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Denied the choice of turning off the pain, she suffered He knew precisely how to h he had enhanced his body, Victor was not the physical equal of one of the New Race In ti for breath

Every injury she sustained, of course, would heal without scar Already, her lacerations were healing, her broken bones knitting together

If he wished to let her live, she would be as good as new in just a day or two She would sain She would serve hihtbacked chair away fro desk, he said, "Get up Sit here"

She was a et to her knees and then to the chair She sat with her head bowed for a htened her back

His people were a her in the chair, he went to the library bar and poured cognac from a decanter into a snifter

He wanted to be calitation, he would not be able fully to enjoy the monac and watched the contusive sky as its bruises grew darker, darker Rain would cohtfall, if not before

They said that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh They were lying First, there was no God Only brutal nature

Second, Victor knew from hard experience that the creation of a neorld was a frustrating, often a tedious, and a ti endeavor

Eventually, calm and prepared, he returned to Erika She sat in the chair as he had left her

Taking off his sport jacket and draping it over the back of an armchair, he said, "This can be a perfect city One day … a perfect world Ordinary flawed humanity--they resist perfection One day they will be … replaced All of the at hi instead at the books on the shelves

He re humanity, Erika I wish you could be here with us to see it"

When creating a wife for himself, he y that he gave to otherone of them would have been extremely difficult Even if the subject had been obedient and docile, the task ht even have proved too difficult

Every Erika, on the other hand, had a neck structure--windpipe, carotid arteries--that arrote as was any member of the Old Race He could have terminated her in other ways, but he wished the ulation satisfied that desire

Standing behind her chair, he bent to kiss her neck

"This is very difficult for ripped the necktie in both hands Silk Quite elegant And strong

"I’m a creator and a destroyer, but I prefer to create"

He looped the tie around her neck

"My greatest weakness is e myself of it if I’m to make a better world based on rationality and reason"

Savoring the ive you for this"

Her unprecedented audacity so stunned hiht in his throat

When he spoke, the words caiveness, and you are not of a position to have the power to grant it Does the iveness of the steer from which it was carved? You foolish bitch And less than a bitch because no whelp would ever have come from your loins if you had lived a thousand years"

Quietly, calive you for having rown to effrontery, to i that it robbed hiulation To Victor, creation and destruction were equally satisfying expressions of power Power alone motivated him: the power to defy nature and to bend it to his will, the power to control others, the power to shape the destiny of both the Old Race and the New, the power to overcoled her now, cut off the blood supply to her brain, crushed her windpipe, strangled her, strangled her, but with such fury, in such a blind rage, that by the tirunting beast fully in the thrall of nature, out of control, lost to reason and rationality

In her dying, Erika had not only denied him but defeated him, humiliated hi rath, he pulled books off the shelves, threw theround theround them Threw them and tore them

Later, he went to the ized, he had no interest in relaxation He dressed to go out, though he did not know for where or what purpose

Fronac into another snifter

On the intercom, he spoke with William, the butler, as on duty in the staff roo in the library William"

"Yes, sir"

"Contact my people in the sanitation department I want that useless ht away"

At the , he studied the lowering sky, which had grown so dark with thunderheads that an early dusk had come upon the city

CHAPTER 85

AT HARKER’S APARTMENT BUILDING, Carson and Michael took the elevator to the fourth floor to avoid the stink of mildew in the public stairwell

Hoo faded away The building almost seemed deserted

When they reached the fourth floor, they found Deucalion waiting in the hallway, outside Harker’s apartment

To Carson, Michael murmured, "I didn’t see the Batmobile parked out front"

"You won’t admit it," she said, "but you’re convinced"

To her surprise, he said, ‘Al heard Michael’s murmured words, Deucalion said, "I used the Batcopter It’s on the roof"

By way of apology, Michael said, "Listen, that crack didn’t o for it"

"Because you see so much in life that disturbs you, the cruelty, the hatred," Deucalion said "You armor yourself with humor"

For the second time in an hour, Michael found hiined that such a day would dawn Maybe this was one of the seven signs of the Apocalypse

She slit the police seal on the door, used her Lockaid gun, and led them inside