▼
Rob's gut churned as Kara screamed again with pain.
"Christ, Kara! You won't have a hand left!"
He glanced around the room. There had to be something he could do. And then he saw it. The velvet tie-back from the side drape he had hung onto when he was falling lay on the floor amid the shattered glass. He grabbed it and held it up.
"What are you going to do with that?"
"Tie you up."
She frowned, then smiled with relief.
"Yes! Oh, thank you!" She looked down at the bloody glass dagger in her hand. "I don't know how many more times I can do this!"
Rob wasn't sure he could stab himself even once. He was sure, however, that he was in the presence of the bravest woman—the bravest person—he had ever known.
He helped her over to a ladderback chair that was set against the wall by the record shelves. Kara dropped into it and pushed her hands around the back of the chair.
"Good knots, Rob. I don't want to get free."
As he looped the cord around her wrists and arms and through the rungs of the back, Jill began screaming.
"What are you doing to my mother? Stop it!"
"It's okay, Jill," Kara said in a soothing voice. "I asked him to do this."
"But you're hurt!"
"I know. But I did that to myself. Rob's not hurting me. He's doing this so I don't hurt myself any more."
"But why?"
"There's a bad man in the basement who's making me hurt myself. Rob's only going to tie me up for a few minutes while he makes the man stop, then he's going to let me go. Right, Rob?"
Rob kissed her on the forehead. He'd never loved her more than he did at this moment.
"Right." He looked Jill right in the eye, hoping she'd see no threat in him. "And then I'm coming back upstairs and letting her loose. And then we're all getting out of here. For good! But whatever happens, don't let your mother get loose till I get back!"
He could tell Jill wasn't buying the whole package, but at least her panic seemed to be under control.
"He's right, Jill. Don't let me get loose. Okay?"
Hesitantly, she nodded.
Rob pulled the cord as tightly as he dared around Kara's wrists. He didn't want to cut off circulation, but he didn't want her getting out, either. Not after what she'd done to him a moment ago.
Rob shuddered at the memory of that fall. If the drape in his right hand hadn't caught for that second, allowing his left hand to grab hold of the cornice—
He stepped over to the record cabinet and pulled his revolver and holster from his leather jacket. He looked at Kara and nodded once, then ran for the stairs.
"There's a lever up among the pipes by the wall. Pull it down!"
"Got it!"
He took the steps down three at a time.
▼
You keep thrusting but you can't get back into Kara. Twice you've tried and each time you were rebuffed by blasts of pain. But the third time is lucky. You are back in. There's sunlight, cold air from the broken window, pain in the left hand but not enough to break the bond. As you snatch the reins of control, you hear Kara cry out.
No! Not again!
"Yes! Again! And this time—"
You can't move her arms. A chair—you're in a chair. Tied in a chair! You pull frantically on the cord that binds you. And the detective is nowhere in sight!
"Where is he?"
In the basement, Gabor. Getting ready to riddle your filthy little body with holes!
Her rage, her hatred of you is an angry surf, it pummels you, swirls around you and tries to drag you under. Too strong, this one. Too angered at having her life taken over. But you hang on to control and continue to struggle with the cord that binds your wrists. They loosen slightly, but not enough to make a difference. You can get free of them eventually, but eventually will be too late.
No! This can't be! You fight the panic. You can't let them beat you! Not these two inferiors. You must think!
And then you notice Jill standing before you, tears in her eyes, looking frightened and confused.
"Jill, honey," you say, remembering her mother's pet terms for her. "Untie me, bug."
You feel Kara's rage and desperation beating against you anew.
No! Leave her out of this!
"You said not to," Jill says. "Not until Rob comes back from stopping the bad man in the basement."
Those deadly words are all the more chilling from the mouth of a child. You search for a plausible reason for Kara to have changed her mind.
"I know, bug, but I forgot to tell Detec—Rob something very important. There's a dangerous trap in the cellar. The bad man set it. And if we don't tell Rob right away, he'll get hurt! You don't want him to be hurt, do you?"
"No," she says, her eyes and voice filled with uncertainty.
"Then untie me. Quickly! Please, bug! There's no time to waste if we're going to save him!"
Jill's face is tortured for a moment, then she runs around to the back of the chair.
It's too late, Gabor! Kara says. He's found you by now! Any minute now and I'll be free of you forever!
You realize that she's probably right but you must try.
The child whimpers as she struggles with the knots. You feel something pull free. There's a little extra room around your wrists. You yank them free of the cord, leap up, and grab Jill by the arm. Terror propels you down the stairs, dragging the frightened child after you.
