Mind of My Mind (30 page)

"I'll take you there if you want." He had intended to draft Bartholomew into some

seconding anyway. But later. Bartholomew House was right across the street.

"Who's she living with?" asked Landry.

"Her family," said Seth. "She found a house she fit into quicker than most of us do."

"House?" The man frowned. "Whorehouse?"

"Hell no!" Seth looked around at him. Landry had a justifiably low opinion of his

wife. Latents were hard people to live with. But Seth had not realized that it was that low.

"We live communally here, several of us to a house. So when we say house, we don't just

mean the building. We mean household. We mean people."

"What the hell are you? Some kind of religious nuts or something?"

Seth was about to answer him when Barbara Landry herself came out the back door

of Larkin House.

The sound of her footsteps caused Landry to turn. He saw her, shouted her name

once, then was out of the car, running toward her. Barbara Landry was weak, as

Patternists went, and she was inexperienced at handling her new abilities. That last made

her a possible danger to her husband. Seth reached out to warn her, but he was a second

too late.

Recoiling in surprise from Landry's sudden rush, Barbara instinctively used her new

defenses. Instead of controlling him gently, she stopped him solidly, suddenly, as though

she had hit him, as though she had clubbed him down. He fell, unconscious, without ever

having touched her.

"My God," Barbara whispered horrified. "I didn't mean to hurt him. I had come to see

you. Then I sensed him out here threatening you. I came to ask you not to hurt him."

"He'll be all right," said Seth. "No thanks to you. You're going to kill somebody if you

don't learn to be careful."

"I know. I'm sorry."

He lectured her as though she were still his charge. "I've warned you. No matter how

weak you are as a Patternist, you're a powerhouse as far as any ordinary mute is

concerned."

She nodded solemnly. "I'll be careful. But, Seth, would you help him for me? I mean,

after he comes to. He probably needs money, and I know he needs even more to forget

about me. I don't even like to think about what I put him through when we were

together."

"He wants to be with you."

"No!"

"He could be programmed to live very comfortably here, Barbara. Matter of fact, he'd

be happier here than anywhere else."

"I don't want him enslaved! I've done enough to him. Seth, please. Help him and let

him go."

Seth smiled finally. "All right, honey, in exchange for a promise from you."

"What?"

"That you'll go back to Bart and make him give you a few more lessons on how to

handle mutes without killing them."

She nodded, embarrassed.

"Oh, yeah, and tell him he's going to second a couple of people for me. I'm bringing

the first one over tomorrow."

"Oh, but—"

"No excuses. Save me the trouble of arguing with him and I'll do a good job for you

here." He gestured toward Landry.

She smiled at him. "You would anyway. But, all right. I'll do your dirty work for

you." She turned and went down the driveway. She was a rare Patternist. Like Seth, she

cared what happened to the people she had left behind in the mute world. Seth had

always liked her. Now he would see that her husband got as good a start as Clay had

gotten.

RACHEL

Rachel's newest assignment had bothered her from the moment Mary gave it to her. It

was still bothering her now, as she stood at the entrance of a long communal driveway

that led back into a court of dilapidated, dirty, green stucco houses. The houses were

small—no more than three or four rooms each. The yards were littered with beer cans and

wine bottles, and they were overgrown with weeds and shrubs gone wild. The look of the

place seemed to confirm Rachel's suspicions.

Farther up the driveway, a group of teen-age boys tossed around a pair of dice and a

surprisingly large amount of money. Intent on their game, they paid no attention to

Rachel. She let her perception sweep over them and found three that she would have to

come back for. Three latents who lived in the court, but who were not as bad off as those

Mary had sent Rachel after.

This was a pocket of Emma's descendants hidden away in a corner of Los Angeles,

suffering without knowing why, without knowing who they were. The women in three of

the houses were sisters. They hated each other, usually spoke only to trade obscenities.

Yet they continued to live near each other, satisfying a need they did not realize they had.

One of them still had a husband. All three had children. Rachel had come for the

youngest sister—the one whose husband was still with her. This one lived in the third

house back, with her husband and their two young children. Rachel looked at the house

and realized that she had been unconsciously refraining from probing it. She was going

entirely on what Mary had told her. That meant that there were surely things inside that

she would not want to see. Mary swept the areas she checked so quickly that she received

nothing more than a momentary feeling of anxiety from the latents who were in serious

trouble. She was like a machine, sweeping, detecting latents here and there mixed in with

the mute population. And the worst ones, she gave to Rachel.

"Come on, Rae," she would say. "You know they're going to die if I send anybody

else."

And she was right. Only Rachel could handle the most pathetic of Doro's discards. Or

only she had been able to until now. Now her students were beginning to come into their

own. The one she had with her now was just about ready to work alone. Miguela Daniels.

Her father had married a Mexican woman, a mute. But he traced his own lineage back to

Emma through both his parents. And Miguela was turning out to be a very good healer.

Miguela came up beside her.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked.

"You," Rachel told her. "All right, let's go in. You won't like it, though."

"I can already feel that."

As they went to the door, Rachel finally swept the house with her perception and

moaned to herself. She did not knock. The door was locked, but the people inside were

beyond answering her knock.

The top portion of the door had once been a window, but the glass had long ago been

broken. The hole had been covered by an oversized piece of plywood.

"Keep your attention on the boys in the back," Rachel told Miguela. "They can't see

us from here, but this might be noisy."

"You could get one of them to break in."

"No, I can do it. Just watch."

Miguela nodded.

Rachel took hold of the overhanging edge of plywood, braced herself, and pulled. The

wood was dry and old and thin. Rachel had hardly begun to put pressure on it when it

gave along its line of nails and part of it came away in her hands. She broke off more of it

until she could push the rest in and unlock the door. The smell that greeted them made

Rachel hold her breath for a few seconds. Miguela breathed it and gagged.

"What's that Goddamn stink!"

Rachel said nothing. She pushed the door open and went in. Miguela grimaced and

followed.

Just inside the door lay a young man, the husband, half propped up against the wall.

Around him were the many bottles he had already managed to empty. In his hand was

one he had not quite emptied yet. He tried to get up as the two women came in, but he

was too drunk or too sick or too weak from hunger. Probably all three. "Hey," he said, his

voice slurred and low. "What you think you're doing? Get out of my house."

Rachel scanned him quickly while Miguela went through the kitchen, into the

bedroom. The man was a latent, like his wife. That was why the two of them had so much

trouble. They had not only the usual mental interference to contend with, but they

unwittingly interfered with each other. They were both of Emma's family and they would

make good Patternists, but, as latents, they were killing each other. The man on the floor

was of no use to himself or anyone else as he was now.

He was filthy—not only unwashed but incontinent. He wallowed in his own feces and

vomit, contributing his share to the strong evil smell of the place.

From the bedroom, Miguela cried out, "Mother of God! Rachel, come in here

quickly."

Rachel turned from the man, intending to go to her. But, as she turned, there was a

sound, a weak, thin cry from the sofa. Rachel realized abruptly that what she had thought

were only bundles of rags were actually the two children she had sensed in the house. She

went to them quickly.

They were skin and bones, both breathing shallowly, unevenly, making small sounds

from time to time. Malnourished, dehydrated, bruised, beaten, and filthy, they lay

unconscious. Mercifully unconscious.

"Rachel—" Miguela seemed to choke. "Rachel, come here. Please!"

Rachel left the children reluctantly, went to the bedroom. In the bedroom there was

another child, an infant who was beyond even Rachel's ability. It had been dead for at

least a few days. Neither Rachel nor Mary had sensed it before, because both had scanned

for life, touching the living minds in the house and skimming over everything else.