He wanted her. He wanted to yank off the boards, step through the window, brush aside the red-haired man, and take her in his arms. He wanted to carry her off into the night, holding her close to his heart, to some secret place where nobody could ever find her to hurt her.
He didn't. He knew... from experience... that it didn't work. He'd done it once or twice, and he'd paid for it. She had hated him before she died.
He would never risk that again.
And so now, on this spring night near the turn of the millennium in the state of Montana in the United States of America, all Thierry could do was kneel outside a window and watch the newest incarnation of his only Jove.
He didn't realize at first, though, what his only love was actually doing. Lupe had told him that Hannah Snow was seeing a psychologist. But it was only now, listening to what was going on in the room that Thierry slowly realized exactly what Hannah and the psychologist were up to.
They were trying to recover her memories. Using hypnosis. Breaking into her subconscious as if it were some bank vault.
It was dangerous.
Not just because the guy performing the hypnosis didn't seem to know what he was doing. But because Hannah's memory was a time-bomb, full of trauma for her and deadly knowledge for any human.
They shouldn't be doing this.
Every muscle in Thierry's body was tense. But there was no way he could stop it. He could only listen-and wait.
Paul repeated with slow resignation, "He's not human."
"No. He's a Lord of the Night World. He's powerful... and evil," Hannah whispered. "He's lived for thousands of years." She added, almost absently, "I'm the one who's been reincarnated."
"Oh, terrific. Well, that's a twist."
"You don't believe me?"
Paul seemed to suddenly remember that he was talking with a patient-and a hypnotized patient at that.
"No, I-I mean, I don't know what to believe. If it's a fantasy, there's got to be something underneath it, some psychological reason for you to make it all up. And that's what we're looking for. What all this means to you." He hesitated, then said with new determination, "Let's take you back to the first time you
met this guy. Okay, I want you to relax in the light; you're feeling very good. And now I want you to go back through time, just like turning back the pages of a book. In your mind, go back. ..."
Hannah's ordinary mind was intruding, waking up, overriding the dreamy part of her that had been answering Paul's questions. "Wait, I-I don't know if that's a good idea."
"We can't figure this out until we find out what it all symbolizes; what it means to you."
Hannah still didn't feel convinced, but she had the feeling she wasn't supposed to argue under hypnosis.
Maybe it doesn't matter, though, she thought. I'm waking up now; I probably won't be able to go back.
"I want you to see yourself as fifteen years old, see yourself as fifteen. Go back to the time when you
were fifteen. And now I want you to see yourself at twelve years old; go in your mind to the time when you are twelve. Now go farther back, see yourself at nine years old, at six years old, at three years old.
Now go back and see yourself as a baby, as an infant. Feel very comfortable and see yourself as a tiny baby."
Hannah couldn't help but listen. She did feel comfortable, and her mind did show her pictures as the years seemed to turn back. It was like watching a film of her life running backward, herself getting smaller and smaller, and in the end tiny and bald.
"And now," the soothing, irresistible voice said, "I want you to go farther back. Back to the time before you were born. The time before you were born as Hannah Snow. You are floating in the red light, you
feel very relaxed, and you are going back, back... to the time when you first met this man you think of as Thierry. Whatever that time might be, go back. Go back to the first time."
Hannah was being drawn down a tunnel.
She had no control and she was scared. It wasn't like the rumored near-death tunnel. It was red, with translucent, shining, pulsing walls-something like a womb. And she was being pulled or sucked through it at ever-increasing speed.
No, she thought. But she couldn't say anything. It was all happening too fast and she couldn't make a sound.
"Back to the first time," Paul intoned, and his words set up a sort of echo in Hannah's head, a whispering of many voices. As if a hundred Hannahs had all gotten together and murmured sibilantly, "The First Time. The First Time."
"Go back... and you will begin to see pictures. You will see yourself, maybe in a strange place. Go back and see this." The First Time...
No, Hannah thought again. And something very deep inside her whimpered, "I don't want to see it." But she was still being pulled through the soft red tunnel, faster and faster. She had a feeling of unimaginable distance being crossed. And then ... she had a feeling of some threshold being reached. The First Time.
She exploded into darkness, squirted out of the tunnel like a watermelon seed between wet ringers.
Silence. Dark. And then-a picture. It opened like a tiny leaf unfolding out of a seed, got bigger until it surrounded her. It was like a scene from a movie, except that it was all around her, she seemed to be floating in the middle of it.
"What do you see?" came Paul's voice softly from very far away.
"I see... me," Hannah said. "It's me-it looks just like me. Except that I don't have a birthmark." She was full of wonder.
"Where are you? What do you see yourself doing?"
"I don't know where I am." Hannah was too amazed to be frightened now. It was so strange . .. she could see this better than any memory of her real life. The scene was incredibly detailed. At the same time, it was completely unfamiliar to her. "What I'm doing... I'm holding... something. A rock. And I'm doing something with it to a little tiny... something." She sighed, defeated, then added, "I'm wearing animal skins! It's a sort of shirt and pants all made of skins. It's unbelievably... primitive. Paul, there's a cave behind me."