Scotland. So did Michael.”
“Lauren, there isn’t anything we can do but wait,” said Randall. “We have done all we can. We must very simply stay together. The thing is not going to give up. It’s bound to surface. We simply have to be ready when this happens.”
“How are we going to do that?” asked Mona.
“Aaron,” said Ryan, his voice very soft, “can’t your people in Amsterdam and London help us? I thought this was your field, this sort of thing. I remember Gifford said over and over again, ‘Aaron knows,’ ‘Talk to Aaron.’?” There was something sad and whimsical in his smile as he said this.
Pierce had never seen his father act or speak in this way.
“That’s just it,” said Aaron. “I don’t know. I thought I did. I thought I knew the whole story of the Mayfair Witches. But obviously there are things I do not know. There are people connected with our Order who are investigating this under an authority other than mine. I am getting no clear answer from the London office, except that I am to wait to be contacted. I am at a loss. I really don’t know what to tell you to do. I’m…disillusioned.”
“You can’t give up on us,” said Mona. “Forget about these guys in London. Don’t give up on us!”
“You have a point,” said Aaron. “But I don’t know that I have anything new to offer.”
“Oh, hell, come on,” said Mona. “Look, will somebody go in there and call Michael? I don’t understand why we aren’t hearing from Michael. Michael was going to change clothes and come up to Amelia Street.”
“Well, maybe he did,” said Anne Marie. She pressed the button on a small box beneath the table. In a subdued voice she said into the speaker, “Joyce, call Amelia Street. See if Michael Curry is there.” She looked at Mona. “That’s simple enough.”
“Well, if you want me to offer what I have,” said Aaron, “if you want me to speak up-”
“Yes?” Mona urged him on.
“I’d say the thing is most certainly looking for a mate. And if it does find that mate, if the child is conceived and born while the thing is still there to take the child away, then we have quite literally a monstrous problem.”
“I’d rather stick with catching the thing,” said Randall, “rather than speculating on-”
“I’m sure you would,” said Aaron. “But you must think back on everything Dr. Larkin said. On what Rowan said to him. This thing has an enormous reproductive advantage! Do you understand what that means? For centuries this family has lived with one simple story: that of the man, and the man wanting to be flesh. Well, we are now dealing with something far worse-the man is not merely flesh, he is a unique and powerful species.”
“Do you think this thing was planned?” Lauren asked. Her voice was cold and small and unhurried-Lauren when she was most unhappy, and most determined. “Do you think it was planned from the very beginning? That we would not only nourish this thing in our family but provide the women for it?”
“I don’t know,” said Aaron, “but I do know this. Whatever its superiority, it has to have some weaknesses.”
“The scent, it can’t hide that,” said Mona.
“No, I’m speaking of physical weaknesses, something of that sort,” Aaron said.
“No. Dr. Larkin was specific. So were the people in New York. The thing seems to have a powerful immunity.”
“Increase and multiply and subdue the earth,” said Mona.
“What does that have to do with it?” demanded Randall.
“That’s what it will do,” said Aaron quietly. “If we don’t stop it.”
Twenty-three
AH, YOU CANNOT imagine the miracle of her voice, and how much I loved her, loved her completely whether she was Cortland’s child or not. It was a love we feel for those who are our own and like unto us, and yet too many years lay between us. I felt desperate and helpless and all alone, and when I sat down on the side of my bed, she sat beside me.
“Tell me, Evelyn, child, you see the future. Carlotta came to you. What did you see?”
“I don’t see,” Evelyn said in a voice as small as her round little face, her gray eyes appealing to me to accept and to understand. “I see the words and I speak the words, but I do not know their meaning. And long ago, I learned to keep quiet and let the words fade away unread, unspoken.”
“No, child. Hold my hand. What do you see? What do you see for me and my family? What do you see for all of us? Are we one clan with one future?”
Even through my tired fingers I felt her pulse, her warmth, the witches’ gifts, as we always said, and I saw that small, that evil sixth finger. Oh, I would have had it cut off, painlessly and with skill, if I had been her father. And to think that Cortland was-my own son. I meant to kill Cortland.
First things first. I held tight to her hand.
Something shifted in her perfect little circle of a face; her chin lifted so that her neck seemed all the more long and beautiful. She began to speak the poem, her voice soft and rapid, borne by the rhythm itself:
For two nights and two days she stayed in this room with me.
No one dared to break in the door. Her great-grandfather Tobias came and threatened. His son Walker roared at the gate. I do not know how many others came or what they said, or even where all the quarrels took place.
