Mind of My Mind (31 page)

The baby's starved body was crawling with maggots, but it still showed the marks of

its parents' abuse. The head was a ruin. It had been hit with something or slammed into

something. The legs were twisted as no infant's legs would have twisted normally. The

child had been tortured to death. The man and the woman had fed on each other's insanity

until they murdered one child and left the others dying. Rachel had stolen enough latents

from prisons and insane asylums to know how often such things happened. Sometimes

the best a latent could do was realize that the mental interference, the madness, was not

going to stop, and then end their own lives before they killed others.

Staring down at the dead child in its ancient, peeling crib, Rachel wondered how even

Doro had managed to keep so many latents alive for so long. How had he done it, and

how had he been able to stand himself for doing it? But, then, Doro had nothing even

faintly resembling a conscience.

The crib was at the foot of an old, steel-frame bed. On the bed lay the mother,

semiconscious, muttering drunkenly from time to time. "Johnny, the baby's crying again."

And then, "Johnny, make the baby stop crying! I can't stand to hear him crying all the

time." She wept a little herself now, her eyes open, unseeing.

Miguela and Rachel looked at each other, Miguela in horror, Rachel in weariness and

disgust.

"You were right," said Miguela. "I don't like this one damn bit. And this is the kind of

thing you want me to handle?"

"There are too many of them for me," said Rachel. "The more help I get, the fewer of

these bad ones will die."

"They deserve to die for what they did to that baby—" She choked again and Rachel

saw that she was holding back tears.

"You're the last person I'd expect to hold latents responsible for what they do," Rachel

told her. "Do I have to remind you what you did?" Miguela, unstable and violent, had set

fire to the house of a woman whose testimony had caused her to spend some time in

Juvenile Hall. The woman had burned to death.

Miguela closed her eyes, not crying but not casting any more stones, either. "You

know," she said after a moment, "I was glad I turned out to be a healer, because I thought

I could make up for that, somehow. And here I am bitching."

"Bitch all you want to," said Rachel. "As long as you do your work. You're going to

handle these people."

"All of them? By myself?"

"I'll be standing by—not that you'll need me. You're ready. Why don't you back the

van in and I'll draft a couple of the boys out back to help us carry bodies."

Miguela started to go, then stopped. "You know, sometimes I wish we could make

Doro pay for scenes like this. He's the one who deserves all the blame."

"He's also the one who'll never pay. Only his victims pay."

Miguela shook her head and went out after the van.

JESSE

Jesse pulled his car up sharply in front of a handsome, red-brick, Georgian mansion.

He got out, strode down the pathway and through the front door without bothering to

knock. He went straight to the stairs and up them to the second floor. There, in a back

bedroom, he found Stephen Gilroy, the Patternist owner of the house, sitting beside the

bed of a young mute woman. The woman's face was covered with blood. It had been

slashed and hacked to pieces. She was unconscious.

"My God," muttered Jesse as he crossed the room to the bed. "Did you send for a

healer?"

Gilroy nodded. "Rachel wasn't around, so I—"

"I know. She's on an assignment."

"I called one of her kids. I just wish he'd get here."

One of her students, he meant. Even Jesse found himself referring to Rachel's

students as "her kids."

There was the sound of the front door opening and slamming again. Someone else ran

up the bare, wooden stairs, and, a moment later, a breathless young man hurried into the

room. He was one of Rachel's relatives, of course, and as Rachel would have in a healing

situation, he took over immediately.

"You'll have to leave me alone with her," he said. "I can handle the injuries, but I

work best when I'm alone with my patient."

"Her eyes are hurt, too, I think," said Gilroy. "Are you sure you—"

The healer unshielded to show them that his self-confidence was real and based on

experience. "Don't worry about her. She'll be all right."

Jesse and Stephen Gilroy left the room, went down to Gilroy's study.

