this case he thought it might be true. He even had to wonder if somehow he had known it was going to be that way. A month ago, when he was wrestling with the need to call Anne back into service, he had dreamed: He and Anne were lying together on the rug in front of the downstairs fire, just at that urgent stage between caresses and actual intercourse, when the smooth pink scars scattered across her body, remnants of glass shards and shotgun pellets, had awakened under his touch and begun to move, twitching independently of each other until they opened and became numerous tiny mouths, gaping against the palm of his hand and speaking to him in tiny, insistent voices. He instantly shot awake, revolted by the sick eroticism of the image but so turned on, he had stirred Lisa awake and crawled into her for relief.
No, Anne had set the tone last night, as she always did in these encounters; he had only responded in kind. And it seemed to do the trick—she was always different after sex, softer and more womanly, and he knew that sex with him had become a part of the process by which she transformed herself into the character he had created for her. Sure, he had felt like he was knifing her last night when he stabbed into her, but she had responded, and that final gasp of pain had even set off her orgasm. And his.
It was light outside now, and by experience he knew that Anne would soon stir, making a small questioning chirp of a noise in the back of her throat as she half woke to his presence and pressed her back against him. When his rough face had nuzzled its way through her thick hair to the nape of her neck and his fingers located the intriguing mole on her left breast, she would begin to push back with a greater urgency, until after a minute she would twist around and fling her arms around his neck, and they would drown in each other until it was time to start the day.
All in all, Glen thought, smiling into the pillow and stiff now against the sheets, a hell of a way to begin an FBI investigation.
He turned then to reach for her, and sat up abruptly, his smile fading along with his arousal. The other side of the bed was empty.
Chapter Six
Anne Waverly, PhD
Duncan Point University, Oregon
Dear sir,
As the millenium draws to a close, we must be prepared for a sudden rise in the popularity of apocalyptic teaching and rnillenarial movements. The search for meaning seizes many disparate and apparently irrational handholds, and signs are seen in comets and calendars and anomalous weather patterns.
It is absolutely essential, therefore, that we develop a mechanism for communicating with these so-called cultists, a means of understanding their world-views, comprehending their symbolic language, and establishing a common tongue. In a situation involving a difficult, possibly hostile community, the primary act needs to be the establishment of a groundwork for communication between the governmental agencies involved and the religious community, and particularly the leader or leaders. The vocabulary and structure of apocalypticism may at first hearing seem irrational, even mad; however, if one regards it less as a symptom of delusional psychopathology and more as a complex language to be learned, a long step may be made on the road to communication, and an equally large step made back from the inevitability of confrontation. Previous experience has shown that if we can get the religious dynamics of the community under investigation down pat, when the time comes for intervention, armed or not, at least the two sides are able to speak a common language.
I write, both as a theoretician in the field and as an occasional active participant in investigations, that the FBI Cult Response Team be upgraded, in manpower and in resources. It would be a serious mistake to be taken unawares by a situation we can all see approaching.
Yours truly,
Anne M. Waverly, PhD
Excerpt from a memorandum sent by Dr. Anne Waverly to the FBI Cult Response Team, undated
The sudden panic that seized Glen and swept him to the top of the stairway went still with the awareness that someone was moving around down below and that the stairwell was warm from the woodstove. He stood, straining to hear, and abruptly relaxed into a relief that left him feeling queasy: Anne was in the kitchen, making breakfast.
He stepped back into the bedroom to retrieve the dressing gown she kept in the closet (a man's, size extra- extra large; he had never asked who had left it there, or who besides himself used it, although he knew that the man—or men—would have a lot of dark hair, a lot of upper-body muscle, and a real attitude). He started to pull it on, then changed his mind and went to take a shower first: If they did have a morning session, Anne might find a clean partner more appealing.
He showered and washed his hair with her coconut-smelling shampoo, and as the smell of it hit his nostrils, a cold thought shoved itself into his simple contentment. He looked sharply down at his feet, but the drain was clean of hair. He rinsed off and got out of the shower, took a towel from the rack (dry, he noted) and scrubbed at his head and face, shoulders and chest, and then wrapped it around his waist, tucking in the ends even as he was bending to peer into the wastebasket. It held two tissues and a loop of hair pulled out of a hairbrush—not what he was looking for. The tile around the sink was clean, but hanging off the edge he found one hair, perhaps eight inches long. He dropped to his knees, and on the floor he found it: a swatch of perhaps a dozen brown and gray hairs, cut flat on one end. In the drawer were the scissors she had used, with another long hair caught in the hinges. He stood up, curled the hair around his finger, and absently dropped the tuft into the pocket of his borrowed robe. What had he expected? 'No changes,' she had told him, and though he didn't altogether understand it, he knew it always happened.
Her toothbrush was not in its usual place in the cupboard, but he found the spares in her drawer and added a cellophane wrapper to the contents of the wastebasket so he could greet her with clean breath. He hung up the towel and put on the dressing gown, stuck another condom in the pocket, and pattered downstairs in his bare feet, happily registering the warmth of the woodstove and the smell of coffee emanating from the kitchen.
So vivid was Glen's anticipation that he took two steps into the room before his eyes informed him that the person sitting at the table with a steaming cup of coffee was not Anne. The man looked up, and Glen recognized Eliot Featherstone.
'There's coffee,' he told Glen, and went back to the disemboweled toaster in front of him.
Anne's toothbrush was missing, thought Glen starkly. He flung himself out the door and into the yard, where he was confronted by the sight of the barn door standing open with no vehicle inside it. Her old Land Rover was parked in its usual place with Eliot's pickup truck beside it; the Volkswagen bus she called Rocinante was gone.
Aware suddenly of his lack of shoes, Glen picked his tender-footed way back to the porch, past Stan, who was lying on the edge of the steps with his head between his front paws and his eyes on the empty barn.
'When did she leave?' he asked Eliot in the kitchen. The younger man stared at him blankly for a minute, processing the question and his answer.
'Four?' he said finally. 'Thereabouts.' He went back to his screws and wires.
Well, thought Glen, of course she's gone, that's what she was going to do. Am I going to get all disappointed that she didn't wave good-bye?
He looked bleakly out the window, catching sight of the hatchet in the splitting block, and became aware that his skin was prickling with a tainted sense of uneasiness and reluctance. It felt, in fact, remarkably like the sensation of uncleanness, of needing a shower, a really hot one. He had just taken one, but he was after all in the habit of shaving in the shower, so maybe he would just go back upstairs and drain Anne's water heater. He reached for a mug to pour himself some coffee, needing strength before he submitted his face to the crappy little pink plastic razors he hoped she still kept in the bathroom, and then he paused on his way out of the room to open the cabinet under the kitchen sink.
There in the compost bucket, mixed up with coffee grounds and eggshells, lay the thick, wavy mass of Anne Waverly's hair.
