in their sins! You terminated their destiny on this earth. You snatched from them any chance for repentance, for redemption. You took that from them. You took it all, Reuben. You snuffed out forever the years of reparation they might have lived! You took life itself from them and you took it from their descendants, and yes, even from their victims, you took what their amends might have been."
He stopped. Reuben had closed his eyes, and was holding his forehead in his hands. He was angry. Took from their victims? They had been slaughtering their victims! There would have been no "amends" for their victims. There would have been death if Reuben had not intervened. Even all the children of the kidnap had been in mortal peril. But that was not the point, was it? He was guilty of killing. He could not deny it and he could not feel remorse.
"Look, I want to help you!" Jim pleaded. "I don,t want to condemn you, or drive you away from me."
"You won,t do that, Jimmy." It is I who am moving inexorably away from you.
"You can,t keep going with this alone. And this woman, Laura, she,s beautiful and she,s devoted to you. And she,s no child or fool, I can see that. But she doesn,t know any more about this than you do."
"She knows what I know. And she knows that I love her. If she hadn,t struck Marrok with the ax when she did, I might not have been able to defeat him...."
Jim clearly didn,t know how to answer.
"So what are you saying?" Reuben asked. "What then do you want me to do?"
"I don,t know. Let me think. Let me try to figure who could be trusted, who could study this, analyze, figure some way perhaps to reverse it - ."
"Reverse it? Jim, Marrok evaporated! Ashes to ashes. He disappeared. You think something this powerful can be reversed?"
"You don,t know how long this creature had had the power."
"That,s another thing, Jim. A knife or a gun can,t hurt me. If that creature had had a few more seconds, he could have removed that ax from the back of his skull, and his skull, even his skull, and his brain might have healed. I decapitated him. Nothing can survive that. Remember, I healed from a bullet wound, Jim."
"Yes, I know that, Reuben, I remember. I didn,t believe you when you told me this before, about being shot. I have to say, I didn,t believe you." He shook his head. "But they found the bullet in the wall of that Buena Vista house. Celeste told me. They found the bullet and the trajectory indicated the bullet had been deflected somehow. The bullet had passed through something before it lodged in the plaster of the wall. And there was no tissue on that bullet, not even the tiniest particle of any tissue."
"And what does that mean, Jim? What does that mean about ... my body and about time?"
"Don,t go thinking you,re immortal, Little Boy," he said under his breath. He reached out and pinched the loose flesh right above Reuben,s left wrist. "Please don,t go thinking that."
"But what if we have great longevity, Jim? I mean, I don,t know, but that Marrok creature. I got the distinct impression that the thing had been around for a long time."
"Why do you say that?"
"Something he said about remembering, remembering his early curiosity when he couldn,t remember anything else. I don,t know. I confess, I,m guessing, going by my gut."
"It could be the opposite," Jim said. "You just don,t know. You,re right about the forensics. There,s no other explanation as to why they have nothing, and Celeste says they have nothing.... And Mom says they can,t explain it but the materials they gather simply self-destruct."
"I knew it. And Mom knows that,s what happened to the specimens they took from me."
"She hasn,t said so. But Mom knows something. And Mom is afraid. Also Mom,s obsessed. This Russian doctor, he,s supposed to arrive here tomorrow, and take her to see this little hospital in Sausalito - ."
"That is a dead end!"
"I understand, but I don,t like it. I mean, I want you to tell Mom, but I don,t like it, this Paris doctor, what he,s got in mind. Dad doesn,t like it either. He,s already had it out with Mom that she better not be suggesting committing you against your will."
"What?"
"Look, I,m telling you what I,ve been hearing. Mom and Dad can,t find any mention of this hospital