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The others stared at him in clear and unembarrassed anticipation.
"I didn't think he was six and a half feet tall," said Michael, trying again to steady his voice. He ran his hand back through his hair, and stopped himself in the act of reaching for a pen he didn't need. He closed his right hand into a fist, then opened it, splaying the fingers. "But then I was having a pitched battle with him when he was here. I'd say he was my height, six foot two at most. His hair was short. It was black, like mine. He had blue eyes."
"Are you telling me," Ryan asked with deceptive calm, "that you saw the man who went off with Rowan!"
"You said you actually did speak to him?" Pierce asked.
Ryan was clearly pale with anger. "You can describe or identify this person?" he asked.
"Let's get on with what we have to do," said Aaron. "We almost lost Michael on Christmas Day. Michael was unable to tell us anything for weeks. Michael was..."
"It's OK, Aaron," said Michael. "It's OK. Ryan, what do you want to know? She left with a man. He was six feet two, he was thin, he was wearing my clothes. He had black hair. I don't think he looks the same now. His hair wasn't long. He wasn't so tall. Do you believe me? Do you believe anything anybody's told you? Ryan, I know who he is. So does the Talamasca."
Ryan seemed incapable of responding. Pierce was also obviously stunned.
"Uncle Ryan, it was 'the man,' " said Mona flatly. "For Chrissakes, get off Michael's case. He didn't let 'the man' through. It was Rowan."
"Stay out of this, Mona!" Ryan flashed. It seemed he would lose control completely. Pierce laid his hand on his father's hand. "What are you doing in here!" Ryan demanded. "Go on, out."
Mona didn't move.
Pierce gestured for her to be quiet.
"This thing," said Michael, "our 'man,' our Lasher. Does he appear normal to other people?"
"An unusual man," said Ryan. "That is the testimony we have. An unusual man, well-mannered, rather gregarious." He paused as if he had to force himself to go on. "I have all the statements for you. And by the way, we combed Paris, Geneva, Zurich, New York. Tall as he is, he does not attract that much attention. The archaeologists at Donnelaith had the most contact. They said he was fascinating, a little peculiar, that he spoke very fast. That he had strange notions about the town and the ruins."
"OK, I see what's happened. She didn't run away with him; he took her. He forced her to take him there. He forced her to get the money. She persuaded him to have these medical tests, then she got the stuff out when she could to this Dr. Larkin."
"Not certain," said Ryan. "Not certain at all. But the forgery gives us something legal to go on. Also the money deposited for Rowan in banks abroad has now disappeared. We have to act. We have no choice. We have to protect the legacy."
Aaron interrupted with a little gesture. "Dr. Larkin said that Rowan said she knew the creature wasn't human. She wanted him to study the genetic blueprint. She wanted to know specifically whether or not the creature could breed with humans, and with her in particular. She sent some of her own blood for analysis."
There was an uneasy silence.
For the space of a second, Ryan looked almost panic-stricken. Then he drew himself up, crossed his legs, and laid his left hand on the edge of Michael's desk.
"I, don't know what I believe about this strange man," Ryan said. "I honestly don't. All this Talamasca history, this chain of thirteen witches, all this. I don't believe it. That's the frank truth. I don't. And I don't think most of the family believes in all this either." He looked directly at Michael. "But this is clear. There is no place for you to go now to search for Rowan. Going to Geneva is a waste of time. We have covered Geneva. The Talamasca has covered Geneva. In Donnelaith we have a private detective on twenty-four-hour duty. So does the Talamasca, who are, by the way, very good at this sort of thing. New York? We've turned up no real leads, other than the forged checks. They weren't large. They aroused no suspicion."
"I see," Michael said. "Where would I go? What would I do? Those are really valid questions here."
"Absolutely," said Ryan. "We didn't want to tell you all we'd found out for obvious reasons. But you know now, and you know that the best thing is for you to stay here, to follow Dr. Rhodes's advice, and to wait. It makes sense from absolutely every standpoint."
"There's one other thing," Pierce said.
His father looked plainly annoyed, and then again too fatigued to protest. He raised his hand to cover his eyes, elbow resting on the edge of the desk.
But Pierce went on.
"You have to tell us exactly what did happen here on Christmas Day," said Pierce. "I want to know. I've been helping with this all along. Mayfair Medical has been left in my hands. I want to continue with Mayfair Medical. Lots of the others want to continue. But everybody has to talk to everybody else. What happened, Michael? Who is this man? What is he?"
