Blood Canticle Page 0,75

child! About the man who took her away."

"How many times must I tell you, I can't find them!" said Rowan. "I've searched and searched."

I became furious at Mona. I had to take a deep breath. I reached over and snatched her out of Quinn's protective hold and turned her to face me.

"Now you listen to me," I said in a small voice. "Stop abusing your power. Stop forgetting that you have it. Stop forgetting the inevitable limitations of your kindred here! If you want to search for your daughter now, you have resources that Rowan and Michael can't even dream of! Quinn and I are here to find out what the Taltos is because you won't tell us! (She stared at me wide-eyed and slightly in terror.) Every time we ask you about it you dissolve into tears. In fact, you've wept more in the last thirty-six hours than any fledgling I've ever encountered in all my years, and it's becoming an ontological, existential, epistemological, and hermeneutical nuisance!"

"How dare you ridicule me!" she hissed. She took a deep cool breath. "You let me go this instant. You think I'm going to obey you in thought, word and deed! You're dreaming. I'm not the Wander Slut you make me out to be. I was the Design茅e of the Legacy of the entire Mayfair family. I know what it means to have self-possession and power. You don't look like an angel to me, and you sure as Hell don't have the charm of a bona fide gangster!"

I was stunned. I let her go. "I give up!" I said disgustedly. "You're a brash little infidel! Go your own way."

Quinn whipped her around and looked down into her eyes.

"Be still, please," he said. "Let Rowan talk the way she wants to talk. If you're ever to be Mona Mayfair again, that must be allowed to happen."

"Mona, this is very true," said Stirling. "Remember, this is an exposition of souls, a bartering of extraordinary revelations."

"Oh, let me get it straight," said Mona. "I triumph over death, and we gather here to listen to the personal

memories of Rowan Mayfair?"

Dolly Jean, who had been dozing with the bottle, suddenly jumped into life, bouncing up and down and leaning forward, crinkled little eyes staring hard at Mona.

"Mona Mayfair, you button your lip," she said. "You know perfectly well, no matter how sick you've been, that Rowan almost never talks at all, and when she does talk she's got something to say, you and your fancy friends are learning about the Mayfair family, now how's that supposed to hurt you, I'd like to know, don't you want your handsome escorts to understand you? Shut up."

"Oh, you're just joining in with the chorus!" Mona said sharply to Dolly Jean. "Drink your Amaretto and leave me alone!"

"Mona," said Quinn as amiably as he could. "There are things we do need to know for your sake. Does it hurt so much to listen to Rowan?"

"Very well," Mona replied miserably, and she sat back in the chair. She wiped at her face with one of her thousands of handkerchiefs. She glared at me.

I glanced at her, then back to Rowan.

Rowan was watching all this with a remote expression, her face more relaxed than it had been all evening. Dolly Jean took another drink of Amaretto and sat back and closed her eyes. Michael was studying the three of us. Stirling waited, but our cross words had fascinated him.

"Rowan," I said. "Can you tell us what the Taltos is? We lack that basic knowledge. Can you give it to us?"

"Yes," she answered in a resigned voice. "I can tell you as much as anyone can."

Chapter 18

18

HER EXPRESSION REMAINED PLACID, though she looked away, her inner focus gathering.

"A mammal," she said, "evolved totally apart from Homo sapiens, on a volcanic island in the North Sea thousands of years before us. We share perhaps forty-five percent of our genes in common. The creatures look like us except that they tend to be taller and more long of limb. Their bone structure is almost entirely what we would call cartilage. When the pure creatures mate, the female ovulates on demand and

the fetus develops within a matter of minutes or hours, it isn't clear to me-but whatever the case, it puts tremendous stress upon the mother. Birth is accompanied by severe pain, and the infant unfolds as a small adult and begins to grow to maturity immediately."

Mona's entire demeanor changed at these words. She moved closer to