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say. Maybe if I'd been older and wiser, but I was barely more than a girl
myself, just sixteen when she was born. Later she stopped crying. She
developed a terrible temper, flying into a rage at the least remark. She was
always fighting someone. That only made matters worse, of course."
Of course. Children, and even adults, turned like animals on someone who
looked or acted different. Lane must have made an easy target, too.
Mrs. Bieber said, "'I hate them,' she would sob to me, with such savagery
in her voice. 'Someday they'll be sorry. I'll show them they don't own the
world.' I tried to teach her to forgive, to be kind to her enemies, but it was
many years before she could."
Garreth doubted that Lane ever did. She simply gave up threatening. After
all, she had her revenge . . . living off their lifeblood, reducing them to
cattle, leaving some of them nothing but dead, dry husks. When she had been
bitten by the vampire who made her, whoever it had been, wherever it had
happened, how had she felt? Had she cursed, or wept in confusion and dismay,
loathing her body for what it had become? Looking at the pictures in the
album, imagining the world through the eyes of the tortured child she had
been, he thought not. He suspected that she had seen instantly what the change
would bring her and embraced hell willingly, even happily, greedily. In her
place, perhaps he would, too.
In sudden uncertainty, he snapped the album closed and thrust it back at
Mrs. Bieber. Maybe this visit was a mistake. He wanted to know Lane, not
sympathize with her, to understand how her mind worked, not feel echoes of her
pain in him.
"Is something the matter?" Mrs. Bieber asked in concern.
He gave her a quick smile. "I was just thinking about your daughter's
childhood. No wonder she ran away."
She laid her hand on his arm. "It wasn't all that bad. We had happy times
here at home. It's still good when everyone gets home together. There's a
tenseness and . . . distance in Mada when she first comes that makes me wonder
if she's really any happier in all the glitter of those exotic places she
goes, but at least she's content and happy here."
He carried the last remark away with him, echoing through his head, chewing
at him. She enjoyed coming home. Only this time, instead of a happy family
reunion and carefree holiday, she would find a cop waiting, a date with
retribution and justice. Mrs. Bieber would be hurt, too, when he arrested
Lane.
Unbidden, Lien's quotation from I Ching the day he left San Francisco came
back: Acting to recreate order must be done with proper authority. Setting
one's self up to alter things according to one's own judgment can end in
mistake and failure.
Driving home through the windy night, Garreth felt a nagging doubt and
wondered unhappily about the rightness of what he was doing.
9
Handing the keys to the patrol car over to Garreth, Maggie sighed. "Are you
sure there isn't any way I can talk you into going on Afternoons? What if I
give you my body?"
He grinned. "Danzig is the one to sell yourself to if you want Nights.
What's the matter-rough shift today?"
She grimaced. "Aside from breaking up another major assault between Phil
and Eldora Schumacher, there was a ten-minute lecture from Mrs. Mary Jane
Dreiling on how we're harassing her precious little Scott and I am
single-handedly dooming the sanctity of the American Family by not sitting
home breeding babies like a normal woman! My teeth still ache from smiling at
her."
"What did you ticket little Scott for this time?"
"Playing Ditch'em at fifty miles an hour in that hopped-up van of his. I
wish you'd had the watch. Nat's told me that every time some turkey starts
giving you a bad time you just peel off your glasses and say, 'It's a nice
day, isn't it?' and suddenly you're dealing with a pussycat. What's your
secret? Come on, share with a needy fellow officer."
Did he really use his hypnotic ability that much? Frowning, Garreth hefted
his equipment belt, readjusting it. The worst part of being back in uniform
was becoming reaccustomed to all the weight around his hips. He made himself
smile. "It can't be told. The trick is my Irish blood, Maggie darlin'."
Dearg-due blood. "It's the gift o' blarney."
She sighed. "I might have known. Well, have fun tonight. You're all alone.
With Nat off, Pfannenstiel's working and you know he'll be on his butt
somewhere all night working nothing but his mouth." She disappeared through
the station door of City Hall.
Garreth checked the equipment in the car and trunk before sliding into the
driver's seat still warm from Maggie's body and smelling of her blood. He did
not dread the shift. Bill Pfannenstiel, who worked Evening and Morning relief,
liked to talk and could be maddeningly slow, but he had twenty-five years of
experience and knew every inch of the town. And unlike some of the older
generation of officers Garreth had met, he was always willing to try talking
through a situation before resorting to force. Garreth suspected that Maggie's
dislike stemmed from Pfannenstiel's tendency to call her Maggie-girl honey.
Maggie's remarks about persuasive ability echoed around in his head while
he patrolled. Did he use the vampire ability too often and without thinking?
He tried not to, no more than necessary. He preferred to act like normal
people.
He moved through the business district, checking doors and keeping an eye
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