On a whim, I drop into the Linguistics Department and go to Room 304. The door is ajar and inside sits an older man with frizzy grey hair and thin metal eyeglassframes.
I stand at thedoorway.
"ProfessorCormier?"
He glancesup.
"Yes," he says, rising and coming to the door to meetme.
"Do you know a Professor Michel de Cernay, by anychance?"
He frowns. "Doesn't ring a bell.Sorry."
"Thank you," I say andleave.
Michel must have compelled his way into the office so he'd have a place to meet me. I realize that he's the consummate actor, the consummate liar, as he said in the manuscript. As I go down the stairs where I fell and over to the bus stop where he came to me, I remember my scraped palms. They're almost perfectly healed, due to the healing properties in Michel'ssaliva.
Michel wants us to remain professional. I try to console myself that this is what my mother would want. Not to be some vampire's trifle but it does nothing to soothe mydisappointment.
* * *
Chapter 10
"Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps."
WilliamBlake
I arrive back at the SCU at about 7:00, and enter the boardroom where Ed, Terri and Michel sit. I avoid Michel's eyes and wait for the interview tobegin.
"My apologies, Eve, for the disruption yesterday," Michel says and I'm forced to look at him. "I wasn'tmyself."
"I understand," I say. But I don't and already, my cheeksheat.
He avoids my eyes and I can tell that what I suspected about his letter being the brush-off is true. A sense of renewed sadness fills me. I feel close to him despite only knowing him for a few short days because of everything that's happened – our psychic contact, the manuscript. The pity-orgasm didn't help,either.
It hurts to think he's shutting 'us' down before we even happened. He said I had no idea. Now, I'll never know, but this is like Pandora's Box – once opened, you can't put that question backin.
I swallow hard and try to wipe my own mind of these thoughts, for he's going to have to 'read' me and there's no point in trying to deny how I feel. He'll know as soon as he touches me. But I do try to be a grown-up and take in a deep cleansingbreath.
He comes over to me and once again leans down over me as I sit in thechair.
"Now, I'll just do a quick read and then I want you to try to readme."
He takes my hand in his and despite everything, my heart skips a beat from his touch. After a moment, I feel him at the edges of my consciousness, warm and strong. Then something floods through me and I know he's using his powers to take away my sadness and it's a relief not to care anymore.
I do care, but now it's in an abstract, intellectual way, not a deepemotion.
He looks up at Ed and Terri. "She's clear," he says. "I've checked back on her recent associates and none of them are connected in any way toBlackstone."
Ed nods and writes something down in hisfiles.
Blackstone?
"Now, Eve. I want you to try to search my mind for my last unauthorized kill. As an Adept, your mind is primed to detect violence and although you've had a very peaceful life, it's there, if you can learn to tap into it. So just let your mind free when you connect with me. Let it go where it will. You'll findit."
I blink and try to do as I'm told, but what he's said makes me frown. My mind is primed to detectviolence?
"How do I know when I've found your last legalkill?"