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Chapter 1
Having cohtning that animated rather than incinerated, Deucalion had been born on a night of violence
A Bedlauished cries, his maker’s shrieks of triumph, the burr and buzz and crackle of arcane machinery echoed off the cold stone walls of the laboratory in the old windmill
When he woke to the world, Deucalion had been shackled to a table This was the first indication that he had been created as a slave
Unlike God, Victor Frankenstein saw no value in giving his creations free will Like all utopians, he preferred obedience to independent thought
That night, over two hundred years in the past, had set a theme of madness and violence that characterized Deucalion’s life for years thereafter Despair had fostered rage In his rages, he had killed, and savagely
These many decades later, he had learned self-control His pain and loneliness had taught him pity, whereafter he learned compassion He had found his way to hope
Yet still, on certain nights, without ier overcoer swells into a tidal rage that threatens to sweep hiht in New Orleans, Deucalion walked an alleyway on the periray, of blue, of black were enlivened only by the crihts
The air arm, humid, and alive with muffled jazz that the walls of the famous clubs could not entirely contain
In public, he stayed in shadows and used back streets, because his formidable size made him an object of interest As did his face
From the darkness beside a Dumpster, a wrinkled rum-soaked raisin of a man stepped forth "Peace in Jesus, brother"
Although that greeting didn’t suggest a er on the prowl, Deucalion turned toward the voice with the hope that the stranger would have a knife, a gun Even in his rage, he needed justification for violence
The panhandler brandished nothinghalitosis "One dollar’s all I need"
"You can’t get anything for a dollar," Deucalion said
"Bless you if you’re generous, but a dollar’s all I ask"
Deucalion resisted the urge to seize the extended hand and snap it off at the wrist as though it were a dry stick
Instead, he turned away, and did not look back even when the panhandler cursed hi the kitchen entrance to a restaurant, that door opened Two Hispanican open pack of cigarettes to the other
Deucalion was revealed by the security lamp above the door and by another directly across the alley froht of him One half of his face appeared normal, even handsome, but an intricate tattoo decorated the other half
The pattern had been designed and applied by a Tibetan ave Deucalion a fierce and almost demonic aspect
This tattoo was in effect a mask meant to distract the eye froe done by his creator in the distant past
Caught in the crosslight, Deucalion was sufficiently revealed for the two eoarded hiht stand witness to a spiritual visitation
He traded light for shadow, that alley for another, his rage escalating to fury
His huge hands shook, spasmed as if with the need to throttle He fisted them, jammed theht, in the cloying bayou air, he wore a long black coat Neither heat nor bitter cold affected him Nor pain, nor fear
When he quickened his pace, the commodious coat billowed as if it were a cloak With a hood, he ht have passed for Death himself
Perhaps h his very fiber His flesh was the flesh of nu been stolen fro interment
Of his two hearts, one came froed to a child molester
Even in a God-made man, the heart can be deceitful and wicked The heart so that the mind knows and believes
If the hands of a priest can do sinful work, then what can be expected of the hands of a convicted strangler? Deucalion’s hands had coray eyes had been plucked from the body of an executed ax h theh the unprecedented stor
His brain had once filled the skull of an unknown miscreant Death had erased all memory of that former life, but perhaps the cerebral circuits re fury took hiiers These darker byere rank and busy with illegal enterprise
One shabby block accoe and acupuncture clinic; a tattoo parlor; a pornographic video shop; and a raucous Cajun bar Zydecothe alleyway behind these businesses, piirls whom they supplied to the brothel
Two slicks in Hawaiian shirts and white silk trousers, gliding on roller skates, peddled cocne cut with powdered Viagra to the whorehouse clientele They were having a special on Ecstasy andline behind the porno shop Hardcase bikers see security for the whorehouse or for the bar Or for the drug dealers Perhaps for all of the them, noticed by some, not by others For him, a black coat and blacker shadows could be al as a cloak of invisibility
The ht hi of the quantu radually applying that knowledge, he could when he wished race, a stealth that others found bewildering
An argu woman at the back door of the whorehouse drew Deucalion as blood in the water draws a shark
Although dressed to arouse, the girl looked fresh-faced and vulnerable She o, Wayne," she pleaded "I want out"
Wayne, the biker, held her by both arreen door "Once you’re in, there is no out"
"I’e fast"
Through tears, she said, "I never kneas gonna be like this"
"What did you think it would be like, you dumb bitch? Richard Gere and Pretty Woly and he stinks"
"Joyce, honey, they’re all ugly and they all stink After nuirl saw Deucalion first, and her widening eyes caused Wayne to turn
"Release her," Deucalion advised
The biker--massive, with a cruel face--was not ier, and you ht leave with your cojones"
Deucalion seized his adversary’s right arm and bent it behind his back so suddenly, with such violence, that the shoulder broke with a loud crack He pitched the big man away from him
Briefly airborne, Wayne landed face-first, his scream stifled by a mouthful of blacktop