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have them. That was the most frightening thing of all.
The music was not welcome in the Dexter Auditorium. I did not want it. I
wanted it to go away. But it came, and it played, and it made me
supernaturally happy against my will and then dumped me by the front door,
apparently trying to get me outside and-
And what? It was a jolt of monster-under-the-bed thought straight from the
lizard brain, but&
Was it a random impulse, uncharted movement by my unconscious mind, that got
me out of bed and down the hall to the door? Or was something trying to get me
to open the door and go outside? He had told the kids I would find him when
the time was right-was this the right time?
Did someone want Dexter alone and unconscious in the night?
It was a wonderful thought, and I was terribly proud to have it, because it
meant that I had clearly suffered brain damage and could no longer be held
responsible. Once again I was blazing new trails in the territory of stupid.
It was impossible, idiotic, stress-induced hysteria. No one on earth could
possibly have so much time to throw away; Dexter was not important enough to
anyone but Dexter. And to prove it, I turned on the floodlight over the front
porch and opened the door.
Across the street and about fifty feet to the west a car started up and drove
away.
I closed the door and double-locked it.
And now it was my turn once more to sit up at the kitchen table, sipping
coffee and pondering life's great mystery.
The clock said 3:32 when I sat down, and 6:00 when Rita finally came into the
room.
"Dexter," she said with an expression of soporific surprise on her face.
"In the flesh," I said, and it was exceedingly difficult for me to maintain
my artificially cheerful facade.
She frowned. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing at all," I said. "I just couldn't sleep."
Rita bent her face down toward the floor and shuffled over to the coffeemaker
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and poured herself a cup. Then she sat across the table from me and took a
sip. "Dexter," she said, "it's perfectly normal to have reservations."
"Of course," I said, with absolutely no idea what she meant, "otherwise you
don't get a table."
She shook her head slightly with a tired smile. "You know what I mean," she
said, which was not true. "About the wedding."
A small bleary light went on in the back of my head, and I very nearly
saidAha . Of course the wedding. Human females were obsessive on the subject
of weddings, even it if wasn't their own. When it was, in fact, their own, the
idea of it took over every moment of waking and sleeping thought. Rita was
seeing everything that happened through a pair of wedding-colored glasses. If
I could not sleep, that was because of bad dreams brought on by our upcoming
wedding.
I, on the other hand, was not similarly afflicted. I had a great deal of
important stuff to worry about, and the wedding was something that was on
automatic pilot. At some point I would show up, it would happen, and that
would be that. Clearly this was not a viewpoint I could invite Rita to share,
no matter how sensible it seemed to me. No, I had to come up with a plausible
reason for my sleeplessness, and in addition I needed to reassure her of my
enthusiasm for the wonderful looming event.
I looked around the room for a clue, and finally saw something in the two
lunch boxes stacked beside the sink. A great place to start: I reached deep
into the dregs of my soggy brain and pulled out the only thing I could find
there that was less than half wet. "What if I'm not good enough for Cody and
Astor?" I said. "How can I be their father when I'm really not? What if I just
can't do it?"
"Oh, Dexter," she said. "You're a wonderful father. They absolutely love
you."
"But," I said, struggling for both authenticity and the next line, "but
they're little now. When they get older. When they want to know about
theirreal father-"
"They know all they'll ever need to know about that sonofabitch," Rita
snapped. It surprised me: I had never heard her use rough language before.
Possibly she never had, either, because she began to blush. "You are their
real father," she said. "You are the man they look up to, listen to, and love.
You are exactly the father they need."
I suppose that was at least partly true, since I was the only one who could
teach them the Harry Way and other things they needed to know, though I
suspected this was not exactly what Rita had in mind. But it didn't seem
politic to bring that up, so I simply said, "I really want to be good at this.
I can't fail, even for a minute."
"Oh, Dex," she said, "people fail all the time." That was very true. I had
noticed many times before that failure seemed to be one of the identifying
characteristics of the species. "But we keep trying, and it comes out all
right in the end. Really. You're going to be great at this, you'll see."
"Do you really think so?" I said, only mildly ashamed of the disgraceful way
I was hamming it up.
"Iknow so," she said, with her patented Rita smile. She reached across the
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table and clutched at my hand. "I won't let you fail," she said. "You're mine
now."
It was a bold claim, flinging the Emancipation Proclamation aside like that
and saying she owned me. Still, it seemed to close off an awkward moment
comfortably, so I let it slide. "All right," I said. "Let's have breakfast."
She cocked her head to one side and looked at me for a moment, and I was
aware that I must have hit a false note, but she just blinked a few times
before she said, "All right," and got up and began to cook breakfast.
The other had come to the door in the night, and then slammed it in
fear-there was no mistaking that part. He had felt fear. He heard the call and
came, and he was afraid. And so the Watcher had no doubt about it.
It was time.
Now.
THIRTY-SIX
IWAS BONE WEARY, CONFUSED, AND, WORST OF ALL, STILLfrightened. Every
lighthearted blast of the horn had me leaping against the seat belt and
searching for a weapon to defend myself, and every time an innocent car pulled
up to within inches of my bumper I found myself glaring into the mirror,
waiting for an unusually hostile movement or a burst of the hateful dream
music flung at my head.
Something was after me. I still didn't know why or what, beyond a vague
connection to an ancient god, but I knew it was after me, and even if it could
not catch me right away, it was wearing me down to the point where surrender
would seem like a relief.
What a frail thing a human being is-and without the Passenger, that is all I
was, a poor imitation of a human being. Weak, soft, slow and stupid, unseeing,
unhearing and unaware, helpless, hopeless, and harried. Yes, I was almost
ready to lie down and let it run over me, whatever it was. Give in, let the
music wash over me and take me away into the joyful fire and the blank bliss
of death. There would be no struggle, no negotiation, nothing but an end to
all that is Dexter. And after a few more nights like the one just past, that
would be fine with me.
Even at work there was no relief. Deborah was lurking in wait, and pounced
after I had barely stepped out of the elevator.
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