“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.”
I shrugged. “I don’t think I can afford to broadcast my feelings.”
“With all of us behind you, I think you can beat him.”
“I intend to.”
Big talk. I wondered why I bothered.
There were a few other routine duties. I welcomed them, because they kept my mind off how bad I felt. That night, I didn’t feel like eating. I went to my room while everyone else was at dinner. Let them eat. It might be their last meal.
Karl came up about two hours later and found me looking out my window at nothing, waiting for him.
“I’ve got to talk to you,” he saidjust before I could say it to him.
“Okay.” I sat down in the chair by the window. He sprawled on my bed.
“We had a meeting todayjust the family. I told them what kind of trouble you were in, told them that you were going to fight. And I told them they could run if they wanted to.”