Michael knew he ought to say something, but for the moment it seemed impossible. He sat back, staring past them at the rows and rows of books, unable to see at this moment the stack heaped on the floor or the mysterious gramophone. His eyes moved almost furtively to Mona.
Mona had slumped back in the chair and slung one knee over the arm of it. She looked too old for the white funeral dress, which she had demurely crumpled between her legs. She was watching him with that level and somewhat ironic gaze--her old self, before the news of the death of Gifford.
"She left with the man," Mona said very quietly and distinctly. "The man came through."
It was her teenaged flat voice, bored with the stupidity of others and making no concession to the marvelous. She went on:
"She left with him. This long-haired guy, this is the man. This thin mutant guy, that's who he is. The ghost, the Devil, Lasher. Michael had a fight with him out by the pool, and he knocked Michael into the water. There's a smell out there that comes from him. And the smell is in the living room where he was born."
"You're imagining things," said Ryan, so wrathfully that it was almost a whisper. "I told you to stay out of this."
"When he and Rowan left," said Mona, "she turned the alarm on so help would come for Michael. Or he did it himself, the man. Any moron can see now from all this--that that is what happened."
"Mona, I am telling you to leave this room now," said Ryan.
"No," she answered.
Michael said nothing. He had heard all these words, but he could think of no way to respond to them. He wanted to say that Rowan had tried to stop the man from throwing him in the pool. But what was the purpose? Rowan had left him drowning in the pool, or had she? Rowan was being coerced!
Ryan made a small sound of exasperation.
"Allow me to say," said Aaron with patience, "that Dr. Larkin has a great deal of information which we do not have. He has X rays of hands, feet, spinal cord, pelvis, as well as PET scans of the brain, and other such tests. The creature's not human. It has a confusing genetic makeup. It is a mammal. It is a primate. It is warm-blooded. It looks like us. But it isn't human."
Pierce was staring at his father, as if afraid his father would come unglued at any moment. Ryan merely shook his head. "I'll believe this when I see it, when that Dr. Larkin tells me himself."
"Dad," said Pierce, "if you look at the forensic reports, it's the same picture. They said, contaminated, or tampered with, or spoiled, because otherwise it's the blood and tissue of something with a nonhuman genetic makeup."
"It's what Mona said," said Michael. His voice had dropped very low. He roused himself a little and looked at Ryan and then at Mona.
Something in Aaron's manner was disturbing him, had been all along, but he didn't know what it was, and he hadn't known he was disturbed until he failed to look at Aaron.
"I came home," said Michael, "and he was here. He looked like her. He looked like me. He might have come from...our child. Our baby. Rowan had been pregnant."
He stopped. He let, out a long slow breath, shaking his head a little and then realizing he
ought to go on.
"This man-thing was newborn," he said. "He was very strong. He taunted me. He...he was moving like the straw man in The Wizard of Oz...clumsily, falling down, laughing, climbing back up. I should have been able to wring his neck. I wasn't. He was much much stronger than he looked. I connected more than once. Should have pulverized a few facial bones. No damage except a cut. Rowan did try to stop the fight, but it wasn't clear to me then...and it isn't now...whom Rowan was trying to protect. Me? Or him."
He hated hearing these words from his own mouth. But it was time to get it all out, for everything to be shared, the pain and the defeat included.
"Did she help him knock you in the pool?" Mona asked.
"Mona, shut up," said Ryan. Mona ignored him utterly. She was looking at Michael.
"No, she didn't," said Michael. "And he shouldn't have been able to do it alone. I've been decked once or twice in my life. It took big men and lucky punches to do it. He was thin, delicate, he was sliding on the ice out there; but he shoved me and into the pool I went. I remember him looking at me as I went down. He has blue eyes. He has very black hair. I told you that already. His skin is very pale, and kind of beautiful. At least it was then."
"Like the skin of an infant," said Aaron softly.
"And all of you are trying to tell me," said Ryan nervously, anxiously, "that this is not a human being?"
"We're talking science, man," said Aaron, "not voodoo. This is a creature, so to speak, of flesh and blood. But its genetic blueprint is not human."
"Larkin told you that."
"Well, more or less," said Aaron. "Let's say I picked up the message from him."