What are you doing, you monster? Leave her out of this!
You could drop Kara into limbo to shut her up but that would distract you for a moment, and you need every second, every ounce of concentration at your disposal if you're going to have a chance of surviving.
On the first floor, you stop in the kitchen and pull one of the carving knives from a drawer, then head for the basement.
It's too late, Gabor! Too late!
But you know that as long as you're still alive and still in Kara's body, it's not too late.
You begin shouting as you enter the stairwell.
▼
Rob had been pounding on the paneling, reaching up among the pipes, but had found nothing. There was an empty space behind the panels, he could hear that, but his questing hands hadn't come in contact with anything that felt like a lever—
Until now.
His hand closed around a short length of L-bar. He pulled down on it and heard a click inside the paneling. A section sank inward. He was pushing on it, trying to find a way in, when he heard someone shouting on the stairs.
Kara's voice! How did she—?
"Don't do it Harris! I've got your daughter and if I die, so does she!"
Rob heard Jill's terrified sobs before he saw her. And when she came into view, Kara was holding a knife at her throat.
Not Jill!
A current of panic buzzed through Rob for an instant. Then he drew his pistol.
"Give me the gun, Harris," said Kara's voice.
The menace in her eyes, her expression—so alien.
And to see her pressing the point of a knife against Jill's throat sickened him.
"No way, Gabor!"
"I'll cut her. I will."
Rob noticed that the faint trace of accent he used to hear in Gates' voice had wormed its way into Kara's. He looked into Jill's eyes, saw the hurt mixed with the fear.
"That's not your mom, Jill. That's someone pretending to be your mom. Just stand quiet and I'll get us out of this."
"I sincerely doubt that. The gun, Harris!"
"Forget that. I give you the gun, you'll shoot us both."
Rob ransacked his brain for a way to bargain out of this. The first step in any hostage situation was to keep everyone talking so you could think.
"I don't want that," Kara's voice said. "This is merely self defense. I'll let you go. I just want to protect myself."
This from someone who just moments ago had pushed him out a third story window.
"Right. You'll let J
ill and me waltz out of here."
Kara's face hardened. Her hand moved the point of the knife up to Jill's right eye. Jill whimpered with terror.
"I'm going to start cutting her, Harris. Starting with this eye. And I'm going to keep cutting her until you put that gun on the floor and slide it over to me."
Rob felt beads of sweat burst from every pore on his body. He pointed his revolver at the section of paneling that had moved and spoke through his teeth. His voice was low, almost a whisper.
"One drop of her blood, Gabor… I see one drop of blood and I empty this pistol into that wall. And then I go through that wall and I get hold of whatever's left of you in there and I tear it apart with my bare hands."
"Jill won't be much to look at by then."
"But you'll be dead."
"Will I? I'm living in Kara now. Maybe Kara will die with me. And maybe my body will die but I'll go on living within Kara. The situation is unprecedented. Anything could happen."
And either way, I lose, Rob thought.
"The pistol, Harris. Slide it over."
But as long as he held the pistol, Rob knew he had a chance. There was a way to save Jill: kill Kara. Rob raised the pistol in the two handed grip and sighted at the middle of Kara's forehead.
She smiled at him.
"You'd have made a good general, Harris. Sacrifice one platoon to avoid losing both. Go ahead. Shoot. Can you do it? To Kara? She's in here with me, looking down that barrel just as I am. Pull the trigger… Rob."
He lowered the pistol. He couldn't do it. Maybe if he just wounded her, the pain would free her from Gabor, but it was too risky. Most of her body was hidden behind Jill. He couldn't risk hitting Jill.
Rob could feel the balance of the stand-off shifting toward Gabor. Inevitable. Gabor controlled the two people Rob cared about most in this world. He felt as if he were being torn apart, slowly, one small piece at a time.
"Now, Harris!"
▼
You've wasted enough time. The longer you let this drag on, the greater the chance something will go wrong for you.
I wish he'd pulled the trigger! Kara says.
"I doubt that."
At least Jill would be safe.
You sense her sincerity, and you wonder at the depth of a mother's feeling for her child. You can't imagine sacrificing your own life for anyone.
But enough talk with Detective Harris. He cannot be threatened into dropping his weapon, so it is time for action. You're not anxious to cut the child—it will be most unpleasant—but this is a desperate situation. You are fighting for your own existence. All it takes is one short jab. You need only move your hand an inch or less and the point will pierce the child's eye. That will bring Harris to his knees. And then you'll be in control.
This will teach Kara a lesson, too.
"Watch carefully, Kara. I'm going to demonstrate who is the master here."
