Frankenstein: City of Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    Showered, feeling pretty in a summery dress of yellow silk, Erika left the master suite to explore the mansion. She felt like the unnamed narrator and heroine of
Rebecca
, for the first time touring the lovely rooms of Manderley.
    In the upstairs hall, she found William, the butler, on his knees in a corner, chewing off his fingers one by one.

CHAPTER 9
    IN THE UNMARKED SEDAN , driving fast, seeking what she always needed in times of crisis—good Cajun food—Carson said, “Even if you were Jack’s mother, even if you were his wife, even then you wouldn’t know he’d been replaced.”
    “If this were like some Southern Gothic novel,” Michael said, “and I was
both
his mother and his wife, I’d still think that was Jack.”
    “That was
Jack
.”
    “That wasn’t Jack.”
    “I know that wasn’t him,” Carson said impatiently, “but it was
him
.”
    Her palms were slick with sweat. She blotted them one at a time on her jeans.
    Michael said, “So Helios isn’t just making his New Race and seeding them into the city with fabricated biographies and forged credentials.”
    “He can also
duplicate
real people,” she said. “How can he do that?”
    “Easy. Like Dolly.”
    “Dolly who?”
    “Dolly the sheep. Remember several years ago, some scientists cloned a sheep in a lab, named her Dolly.”
    “That was a sheep, for God’s sake. This is a medical examiner. Don’t tell me
‘easy.’
”
    The fierce midday sun fired the windshields and the brightwork of the traffic in the street, and every vehicle appeared to be on the verge of bursting into flames, or melting in a silvery spill across the pavement.
    “If he can duplicate Jack Rogers,” she said, “he can duplicate anyone.”
    “You might not even be the real Carson.”
    “I’m the real Carson.”
    “How would I know?”
    “And how will I know if you go to the men’s room and a Michael monster comes back?”
    “He wouldn’t be as funny as the real me,” Michael said.
    “The new Jack is funny. Remember what he said about the dead old guy on the table having more personality than homicide cops?”
    “That wasn’t exactly hilarious.”
    “But for Jack it was funny enough.”
    “The real Jack wasn’t all that funny to begin with.”
    “That’s my point,” she said. “They can be as funny as they need to be.”
    “That would be scary if I thought it was true,” Michael said. “But I’ll bet my ass, if they ring a Michael monster in on you, he’ll be about as witty as a tree stump.”
    In this neighborhood of old cottage-style houses, some remained residences, but others had been converted to commercial enterprises.
    The blue-and-yellow cottage on the corner looked like someone’s home except for the blue neon sign in a large front window: WONDERMOUS EATS, FOR TRUE , which translated from Cajun patois as “good food, no lie.”
    Michael preferred to read it as “good food, no bullshit,” so from time to time he could say “Let’s have a no-bullshit lunch.”
    Whether the legal name of the restaurant was Wondermous Eats or whether that was just a slogan, Carson had no idea. The cheap Xeroxed menus had no name at top or bottom.
    Cottages had been cleared off two adjacent lots, but the ancient live oaks had been left standing. Cars were parked in the shade among the trees.
    The carpet of dead leaves looked like drifts of pecan shells and crunched under the tires of the sedan, then underfoot as Carson and Michael walked to the restaurant.
    If Helios succeeded in the abolition of humanity, replacing it with obedient and single-minded multitudes, there would be nothing like Wondermous Eats, for True. There would be no eccentricity and no charm in the new world that he desired.
    Cops saw the worst of people, and grew cynical if not bitter. Suddenly, however, flawed and foolish humanity seemed beautiful and precious to Carson, no less so than nature and the world itself.
    They chose a table outside, in the oak shade, apart from