Nightingale

Chapter 25 Strange Relations

As darkness cloaked her, Olivia waited on the beach, crouching on the red sandstone like a gargoyle. Stars had filled the skies and begun to blow across the heavens on a wispy breeze.

The smell of lake came strong, and the dark boat sat quietly upon water as still as glass. Stars reflected like golden candlelight upon the lake's surface, and the horned moon was a sliver of platinum or pale, pale bone.

Olivia peered out at a line of hills, so peaceful in the moonlight, and she felt tense to the point of breaking.

It takes a long time to find the weight of a soul, Olivia knew. As Bron's foster mother, she was too close to him for this task. Besides, Monique was the only one trained to be a Weigher of Lost Souls. She had done this perhaps tens of thousands of times, peered into the mind of a Draghoul to see if it was fit to convert, or if it had to be destroyed.

Olivia's stomach felt taut from hunger, her mouth dry from thirst, but she just waited silently, knowing that this could take all night.

Monique must have hit a switch, for suddenly the houseboat lit up like a Christmas tree, with strings of golden lights all along its top and wrapped down every pillar, and running along the bottom near the water line. The lights twinkled in the heat, and reflected from still waters.

The forward living room lit up inside. A glass door slid open. "We're done for now," Monique said. She stood at the door, holding her stomach protectively, as if she might be sick.

"Already?" Olivia asked. It had only taken four hours. She got up, stepped lightly across the pontoon bridge. The golden lights extended across it, easing her way.

"He's not one of us," Monique whispered when she got near.

Olivia faltered. She had hoped that Bron would pass, that he'd be accepted. On some level, she'd convinced herself that he was worthy. She couldn't imagine the alternative.

Death? Olivia wondered. Are you going to put him down?

"You didn't tell me about the purple canjiti," Monique said, almost accusingly. Among the masaak, the colored electrical flashes that came out during transfers were called canjiti.

Olivia asked, "Don't all dream assassins give those off?"

Monique shook her head no. "I suppose that there's no way you could have known that, though. We haven't seen one in ages." Monique held the door open, glanced surreptitiously toward the kitchens. Olivia stepped into the boat, and Monique led her to a deep couch, opened a bottled water, and handed it to Olivia. Cold droplets had condensed on the exterior. Olivia drank greedily. She heard Bron moving about in the kitchen.

Monique sat near Olivia, and suddenly began sobbing.

"What's wrong?" Olivia asked.

Monique shook her head in dismay. "Can't you see?" she asked, then added, "Of course you can't. You're not trained to do an emotive profile."

Olivia tried to stall her. "What did you find?" She expected that Bron was a Draghoul, a purebred, and that with his powers, he might be too dangerous. She couldn't even honestly consider that possibility.

"He's a cold one," Monique answered. "He's been damaged. You've probed his amygdala? You know what I mean."

"It's not uncommon for someone in his situation," Olivia said gently. "He was raised by caregivers who gave no care, betrayed by the system that should have served him."

"I agree," Monique said. "He is a victim here, but you know what else he is: a danger."

Olivia fell silent for a moment. Yes, Bron had killed a foster father, but he hadn't meant to.

Was that what had rattled Monique?

Olivia glanced toward the kitchen. Bron was still inside the houseboat somewhere, though she could not see him. She risked speaking openly. "I've seen inside the mind of a Draghoul. Bron doesn't feel that cold inside. He doesn't fit in their world."

"Or in ours," Monique argued. "He's something we've never seen before."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," Monique said, "he's a new branch on the evolutionary tree. There have been dream assassins before ... but he is different somehow. Those purple flashes that he gives off when he unleashes? They're unlike anything we've encountered. I know that you want to protect him, but you and I both know how dangerous he is."

Olivia didn't believe that she was being overprotective. She loved Bron the way that a mother loves her child. It was a new love, true, but it was powerful nonetheless. They'd been through a great deal together in just a week, and she had to believe that he felt something for her, too.

He wasn't Draghoul. He wasn't Ael.

"So what do you think we should do?"

Monique fell silent, considered. Bron walked into the room, carrying a cold can of soda.

Monique faced him. "Bron, before I teach you more, I want you to complete a quest."

"A quest?" Bron asked. "A quest for what?"

