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Chapter 1

The October wind came down from the stars With the hiss of an artist’s airbrush, it seeht like a mist of paint across the slate roofs of the church and abbey, across the higher s, and down the limestone walls Where patches of laere bleached by recent cold, the dead grass resembled ice in the lunar chill

At two o’clock in the , Deucalion walked the perie of the encircling forest He needed no lauide him; and he would have needed none even deep in the blackness of the mountain woods

Fro fro pines, but they inspired no anxiety He carried no weapon because he feared nothing in the forest, nothing in the night, nothing on Earth

Although he was unusually tall, th was not the source of his confidence and fortitude

He went downhill, past St Bartholomew’s School, where orphans with physical and developmental disabilities flew in their sleep, while Benedictine nuns watched over theela, thecharges was of flying under their oer, high above the school, the abbey, the church, the forest

Most of the ere dark, although lights glowed in Sister Angela’s office on the ground floor Deucalion considered consulting her, but she didn’t know the full truth of him, which she would need to know in order to understand his proble in spirit, born not of man and woman, but instead constructed fro, Deucalion was most at home in monasteries As the first--and, he believed, the sole surviving--creation of Victor Frankenstein, he belonged nowhere in this world, yet he did not feel like an outsider at St Bartholomew’s Abbey Previously, he had been comfortable as a visitor in French, Italian, Spanish, Peruvian, and Tibetan uest wing because he was plagued by a suspicion that seemed irrational but that he couldn’t shake He hoped that a walk in the cool mountain air would clear his troubled mind

By the time Deucalion circled the property and arrived at the entrance to the abbey church, he understood that his suspicion arose not fro but instead froh and sufficiently experienced to know that intuition was the highest fornored

Without passing through the door, he stepped out of the night and into the narthex of the church

At the entrance to the nave, he dared to dip two fingers in the font, n of the cross, and invoke the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit His existence was a blasphee to sacred order, because his ainst the divine and against all natural law Yet Deucalion had reason to hope that he was not just a thing of ht not be oblivion

Without walking the length of the center aisle, he went fro

The church lay ht focused on the crucifix towering over the altar and by votive candles flickering in crilass cups

As Deucalion appeared at the railing, he realized that another shared the church with hi movement fro from the first pew

At five feet seven and two hundred pounds, Brother Salvatore was less fat than solid, as an automobile compacted into a cube by a hydraulic press was solid He looked as if bullets would ricochet off hies of Salvatore’s faceaspect in his youth, when he lived outside the law But sixteen years in the monastery, years of reaze with kindness and reshaped his smile from brutish to beatific

At the abbey, he was Deucalion’s closest friend

His large hands, holding a rosary, seemed to be all knuckles, which is what his associates had called him in his former life Here at St Bartholomew’s, he was affectionately known as Brother Knuckles

"Who was it they said murdered sleep?" Knuckles asked

"Macbeth"

"I figured you’d know"

Perhaps because he was born from the dead, Deucalion lacked the daily need for sleep that was a trait of those born frohts when he slept, he always dreamed

Brother Knuckles knew the truth of Deucalion: his origin in a laboratory, his ani, his early crimes, and his quest for rede Deucalion’s sleepless nights, he usually occupied himself with books In his two centuries, he had read and reread est of the world’s libraries

"With me it ain’t Macbeth It’s memory," said the monk "Memory is pure caffeine"

"You’ve received absolution for your past"

"That don’t mean the past didn’t happen"

"Me"

"Guess I’ll spend the rest of s you here?"

Raising one hand to trace the contours of the ruined half of his once handsome face, Deucalionat the crucifix, the monk said, "That ain’t exactly news, my friend"

"I refer to my maker, not yours"

"Victor Frankenstein?"

That na as no other words had echoed

"Victor Helios, as he ain Somehow … he lives"

"How do you know?"

Deucalion said, "How do you know the ain at the crucifix, the ht of revelation"

"There is no light in my revelation It’s a dark tide inme He’s alive"

Chapter 2

Erskine Potter, the future mayor of Rainbow Falls, Montana, walked slowly around the dark kitchen, navigating by the green glow of the digital clocks in the two ovens

The clock in the upper oven read 2:14, and the clock in the lower oven displayed 2:11, as if tiuidly nearer the floor than nearer the ceiling

Being a perfectionist, Potter wanted to reset both clocks to 2:16, which was the correct time Time must be treated with respect Time was the lubricant that allowed the mechanism of the universe to function smoothly

As soon as he finished his current task, he would synchronize every clock in the residence He must ensure that the house remained in harmony with the universe

Henceforth, he would monitor the clocks twice daily to deter time If the problem wasn’t human error, Potter would disassemble the clocks and rebuild them