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Along the park pathway caed man on a skateboard His beard was unkempt, his ponytail tied with a blue cord He wore khakis, two layers of flannel shirts, and a toboggan cap Without glancing at either of theet asked
"Definitely just a loser"
"I keep thinking we’ve been made"
"Why?" Frost asked "Your roo the ice-creaood reason I just have this creepy feeling … I can’t explain it"
Frost and Dagget were FBI agents, though a kind of which even the Director had no knowledge Their names appeared nowhere on the official rolls of the Bureau
"Personally," Frost said, "I think no one’s interested in us I was going to suggest we can start working together safely if you want"
"Works for oing to need each other for backup"
As one, with a furious beating of the air, the flock of pigeons flew
Chapter 40
Riding shotgun, Michael phoned Erika Swedenborg to tell her that they were en route and would be at her door in a few minutes Because they had been in San Francisco when she called them less than an hour earlier, their arrival surprised her
Michael said, "Our elderly friend knew a shortcut We took a right turn at nevermore and then a hard left at everafter"
No sooner had Michael terational systeravel road flanked by enorate were as Erika had described them Carson stopped at the bell post, put down her , pushed the call button, and stared directly at the e open
On the front porch, at the top of the steps, the woman waited
Carson had met Erika Four in Louisiana, and this fifth edition appeared to be identical to the fourth Victor ht hate humankind, but his appreciation of huht have been how ancient Rooddess of the race, this physical vitality hich she seelow
Introductions took place on the porch, and to Deucalion, Erika said, "That we should meet astonishes me"
"And that we should be alive," he said
"In those days so long ago … was he then as he became?"
"The pride was there, a tendency to corruption," Deucalion said "Pride can becoance is the father of cruelty But in the beginning, there was also an idealise the human condition"
"Utopian ideas They always lead to destruction … blood, death, and horror And you--two centuries alone How have you … endured?"
"Rage and revenge at first Murder and brutality But gradually I realized I’d been given one gift greater than all others, the gift of possibility I could becoe can be a kind of pride I turned away froe"
Carson saw unshed tears in Erika’s eyes She doubted that Victor would be pleased that one of his New Orleans–bred New Race possessed enough euish In Victor’s view, empathy was evidence of weakness, an emotion suitable only for the timid and the foolish
Erika led the coffee enriched the air On the table was a large tray of cookies
Coffee and cookies with the Frankenstein monster and the bride of Frankenstein
Carson wasn’t surprised to see Michael s, and the self-control revealed by his silence impressed her
With coffee served and the four of them at the table, the crisis of the otten here was of more immediate interest
After her call to them in San Francisco, she knew for certain that Victor had been killed on the night that she had fled from him She assumed he must be dead, for only his death would have released her froraht two years previously, as Victor’s erate, she entered a secret vault in his Garden Districton his telephoned instructions, packed one suitcase with bricks of hundred-dollar bills, euros, bearer bonds, and gray velvet bags full of precious gems, mostly diamonds: on-the-run money in case he needed it As ordered by her husband, her ht that fortune to a secret facility of his, northeast of Lake Pontchartrain
Before she could get out of the car and deliver the suitcase, a singular and strange display of lightning turned night to noon Great barrages of thunderbolts struck the pavement all around her vehicle, soher that fro landscape, only a screen of light--a shield--so bright that she closed her eyes and bowed her head, expecting death
"Thanks to our phone call earlier," Erika said to those around her kitchen table, "I no the lightning occurred at thebody transnal that killed the"
"He harnessed the lightning of a terrible stor of unprecedented power, and it brought ifts I would eventually need to destroy hiether to find and stop hiht you here to Montana," Michael wondered, "instead of anywhere else?"
"I don’t know I had the fortune in the suitcase, enough to start a new life anywhere I just drove and drove, guided by whiht"
Deucalion shook his head "No You were guided by estion of a destiny Of a hard obligation Of a responsibility that was grave, if not even sacred
"If ere brought here by soested, "then surely we can’t lose this war"
"I wouldn’t count on that," Deucalion warned "We have the free will to do the right thing or the wrong One curse that our kind and humankind share--even when our minds are clear, our hearts can too easily deceive us"
"Besides," Carson said, "there at the end in New Orleans, we had more allies than we do this time Here in Rainbow Falls, there are only four of us"
"There is a fifth," Erika said "Both he and I thought you needed ti hi their attention to a pantry door that had stood one inch ajar
Into the kitchen stepped a trollish thing in children’s clothes, Ru for which no word existed, a thing wearing a floppy hat decorated with tiny bells Its eerie yellow eyes were bright with soer, and its hideous face twisted into a mask of hatred so raw that Carson and Michael--and even Deucalion--skidded their chairs back from the table and shot to their feet in alarht sh for people who don’t know you"
Chapter 41