Panic spews from her in a fountain.
No! You're not—!
"Watch!"
Kara's voice becomes an inarticulate scream in your mind as you draw the knife back a bit, preparing for the jab, then—
You can't move it!
The knife is frozen in the air. Now it's moving away! Away! It's Kara! She's reasserting control! But this is impossible! You knew she had a powerful self, but you never dreamed—
You try to force her back but her rage is a living thing, clawing at you. Kara's protective instincts have been uncaged, released from some primitive part of her hindbrain, and they are now roaring through her like prehistoric beasts. Racial memories, encoded in every cell of her body, are bursting free. Every woman who has ever persevered through a life of domination… every mother since the dawn of time who has ever fought to save her child… it's as if they've all suddenly risen up and joined her against you.
You've misjudged this woman. You hope it was not a fatal error. You fight back with all your power, your greater experience. You must win! You must!
▼
Kara shouted with triumph as she forced the knife blade away from Jill's face. She could only control one arm at a time, it seemed—Gabor kept her left arm wrapped tightly around Jill—but Kara controlled the important one. The ferocity of her anger astonished her, and even frightened her. But it was the fuel she used against Gabor, and it was working. She could do it! She could beat Gabor!
"The panel!" she said to Rob in a voice so strained she barely recognized it as her own. "Slide it—uhn!"
The effort of speaking cost her some control over her hand and the knife blade darted toward Jill's eye again. She stopped it in time, but she didn't dare speak again.
▼
Something was happening. Rob watched Kara's body tremble violently. Her right arm spasmed. She'd said something about the panel. Slide it?
He backed away to the panel and pushed against it. It didn't move back but it slid a bit to the left. He kept it moving, and then he was looking into a small room with a crib. Two steps and he was standing over it. Rob's gorge rose as he stared down at the mottled, bloated diapered thing looking up at him with opaque eyes.
Here he was. This was Gabor. Rob ratcheted back the hammer on his revolver and leveled it at Gabor's over-sized head. He squeezed the trigger but couldn't pull it. Gabor's words came back to him. What if killing Gabor's body left him alive in Kara's, and permanently in control?
Kara lurched into the room, still clutching Jill, still brandishing the knife. There seemed to be a tug of war going on. The knife would slash toward Jill, then pull back. Over and over.
As Kara struggled toward the crib, straining and jerking like someone moving the wrong way in the rush hour commuter tide, trying to go up the steps while the horde was flowing down, Rob stepped aside. He sensed a titanic struggle roaring beneath the surface, one he was barred from entering. He had no choice but to wait and see what would happen, and stand ready to grab Jill and pull her free at the first opportunity.
▼
Close, closer. Kara pushed her body toward the crib. It was like moving under water. And the closer she got, the stiffer Gabor's resistance as she sensed him drawing strength from his own panic.
Within a yard of the crib, she stalled. Gabor seemed to have dug in his heels in a last desperate effort to hold her back. Even her unquenched fury wasn't strong enough to push her beyond that point.
Why didn't Rob shoot him? What was he waiting for? She didn't dare risk speech—it might allow Gabor the upper hand.
Hand… the knife was still in her hand, forgotten as they fought toward and away from the crib. She called up all her reserves. A garbled chorus, an unintelligible blend of an unimaginable number of voices echoed down the millennia and roared in her ears as she tightened her grip on the handle…
And plunged downward.
Kara screamed with the pain of the blade sinking deep into the muscles of her thigh. Jill screamed, too. But suddenly Kara's body was her own again. She pushed Jill child toward Rob.
"Get her out!"
And then she lunged at the crib.
Ahead of her, she saw Gabor's body rear up and look at her with its blind eyes. His slack mouth hung open, his tongue moved, as if trying to form words.
Kara didn't hesitate. She shoved the blade forward between the bars and rammed it into Gabor's barrel chest. He made a hoarse cry like the squeal of a pig and then Kara was leaning over the crib, slashing and stabbing. There were no more cries after the first, and the thrashing stopped soon after. The only noise was the hiss of the knife slicing in and out of him and the small whimpering noises coming from deep in her own chest. But she kept driving the knife into his body, over and over. She slashed him for Jill, and she slashed him for her father whose memory he had defiled, but mostly she slashed him for herself. She closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see the carnage she was causing, but she couldn't stop… couldn't stop… couldn't stop. She had to keep it up until there was nothing left of him, until there was no chance that he would ever defile her or thr
eaten Jill ever again. And even now when she knew he had to be dead, and her wounded leg was threatening to give out under her, her arm kept stabbing, as if it had a life of its own.