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The air reeked of blood, bile, feces, urine--a ly faressives turned up more frequently week by week and day by day This ti sweetness lay under the acrid surface of the stench He drew deep breaths, unsure why that terrible redolence should have any appeal whatsoever But he was unable to deny--or resist--its attraction any h he could not withstand the tehtened by his response to it, and the blood in his veins see grew more intense

Barry Sholnick, the officer Loe via computer link to apprehend Samuel Booker, and who had found this death and destruction instead of the Bureau agent, now stood in the corner by the , staring intently at the dead er than anyone, alard the victims with the detached bodies were no more remarkable a part of the scene than the furniture Yet Sholnick could not shift his gaze froe, and the blood-streaked walls He was clearly electrified by that horrendous detritus and the violence of which it was a reressives have becoht, but in some sick e’re also envious of the within him--and, he suspected, in all of the New People--cried out to join the regressives As at the Foster place, Loe to employ his newfound bodily control not to elevate himself, as Shaddack had intended, but to devolve into a wild state He yearned to descend to a level of consciousness in which thoughts of the purpose andof life would not trouble hie would be nonexistent, in which he would be a creature whose existence was defined almost entirely by sensation, in which every decision was ive hiht Oh, God, to be freed froence!

Sholnick made a low sound in the back of his throat

Loman looked up froht burned

Ae?

For a aze, then looked away as if he had been caught in a sha

Sholnick went to theHe stared out at the lightless sea His hands were fisted at his sides

Lo

The smell, darkly sweet The smell of the hunt, the kill

He turned away from the corpse and walked out of the rooht of the dead woed, lacerated--was no relief Bob Trott, one of several recent additions to the force when it expanded to twelveman, four inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than Loes He looked down at the cadaver with a faint, unholy s to blur, his eyes slare, Lo the hall to the other room that had been broken into With evident reluctance, Trott finally followed him

By the time Loman reached the shattered door of that unit, Paul Amberlay, another of his officers, appeared at the head of the north stairs, returning froister

"The couple in room twenty-four were named Jenks, Sarah and Charles," Amberlay reported He enty-five, lean and sinewy, intelligent Perhaps because the young officer’s face was slightly pointed, with deep-set eyes, he had always reminded Loman of a fox

"They’re from Portland"

"And in thirty-six here?"

"Tessa Lockland froo"

Loman blinked

"Lockland?"

Aht"

"The minister’s , Janice Capshaw," Loman said

"Her maiden name was Lockland I had to deal with her o Persistent old broad Aher to consent to crehter was out of the country, somewhere really remote, couldn’t be reached quickly, but would come around within a month to empty the house and settle Mrs Capshaw’s affairs So this is her, I guess"

Loman led them into Tessa Lockland’s rooistered Wind huffed at the openThe place was littered with broken furniture, torn bedding, and the glass from a shattered TV set, but unmarked by blood Earlier they had checked the room for a body and found none; the openindicated that the occupant fled before the regressives had h the door

"So Booker’s out there," Loressives or heard the killing He knows so here He doesn’t understand it, but he knows enough … too et a call out to the dareed

"And noe’ve also got this Lockland bitch, and she’s got to be thinking her sister never cos that killed the couple fro for her to do," Aht to us--to the police She’ll walk right into our arh the rubble

"Helpdown the door, she’d have gone out the ithout pausing to grab her purse"