Danal searched for the slightest hesitation in her voice, the slightest hint of doubt or uncertainty, but found nothing.
“We made love on the beach.”
He fell silent and swallowed. His throat felt thick, as if it contained a despairing sob waiting to be released. His synHeart was heavy enough to have been molded out of lead. Danal reached out tentatively with his hand, extending his fingertips. He traced a line from her eye, brushing down her cheek, wiping away an imaginary tear. How he wished she would shed a tear! Her skin remained dry and cool, her body temperature carefully regulated.
Danal reached out with his other hand, cupping her chin. He ran his fingers down her cheeks, over her lips. She lifted her head up with his gentle pressure, but her eyes remained empty. Danal found himself breathing rapidly, deeply. A smear of tears covered his eyes.
“Oh, Julia…” he said softly. His lips moved, but no words came out. “I’m so sorry.”
He raised her chin a fraction more, then bent forward to kiss her on the lips. The kiss was cold, and Julia did not participate. Danal turned away, hanging his head and trembling.
He heard a jingling, sloshing sound and looked up to see Laina making her way down the rope ladder. Ice cubes tinkled against the sides of a pitcher she carried.
“I brought you two something cold to drink,” she said brightly, but then looked at Danal, lowering her voice. “Were you ready for it?”
He sighed. “Yes, let’s try it.” He turned to Julia. “Do you like iced tea?”
“Whatever you wish.”
Danal restrained himself from making a frustrated outburst. Laina removed two tall glasses from pockets in her gray apron. He poured Julia a glass and handed it to her; she accepted it but did not drink.
“We used to drink iced tea. Especially in the sauna. On the day we tore down all the gargoyles.”
He paused after each phrase, listening and watching. Laina observed the two of them for a few moments and then left without making a sound.
Nothing.
Danal stood out in the open air; the light rain spattered against his thick layers of flesh-tone makeup. He had been impatient before, careless, the night they’d gone to recover Julia. Drex usually worked late, and Danal had not wanted to take the time for more than quick disguises. He’d been eager to go from Gregor after their argument, eager to get it over with, but even the clod Guildsman had seen through their disguises—it almost cost him, and all of the Wakers, everything.
Listlessly he held an umbrella, but paid little attention to whether it blocked the raindrops or not. Beside him Julia stood in her gray jumpsuit, soaking wet but uncaring. Danal drew his red-checked jacket closer around him.
Somehow the Gothic Van Ryman mansion looked right with black clouds looming behind it. The cockeyed weathervane spun one way and then the other, ignoring the direction of the breeze. Runnels of rain trickled off the wings and fangs of the gargoyles lurking in the eaves. The black wrought-iron fence looked like a line of spear points barring their way. Danal stared at the house himself with helpless anger still gnawing at him. Someone claiming to be Vincent Van Ryman relaxed inside, enjoying a stolen life.
Tiny flashes of light blinked in a half-dome around the house as raindrops struck the deadly field of the Intruder Defense Systems—the protection systems he had installed primarily for Julia’s safety… for all the good they had done. A strong ozone smell hung in the air.
“Just look at it a while longer,” he said hoarsely. “Please.”
Danal had taken her to the same cafeteria where they’d first met. They sat in the same red plastic booth; they drank their coffee, listened to the clatter of dishes on the conveyor belt. Danal even tried to start the same conversations. Julia lifted her cup and swallowed the hot coffee, staring ahead. People began to look sideways at him, and Danal realized that he shouldn’t have brought a Servant into the cafeteria. He didn’t want to call attention to himself. They left.
Other people walked blithely past the Van Ryman mansion in the rain. “April showers bring May flowers,” Danal said to Julia; she did not respond.
They could not stay much longer—the imposter could be watching him through the video monitors. Did he even suspect Danal was still alive? Danal had fallen through a KEEP OFF THE GRASS patch—would the imposter be worried at all anymore? Would he think he had gotten off, successful and free? Or might he recognize a disguised Danal and a Servant Julia loitering in front of his mansion?
Danal reminded himself that the imposter was “Joey”—a man disguised as a Servant, along with his partner Zia—whom Vincent and Julia had welcomed into their home. Danal found it ironic, now that he was a real Servant disguising himself as a man.
His last hope lay in showing her the looming mansion. Julia obediently stared at it in the rain, looking up at the gables and windows. Water ran down her bald scalp, beading on her pallid skin. She blinked rainwater out of her eyes and continued to look.
“Well?” Danal finally lost his patience. “Does this seem familiar to you? At all?”
“No,” Julia answered with flat but brutal honesty.
“It’s no use,” Danal said quietly.
Laina looked at him, understanding, but with a scowl. “You’re giving up hope, then?” She refilled his glass with the last of the iced tea, but now it tasted bitter.
“Her memories are dead and buried. They’re completely gone, wiped clean.” Danal hung his head. He could no longer even look at the walking husk of Julia. He had sent her with Gregor through the levels of the underground world where she would be occupied with menial tasks such as keeping the persistent repair-rats from undoing the constructions of the Wakers.
Laina reached up and patted him on the shoulder. He looked at her and realized that she had dressed in her white nurse/tech uniform. She wore it for her own comfort, since it no longer did her any good in the medical center, but she wore none of the excessive makeup, letting her bland Servant face stand on its own.
“You know, if it helps any, we’ve done quite a bit of research for ourselves. Rodney Quick got us more than a liter of a mutated batch of the final resurrection solution—that helped a lot. Apparently, the mutated solution weakens the barriers holding our memories back. But it takes something else, repeated shocks to our memories to break them open. You’re giving Julia the shocks all right, but if the barriers were never loosened in the first place…. Well, there’s nothing you can do about it. The mutated solution is really the key, and her resurrection was probably routine.”
Danal’s jaw muscles tightened, masking a sea of inner turmoil. He sat up to look Laina straight in the eye, and she seemed startled by the expression on his face. “I can’t kid myself any longer.” His voice came out sharp and cold. “And now I don’t have any reason in the world to forgive Nathans.”
Danal leaned back on his hammock and stared into the swallowing darkness. Laina looked as if she wanted to say something to him, but maintained her silence. He didn’t look at her. His burning anger seemed to feed on itself, leaving him motionless.
From below, Danal heard the gentle creaking of cross-beams as someone climbed up to where he and Laina sat together.
“Careful, now.” Gregor’s voice came from under them, then the leader hauled himself up to the main platform. The Servant Julia mechanically followed him up the ladder; as her hands appeared at the topmost rung, Gregor bent to help her up. Gregor dwarfed the silent Servant woman, but she seemed barely aware of his presence. Though Danal had begun to lose patience, Gregor still treated Julia with full courtesy and respect.
“Gregor, I’ve decided to stop trying,” Danal sighed, as if confessing. “I’ve done everything I can think of, but still Julia’s memories won’t come back.”