Miriam has bitten her lips raw to keep from screaming. Her whole body buzzes with the pain of a thousand flea bites. Until late at night the room is filled with the sharp odor of cooking flesh and the gay shouts of the crowd. Of course they are gay, they have captured gold and been sated with her sisters, more meat than they have eaten in years. As dawn threatens, the villagers drink their foul black beer and have their couplings. Then they sleep.

Miriam bursts from her hiding place and runs. She lifts her brother’s body from the mud where it has been thrown and carries him into the forest, rushing as fast as possible through the trees, wild to escape this horrible place. Her heart aches for her lost sisters, but she dares not even approach their bones.

Soon she is in a dawn-filled glade. Flowers bob at her feet, the Carpathian massif rises in the clear sky. Before that majesty she shouts her grief. The sound is absorbed.

She is flooded with an agony of loneliness. Perhaps she should deliver herself to the villagers. But she cannot go back, cannot give herself to the flames. The beauty of life remains. Let the dead be their own heroes.

With her brother in her arms she sets out to cross the mountains, intending to seek a better land beyond.

9

9

JOHN HAD WAITED to return until Miriam was gone. It was the safest way. It was easy to defeat the electrostatic barrier. He came in through the disused tunnel he had used for his escape. He had a mission here. He went through the silent rooms. Scattered around the library were newspapers, all containing sensational stories about his crimes. He sneered at her caution. This was a big city. The police had a long way to go before they brought him to ground.

He paused, shut his eyes. Another hallucination was beginning. This time a healthy girl of about fourteen swam into view before him. John ignored the delicious figment, impatient with this latest side effect of his desperate hunger. She stepped forward, her smell filling his nostrils. It was maddening; he swiped angrily at the empty air. The hunger cloyed and strained within him. Soon he must take to the streets again.

He went upstairs, paused in the door of their bedroom. Although he was on his way to the attic he wasn’t in any hurry. There was something to be savored in how he intended to harm her.

Tom had coaxed Sarah out to a celebration after his conversation with Sam Rush. She had wanted to stay with her lab group, but he had managed to convince her that the project could go through its next phase without her in attendance. Her failure to get Miriam Blaylock to return to Riverside had stopped much of the work anyway. Without a subject, they couldn’t very well make observations.