Jesse spoke with quiet fury. "The main reason I got here so fast was so I could see the

damage through my own eyes instead of somebody's memory. I want to remember it

when I go after Hannibal."

"I should go after him," said Gilroy softly, bitterly. He was a slender, dark-haired man

with very pale skin. "I would go after him if he hadn't already proved to me how little

good that does." His voice was full of self-disgust.

"People who abuse mutes are my responsibility," said Jesse. "Because mutes are my

responsibility. Hannibal is even a relative of mine. I'll take care of him."

Gilroy shrugged. "You gave her to me; he took her from me. You ordered him to send

her back; he sent her back in pieces. Now you'll punish him. What will that inspire him to

do to her?"

"Nothing," said Jesse. "I promise you. I've talked to Mary and Karl about him. This

isn't the first time he's sliced somebody up. He's still the animal he was when he was a

latent."

"That's what's bothering me. He'd think nothing of killing Arlene when you're

finished with him. I'm surprised he hasn't killed her already. He knows I can't stop him."

"There's no sense beating yourself with that, Gil. Except for the members of the First

Family, nobody can stop him. He's the strongest telepath we've ever brought through

transition. And the first thing he did, once he was through, was to smash his way through

the shielding of his second and nearly kill her. For no reason. He just discovered that he

could do it, so he did it."

"Somebody should have smashed him then and there."

"That's what Doro said. He claims he used to cull out people like Hannibal as soon as

he spotted them."

"Well, I hate to find myself agreeing with Doro, but—"

"So do I. But he made us. He knows just how far wrong we can go. Hannibal is too

strong for Rachel or her kids to help him. Especially since he doesn't really want help.

And he's too dangerous for us to tolerate any longer."

Gilroy's eyes widened. "You are going to kill him, then?"

Jesse nodded. "That's why I had to talk to Karl and Mary. We don't like to give up on

one of our own, but Hannibal is a Goddamn cancer."

"You're going to do it yourself?"

"As soon as I leave here."

"With his strength . . . are you sure you can?"

"I'm First Family, Gil."

"But still—"

"Nobody who needed the Pattern to push him into transition can stand against one of

us—not when we mean to kill." Jesse shrugged. "Doro had to breed us to be strong

enough to come through without being prodded. After all, when the time came for us,

there was nobody who could prod us without killing us." He stood up. "Look, contact me

when that healer finishes with Arlene, will you? I just want to be sure she's all right."

Gilroy nodded, stood up. They walked to the door together and Jesse noticed that

there were three Patternists in the living room. Two women and a man.

"Your house is growing," he said to Gilroy. "How many now?"

"Five. Five Patternists."

"The best of the people you've seconded, I'll bet."

Gilroy smiled, said nothing.

"You know," said Jesse as they reached the door. "That Hannibal . . . he even looks

like me. Reminds me a little of myself a couple of years ago. There, but for the grace of

Doro, go I. Shit."

JAN

Holding a smooth, rectangular block of wood between her hands, Jan Sholto closed

her eyes and reached back in her disorderly memory. She reached back two years, to the

creation of the Pattern. She had not only her own memories of that event but the

memories of each of the original Patternists. They had unshielded and let her read them—

not that they could have stopped her by refusing to open. Mary wasn't the only one who

could read people through their shields. No one except Doro could come into physical

contact with Jan without showing her some portion of his thoughts and memories. In this

case, though, physical contact hadn't been necessary. The others had shown their

approval of what she was doing by co-operating with her. She was creating another

learning block—assembling their memories into a work that would not only tell the new

Patternists of their beginnings but show them.

She was teacher to all the new Patternists as they came through. For over a year now,

seconds had used her learning blocks to give their charges quick, complete knowledge of

the section's rules and regulations. Other learning blocks offered them choices, showed

them the opportunities available to them for making their own place within the section.

Abruptly, Jan reached Mary's memories. They jarred her with their raw intensity,

overwhelmed her as other people's memories rarely did any more. They were good