
But then he picked it up, brought it back to his desk and put his hand on it, breathed himself into quiet and asked to enter into his gift. The art of the Adept was to become aware of future possibilities. Sometimes the knowledge was metaphoric. Sometimes it was direct.
Today, it was nonexistent.
All he found was a longing for Jaguar, a desire existing so strongly in the present no future possibility mattered. When he tried for what would be he saw nothing except her face. Felt nothing except her hair wound in his hands, tasted only her mouth under his, sweet enough to wake the dead.
He gave up, and returned to the work of the day.
He was reading Teacher reports when his office door opened and Rachel appeared, closing the door behind her. Strange of her not to knock first. And she looked frightened.
“What?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
She sat down hard in a chair. “Jaguar transferred all her money to my account,” she said. “I wouldn’t have found it for weeks, but I lost my cash card and had to check my balance. There’s—all her money, Alex.”
He pressed a hand hard against the edge of his desk. “All of it?”
Rachel opened her mouth to speak but was silenced by the buzz of the telecom. She stared at it, then at Alex. He let it buzz. His machine would pick it up. He didn’t want to talk to anyone.
His message kicked in, and then the voice of Board governor Paul Dinardo spoke.
“Okay,” Paul said, “so earlier today I get this screaming call from personnel that a certain Dr. Addams transferred her retirement funds to another account—One Rachel Shofet by name. They say she hasn’t filled out the proper forms, and it’s screwing them up.”
Alex laughed dryly. She would get that wrong. She was never any good with forms.
Paul’s message continued. “Now I really wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about her retirement because I don’t think she’ll make it that far, but then I get an email from her, post-dated and delayed. It’s a letter of resignation.” Paul sighed deeply. “You wanna tell me what’s going on, or you just wanna handle it? Lemme know, okay?”
Alex heard his machine buzz briefly and go silent. She had resigned. She’d given her money away. She was gone, and did not intend to come back.
He lifted his hand, made a fist, and brought it down hard on his desk.
“God fucking dammit,” he roared. “God damn her to hell she’s going after Senci.”
“Alex,” Rachel started to say, but he cut in.
“No,” he barked at her. “No, no, n
o I will not chase her. I will not spend my life chasing after her disasters and evasions I will not. I will not.”
He put his hand down to a clay bowl with a red feather in it that sat on his desk. He picked it up and drew it back as if to fling it across the room.
Rachel gasped. Alex stopped his motion, stared at the bowl.
It was a gift from Jaguar, a sign of her willingness to share who she was with him. He wanted to break it. He couldn’t.
But she’d lied to him. One more time, she’d lied.
Then, he thought, no. She hadn’t. As usual, she was a lousy liar, but the master of evasion. She’d asked him not to ask. She said it would kill her to tell him, and that he’d hear from her. All absolutely true.
She also said she’d call if he could help. She hadn’t called, which meant she thought he couldn’t help, and there was the real problem.
She was going against a Greenkeeper. For once, she might actually be right.
Rachel cleared her throat. “Book a seat on the next shuttle?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “And if there’s no seat, kill someone. Get their ticket.”
He put the bowl back on the desk and left his office. He had to get ready to go.
Chapter 14
Home Planet—New York City, USA
Dr. Senci stood in his Penthouse Apartment staring out the window at the city below. Then he threw his head back and bellowed into the night.
He had a pain in his body.
Pain coursed through his head in a ribbon of motion and landed squarely at the back of his eyes. He squeezed at his temples and bellowed more.
He didn’t like pain, and in the absence of wounding, he shouldn’t have any. Not for another two centuries at least, when this form might begin to show wear and tear that even feeding wouldn’t heal. Then he’d have to go through the tedious process of replacing it a few bits at a time, reconciling each bit to his core energy and shaping them to his peculiar genetic qualities. It was like feeding, except that it required access to at least four bodies simultaneously, and it could take months to complete. The bodies he used had to be alive throughout, so finding a place to work was a problem, because people chosen for the honor generally made a lot of noise.
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