Page 18 (1/2)

I re that the sweat and breath of certifiable psychopaths have a subtle but distinctive cheical conditions acco that mental disorder Maybe her breath smelled of craziness

A spoonful of white ainst all har wonder-world root will make you rich

Sounds better than hard work

She pressed the glass against ain, and when I tried to pull my head back, she resisted my effort with the arm that she had slipped around lass away and surprised ood at pretending to be a church ainst the s

She wriggled her bottoainst my lap, smiled, and kissed my forehead

It’s stupid not to use herbal remedies, Odd Thomas You don’t eat meat, do you?

I’m a fry cook

I know you cook it, she said, but please tell ers with bacon

That’s so self-destructive

And French fries, I added

Suicidal

She sucked a lass and spat it in et you, baby? Datura always has her way I can break you

Not if ht as I wiped my face with my left hand

Andre and Robert can hold you, she said, while I pinch your nose shut When you open your mouth to breathe, I pour the wine down your throat Then I bust the glass against your teeth, and you can chew the pieces Is that what you’d prefer?

Before she could press the wineglass to ain, I said, Do you want to see the dead?

No doubt so blue fire in her eyes, but they aze was that of a cool and ravenous crocodile

Searching my eyes, she said, You told uard my secrets

So you can conjure, after all

Yes, I lied

I knew you could I knew

The dead are here, just like you thought

She looked around The shiht shivered the shadows

They aren’t in this room, I said

Then where?

Downstairs I saw several earlier, in the casino

She rose from my lap Conjure them here

They choose where they haunt

You have the power to summon

It doesn’t work that way There are exceptions, but for theto the very place where they died…or where they were happiest in life

Putting her wineglass on the table, she said, What trick do you have up your sleeve?

I’ a T-shirt

Her eyes narrowed What does that ent--does he everin Paris? Anywhere but the very place where he died?

She thought about that All right We’ll go to the casino

THIRTY-FIVE

TO FACILITATE THE EXPLORATION OF THE ABANDONED hotel, they had brought Coleman lanterns, which operated on canned fuel These lamps would press back the darkness un on the floor near theof Room 1203, which convinced me that both he and Robert carried pistols under their black jackets

The re act in the casino failed to please Datura, at least she wouldn’t be able to waste Danny at once She would have to return here to retrieve the device that could trigger the blast

As ere about to leave the room, she realized that she had not eaten a banana since the previous day This oversight clearly concerned her

Picnic coolers packed with food and drink were in the adjacent bathroom She returned from there with one of Chiquita’s finest

As she peeled the fruit, she explained that the banana tree--as you know, Odd Thomas--was the tree of forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden

I thought it was an apple tree

Play duh certain that I are of it, she also told me that the Serpent (with a capital S) lives forever because he eats twice daily of the fruit of the banana tree And every serpent (with a s this simple dietary requirement

But you’re not a serpent, I said

When I was nineteen, she revealed, I a to charm the spirit of a snake from its body intomy ribs, where it’ll live forever

Well, for a thousand years, anyway

Her patchwork theology--obviously stitched together in part fros of Jim Jones in Guyana, David Koresh in Waco, and the leader of the coo sound like rationalof the banana an erotic perfored determination She cheithout apparent pleasure, and uessed that she enty-five or twenty-six years old She i by now eaten in excess of five thousand bananas, she ht understandably have lost her taste for the to her reation With 974 years to live (as a serpent, small 5), she had approximately 710,000a Catholic Especially one who doesn’t get to church every week

So much about Datura was foolish, even pitiable, but her fatuity and ignorance hout history, fools and their followers, willfully ignorant but in love with themselves and with power, have murdered millions

When she had consumed the banana and calh her ribs, ere ready to visit the casino