She peered into Bron's eyes. "Years ago, a woman was sent to me—a young mother who was forced to give up her son. She had abandoned the child, and she wanted me to erase her memory of him—obliterate it so deeply that no one would ever be able to learn what had happened to him. I was very young then, but I had generations of experience in such matters. Though years have passed, I still know how to contact that woman. Bron, I want you to meet your mother."

"My mother?" Bron said. His mouth opened in amazement. He'd given up hope of finding her years ago. "How do you know she's my mother?"

Monique said softly. "Before your mother left you, she bleached your hair, reddened it so that the Draghouls wouldn't realize what you were. She wrapped you in a blue blanket, and took you to the Happy Valley Inn. She laid a black-eyed Susan next to you. She pinned a note to you that said, 'Bron is free.' It wasn't a price tag. She wasn't offering to give you away. You were being hunted, both of you, and it was a prayer. She hoped that finally, someday, you would be free."

After their talk, Olivia joined Monique in the kitchen to help fix dinner. Olivia found a vegetarian lasagna that had been flown in from a fine restaurant in Vegas, rich with wine, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach leaves, fresh matsutake mushrooms, and exotic cheeses.

As she warmed it in the oven, Monique blended ice, sugar and fresh juice from lemons and limes to make a frappe. Olivia glanced out on the fore-deck, saw Bron sitting alone with his thoughts, staring at the starlight and the untroubled waters.

"I don't get it," Olivia whispered softly as Monique squeezed the juices. "Why do you want to bring his mother into this?"

In order to assure a level of privacy, Monique switched to ancient French. "Il me fait peur," Monique said simply. He scares me. "It is not the rage that bothered me. When I tried to look into his heart and find what he loved ... it was too empty. I'm thinking that Bron needs this. I'm sure that his mother needs it, too."

That stopped Olivia. She hadn't searched Bron's memories quite so thoroughly. "If we look deeply enough, we'll find some affection, somewhere."

"You don't see him for what he is. You haven't looked at his balance. Sure, there's love, but damned little of it. If he had a wealth of love in him, and rage in equal measure, it would only mean that he's passionate. But there's an imbalance here.

"Olivia, you're a loving person. You love everyone—the kids at your school, your husband, the teachers with whom you work...."

"They're good people," Olivia argued.

"No, they're not," Monique said. "You simply project your own values on them, imagining that they're good. You know the statistics. At least one in every twenty kids in your school is a sociopath. Yet you imagine that they are all like you."

Monique was right, Olivia knew. She loved pretty much everyone. It's what kept her working at the school for fifteen hours a day, five and six days a week, teaching during the days and helping with plays and concerts at nights. Everyone had dreams to fulfill, and she wanted to help make them all come true. And when she came home exhausted, she still had Mike to care for.

Then there was her work with the PTA during the school year and with charitable causes during the summer.

All week, Olivia had been running herself ragged, until she felt exhausted.

Olivia got it from her mother.

Her mom had worked her fingers to the bone, growing vast gardens up in Brigham City, planting melons and strawberries and corn and beans. At the end of each year, the family didn't eat a fiftieth of what they grew. Instead, Olivia's mother would drive her around at the end of each day, passing out fresh vegetables to the elderly, the indigent, and to the families of migrant laborers that came each year to harvest fruit from the local orchards.

Olivia had learned young that the lasting joy in life comes from giving, not taking.

She hoped that Bron might learn that, too. But she couldn't be sure that he ever would. How could he ever learn to love others, when the truth was that he feared them? He dared not get too close to them, let himself become vulnerable.

"If you believe that sociopaths exist," Olivia said, "then Bron might be one. But I don't buy the argument that people are born without consciences. A child who is loved learns to love in return. Bron can't help it if his first foster mother couldn't stand to be touched...."

Immediately Olivia knew that she'd said the wrong thing. Children who weren't able to bond with a mother were far more likely to exhibit sociopathic behaviors than others.

"My god," Monique said. "You knew what he was the day you took him in! You're ... trying to fix him."

"To help him," Olivia said. "I'll give him love, and maybe I can teach him how to love, at least a little."

"Don't get your hopes up," Monique warned.

"Why not?" Olivia asked. "You've got yours up. Your first instinct was to send him to his mother. Mine was to try to be his mother."

That stopped Monique. Olivia had her, she knew. For a long moment she worked, mixing juices and then pouring them over the ice. "This is a dangerous game we're playing," Monique said. "Bron is a killer in the making. And if the enemy finds him—"

"We'll just have to keep that from happening."