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He wanted her dead

He wanted to stop her heart and then hold her for hours, feeling the heat of life radiate out of her, until she was cold

This one e out of the borderland in which he lived and into the land of the dead and daaretalone to a laundry rooht Many of the units were leased to financially comfortable senior citizens and, because they were near the University of California at Irvine, to pairs and trios of students who shared the rent Maybe the tenant hborhood, and the abundance of landscape and ay lighting all coo entered the laundry rooun to put her dirty clothes into one of the washing machines She looked at hih he was dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses at night

She probably thought he was just another university student who favored an eccentric look as a way of proclai his rebellious spirit and intellectual superiority Every campus had a slew of the type, since it was easier to dress as a rebellious intellectual than be one

"Oh, I’m sorry, Miss," he said, "I didn’t realize anyone was in here"

"That’s okay I’ just one washer," she said "There’re two others"

"No, I already did my laundry, then back at the apart one sock, so I figure it’s got to be in one of the washers or dryers But I didn’t et in your way Sorry about that"

She sht it funny that a would-be James Dean, black-clad rebel without a cause, would choose to be so polite--or would do his own laundry and chase down lost socks

By then he was beside her He hit her in the face--two hard, sharp punches that knocked her unconscious She crumpled onto the vinyl-tile floor as if she were a pile of laundry

Later, in the disained consciousness and found herself naed on the concrete floor and effectively blind in those lightless confines, tied hand and foot, she did not atteain for her life as some of the others had done She didn’t offer her body to hiery or the power that he wielded over her She didn’t offer him money, or claim to understand and sympathize with him in a pathetic attempt to convert him from nemesis to friend Neither did she scream nor weep nor wail nor curse She was different fronified, unending chain of whispered prayers But she never prayed to be delivered from her tormentor and returned to the world out of which she had been torn--as if she knew that death was inevitable Instead, she prayed that her fath to cope with the loss of her, that God would take care of her two younger sisters, and even that her o swiftly came to loathe her He knew that love and mercy were nonexistent, just e his ti Often, however, he had pretended to love soet what he wanted, and they had always been deceived Being deceived into believing that love existed in others, when it didn’t exist in you, was a sign of fatal weakness Huah deception hat separated the good players from the inept

To show her that he could not be deceived and that her god was powerless, Vassago rewarded her quiet prayers with a long and painful death At last she did screa, for they were only the sounds of physical agony; they did not reverberate with terror, rage, or despair

He thought he would like her better when she was dead, but even then he still hated her For a fewthe heat drain froh her flesh was not as thrilling as it should have been Because she had died with an unbroken faith in life everlasting, she had cheated Vassago of the satisfaction of seeing the awareness of death in her eyes He pushed her lio had finished with her, Margaret Campion knelt in perpetual prayer on the floor of that dismantled Hell, the ht because she was lashed to a length of steel rebar which he had inserted into a hole he had drilled in the concrete Naked, she faced away froh she had been Baptist, a crucifix was clasped in her dead hands because Vassago liked the ie of the crucifix better than a simple cross; it was turned upside doith Christ’s thorn-prickled head toward the floor Margaret’s own head had been cut off then resewn to her neck with obsessive care Even though her body was turned away from Satan, she faced toward him in denial of the crucifix held irreverently in her hands Her posture was sy her pretense to faith, love, and life everlasting

Although Vassago hadn’t received nearly as aret as from what he had done to her after she was dead, he was still pleased to have made her acquaintance Her stubbornness, stupidity, and self-deception hadfor him than it should have been, but at least the aura he had seen around her in the bar was quenched Her irritating vitality was drained away The only energy her body harbored was that of theher flesh and bent on reducing her to a dry husk like Jenny, the waitress, who rested at the other end of the collection

As he studied Margaret, a familiar need arose in him Finally the need beca his path across the huge roo for the ra another acquisition, killing it, and arranging it in thepose would have left him quiescent and sated for as much as a month But after less than teeks, he was coretfully, he ascended the ra scent of death, into air tainted with the odors 9f life, like a va the company of the dead

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At ten-thirty, almost an hour after Harrison was resuscitated, he remained unconscious His body teh the patterns of alpha and beta brain waves were those of a man in a profound sleep, they were not obviously indicative of anything as deep as a coma

When Jonas finally declared the patient out of ier and ordered him moved to a private room on the fifth floor, Ken Nakaa and Gina with the patient, Jonas accoist and the pediatrician to the scrub sinks, and eventually as far as the door to the staff parking lot They discussed Harrison and what procedures , but for the most part they shared inconsequential s mutual acquaintances, as if they had not just participated in a miracle that should have lass door, the night looked cold and inhospitable Rain had begun to fall Puddles were filling every depression in the pave-lot lamps, they looked like shattered ainst Jonas, kissed his cheek, clung to hi but was unable to find the words Then she pulled back, turned up the collar of her coat, and went out into the wind-driven rain

Lingering after Kari’s departure, Ken Nakamura said, "I hope you realize she’s a perfect lass door, Jonas watched the wo if he had said that he never looked at Kari as a woy, and a formidable presence, she was also feminine

Sometimes he marveled at the delicacy of her wrists, at her swan-like neck that seeracefully thin to support her head Intellectually and eer than she looked Otherwise she couldn’t have dealt with the obstacles and challenges that surely had blocked her advance in the medical profession, which was still dominated by men for whom--in some cases--chauvinism was less a character trait than an article of faith

Ken said, "All you’d have to do is ask her, Jonas"

"I’m not free to do that," Jonas said

"You can’t mourn Marion forever"

"It’s only been two years"

"Yeah, but you have to step back into life sometime"

"Not yet"