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“Hey, honey, what’s the rush?” One of the men had come off his bar stool. He was a big man, the kind who had played football in school, and whose muscles had since turned to fat. He had no neck and a brick-shaped head.

Jennifer made it out of the restaurant and turned down the long, red-carpeted hallway that led to their room. But if he followed her, she realized, he’d know where to find them. She stepped abruptly out of the hallway and into the small alcove that had the ice and Coke machines.

“Hey, I’ve got some rum to go with that Coke of yours,” the man said, turning the corner. He wore steel-rimmed glasses that pinched his face. He was grinning.

“Please, go away,” she asked, refusing to look at him.

“Hey, honey, Pete and me, we just wanted to buy you and your girlfriend a drink. Jesus Christ, you could be a little sociable. I mean, we aren’t out to rape you. Hey, here’s my card.” He flashed a small white card from his vest pocket. “The name’s Buddy Rich. No relation, right? I’m the district salesman for Connect Computer.” He seemed to swell before her. “We’re the largest computer firm east of Illinois, servicing hospitals, universities, major companies.” He had blocked her from the exit as he waved the card in her face. “Take it!” he ordered.

Jennifer took it from him.

“There! That’s not so bad, right?”

She could smell the liquor on his breath, smell his sweat, and she was knew what was coming. She knew she could not stop herself, not without help.

“Please,” she whispered.

“I think a couple of granddaddies and you’ll be just fine. Whatcha say?” He was leaning close.

“Please?” she asked. By now she was backed up against the wall of the alcove. She concentrated on sounds—the humming of the giant Coke machine, the rumbling of the ice maker. Then he touched her.

Jennifer grabbed him by the throat before he took his hand off her shoulder. She looked up and saw his pale blue eyes bulge in his face. She smiled at him so he knew she was enjoying this.

She was holding him several inches above the cement floor with one outstretched arm, marveling at her own strength. Then she turned slowly around, spinning until she realized he had lost control of his bowels. Without pausing, she slammed his face against the ice machine. The blow broke his glasses and bloodied his face, and a bucket of small cubes tumbled from the machine and cracked against the concrete floor. Still holding him with one hand, she shoved his square head into the opening of the ice maker. His head was too big for the slot and she had to press harder, tearing the flesh off his forehead and the tips of his ears before she had successfully wedged him into place.

She left him there with his head jammed in the ice maker, kneeling in his own urine and excrement, and stepped into the dark hallway where Eileen stood, trembling and terrified.

“I think we had better check out,” Jennifer said, and walked down the long hallway to their room.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

“STOP LOOKING BACK, JENNY! He’s not following us.”

“How can you be so sure?” Jennifer glanced again out the rear window of the station wagon but saw no cars or flashing police lights gaining on them. The road was blank. They were alone on the dark interstate, traveling west through Ohio. It had begun to snow slightly, and the high beams picked up the flakes blowing against the windows. Jennifer felt the car shake as it was buffeted by bursts of wind.

“He’s not about to go to the police and tell them some woman shoved his fat face into an ice machine.” Eileen started to giggle, remembering. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so impressed in my life. Jenny, you beat the shit out of that guy! Like you were Rambo or someone!”

“More like Hulk Hogan,” Jennifer answered. She was sitting in the backseat with a car blanket wrapped around her, shivering. The cold was something that came with her power. When she calmed down, she knew, she’d feel better, and her hands would stop trembling. She wondered if it was her fear that provoked the trembling, or simply the aftermath of her rage.

“We’re okay, Jenny. I tell you, stop worrying.”

“I wish I could.” Jennifer buried her face in the thick blanket to smother her tears. She was so tired of crying. Her emotional swings, she thought, were as disturbing as her extraordinary strength. “Eileen, I don’t think I can do this. I can’t sit in this car all the way to Minnesota.”

“We’re not going to drive all the way. Right now, we’re an hour from Akron. We can leave the car there and fly to St. Paul. I’ll telephone Kathy, and she’ll have someone meet us at the airport. If we make good connections, we’ll be on the farm by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Where is it, exactly?”

“About an hour north of St. Paul. It’s beautiful country. You’ll love it!”

“Who’s there? Besides Kathy?” Jennifer pulled herself up in the backseat, realizing how little she knew about Kathy Dart. She would never have taken such a spontaneous trip if it weren’t for Eileen. It was really Eileen Gorman whom she trusted.

“There’s Aurora, Kathy’s daughter. She’s a beautiful child, so gifted, just like her mother.”

“What about her father? Kathy’s husband?” Jennifer asked. She had been so wrapped up in her own problems that she had never even considered the personal life of Kathy Dart.

In the car’s dark interior Jennifer could see Eileen shaking her head.

“I really don’t know that much. No one does. I mean, you heard what Kathy said in Washington, how she was living in California and unhappily married.” Eileen shrugged. “That’s about all any of us know. The outsiders, I mean.”

“But there must be more. There’s always more,” Jennifer said. They drove in silence for a moment. Jennifer found she did not want to look out the window. She was afraid of the dark, afraid of everything that was new to her. And that fear made her angry. It was as if part of her life had been taken away from her.

“So besides Aurora, who’s on the farm?” she asked next, breaking the silence.

“Let’s see, I’m not really sure. People come and go. When Kathy isn’t traveling, she holds sessions in the tukul. That’s the main building, where they all have their meals and hang out. And it’s the place for community meetings.”

“Is it like that place out in Oregon—that Indian cult with free love?” Maybe she had taken too much on faith.

“No! It’s nothing like that, Jennifer,” Eileen soothed. “You’re getting yourself all bent out of shape over nothing. I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t do that to myself!”

“I don’t know what to think. But I do know I don’t want to get mixed up in any sort of weird movement, with chanting and wearing red and having sex with guys who shave their heads. I just want to talk to Kathy Dart.”

“And you will,” Eileen answered, encouragingly. “People consult her all the time. When I was out in September, a group of corporate types—you know, chief executives, vice presidents—were taking this human-potential training that Kathy offers. She has a one-week session called Desta, which is Ethiopian for ‘happy,’ and during the week she channels Habasha.:

“But there’s other stuff, too: role-playing, confessions, meditation. Kathy says that it’s helpful for people—especially managers—to discover their own self-defeating attitudes. And I tell you, Jenny, after a week out there, these guys were just flying! They were so excited. I remember thinking that if all Kathy Dart and Habasha ever do is bring such joy to a bunch of businessmen, well, then, channeling is worth it.”

Jennifer smiled as she listened. She had forgotten how enthusiastically Eileen embraced the world.

“Okay, business guys, who else?” she asked, trying to envision what the farm was like.