Prodigal Son

CHAPTER 39

At daybreak, with the rising sun not yet at an angle to fire the stained-glass windows, Our Lady of Sorrows sheltered a congregation of shadows. The only light came from the illuminated stations of the cross and from the candles in the ruby-red glass votive cups.

The humidity and early heat ripened the fragrances of incense, tallow, and lemon-scented wax. Inhaling this melange, Victor imagined he would be sweating it through every pore for the rest of the day.

His footsteps on the marble floor echoed from the groin vaults overhead. He liked the crisp coldness of this sound, which he fancied spoke truth to the cloying atmosphere of the church.

With the first Mass of the day still half an hour away, the only person present, other than Victor, was Patrick Duchaine. He waited, as instructed, on a pecan pew in the front row.

The man rose nervously, but Victor said, "Sit, sit," not quite in the tone he might use to decline a courtesy, but in a tone rather like the one in which he might speak with impatience to a vexing dog.

At sixty, Patrick had white hair, an earnest grand-fatherly face, and eyes moist with perpetual compassion. His looks alone inspired the trust and affection of his parishioners.

Add to appearances a gentle, musical voice. A warm, easy laugh. Furthermore, he had the genuine humility of a man who knew too well his place in the scheme of things.

Father Duchaine was the image of an unassailably good priest to whom the faithful would give their hearts. And to whom they would confess their sins without hesitation.

In a community with many Catholics-practicing and not-Victor found it useful to have one of his people manning the confessional in which some of the city's more powerful citizens went to their knees.

Patrick Duchaine was one of those rare members of the New Race who had been cloned from the DNA of an existing human being rather than having been designed from scratch by Victor. Physiologically, he had been improved, but to the eye he was the Patrick Duchaine who had been born of man and woman.

The real Father Duchaine had donated to a Red Cross blood drive, unwittingly providing the material from which he could be replicated. These days, he rotted under tons of garbage, deep in the landfill, while his Doppelganger tended to the souls at Our Lady of Sorrows.

Replacing real human beings with replicas entailed risks that Victor seldom wished to take. Although the duplicate might look and sound and move exactly like its inspiration, the memories of the original could not be transferred to him.

The closest relatives and friends of the replaced individual were certain to notice numerous gaps in his knowledge of his personal history and relationships. They wouldn't imagine he was an imposter, but they would surely think that he was suffering from a mental or physical ailment; they would press him to seek medical attention.

In addition, out of concern, they would watch him closely and would not entirely trust him. His ability to blend in with society and to carry out his work in the service of the New Race would be compromised.

In the case of the priest, he'd had no wife, of course, and no children. His parents were dead, as was his only brother. While he had many friends and parishioners to whom he was close, no intimate family existed to note his memory gaps throughout the day.

In the lab Victor raised this Father Duchaine from spilled blood before the real Father Duchaine had died, a trick more complicated than the one that the man from Galilee had performed with Lazarus.

Sitting in the front pew beside his priest, Victor said, "How do you sleep? Do you dream?"

"Not often, sir. Sometimes… a nightmare about the Hands of Mercy. But I can never recall the details."

"And you never will. That's my gift to you-no memory of your birth. Patrick, I need your help."

"Anything, of course."

"One of my people is having a serious crisis of the mind. I don't know who he is. He called me… but he is afraid to come to me."

"Perhaps… not afraid, sir," the priest said. “Ashamed. Ashamed that he has failed you."

That statement troubled Victor. "How could you suggest such a thing, Patrick? The New Race has no capacity for shame."

Only Erika had been programmed to know shame, and only because Victor found her more erotic in the throes of it.

"Shame," he told Patrick, "isn't a virtue. It's a weakness. No Natural Law requires it. We rule nature… and transcend it."

The priest evaded Victor's gaze. "Yes, sir, of course. I think what I meant was… maybe he feels a sort of… regret that he hasn't performed to your expectations."

Perhaps the priest would need to be watched closely or even subjected to a day-long examination in the lab.

"Search the city, Patrick. Spread the word among my people. Maybe they've seen one of their kind behaving oddly. I'm charging you and a few other key people with this search, and I know that you will perform up to my expectations."

"Yes, sir."

"If you find him and he runs… kill him. You know how your kind can be killed."

"Yes, sir."

"Be cautious. He's already killed one of you," Victor revealed.

Surprised, the priest met his eyes again.

"I'd prefer to have him alive," Victor continued. "But at least I need his body. To study Bring him to me at the Hands of Mercy."

They were near enough to the rack of votive candles that the pulsing crimson reflections of the flames crawled Patrick's face.

This inspired Victor to ask "Do you sometimes wonder if you're damned?"

"No, sir," the priest answered, but with a hesitation. "There is no Hell or Heaven. This is the one life."

"Exactly. Your mind is too well made for superstition." Victor rose from the pew. "God bless you, Patrick." When the priest's eyes widened with surprise, Victor smiled and said, "That was a joke."