Starblood

tall, exceedingly colorful flowers sprang out of the ground, grew arms, legs, became flower women. There were reds and yellows, burnt oranges and creams, emeralds and deeply shimmering blues. The petals turned into hair of the same color, and the women came forth, smiling, fragrant, delivered of Mother Earth. But one of the flowers bloomed and was transformed into the Other. Dream Timothy rose from his blossom bed and approached the spectral figure. Closer… closer… the Other seemed to have more solidity now. They touched… and meshed. And the Other was within him. And…
    … He woke again, his mind crystal clear as he laid on his bed in the basement room of the house.
    He was aware of thoughts that were not his own. He expanded his mind, realized he was picking up Polly's emanations, was experiencing her dreams as if they were his. She was being thrust through hideous nightmares in which her beautiful face had been disfigured by acid…
    He extended his mind further.
    He soared into a cluster of thoughts he recognized immediately as Jon Margle's. They shifted about him like colored neon tubes, flashes of amber and rouge and cinnabar, sparklings of silver and great pulsing clouds of muddy brown.
    He shifted…
    And the next mind was Baker's. It was a vast, unbroken whiteness. Along the rim of the featureless plain were flashes of blood-colored lightning, thoughts of hideous, terrifying savageness. But the orderly, solid white paved over all else.
    He let his mind return to the basement room, into his own body once more. He was just in time to hear Polly scream…
    She thrashed on the bed and clawed desperately at the sheets as one of her dream phantoms chased her down imaginary corridors. He wished there were something he could do for her, and he was maddened by the thought that, had he had more experience with his developing psi power, he might have been able to reach into her mind and counter the dark visions that plagued her.
    Then he thought of the door and what he should have done immediately. He sent his psionic power to it, sent it into the lock to unkey it…
    … And the Other passed through him, returning him to the world of the PBT delusions and the insubstantial form of Dream Timothy. Again, the meshing had not been complete. He wondered, agonizingly, how long it would require to solidify the uniting of his two parts. He did not want to think about the possibility of that never transpiring. He allowed the illusions to entertain him…
    But they had lost something of their color and texture and were little better than a senso-theater show now. Time and again he found himself waking into reality for short moments, listening to Polly thrashing at the demons that tormented her. As he watched her and thought about what they were trying to do to her—and what they had already done by trampling her innocence irretrievably into the bottom of her soul—he wondered if he could kill them. Not as he had killed Klaus Margle and the two gunmen with him that night so long ago—this time, he wondered if he would be able to torture them a little first, if his hatred had grown that bitter…

CHAPTER 10
    Timothy woke before the girl and was forced to lie there, listening to her squeals of terror, her cries for help. When she did wake, she was so exhausted she fell into a sound sleep until it was necessary for him to rouse her when supper arrived. As they ate, they talked, and Timothy was tempted, several times, to reveal the thread of the chance they had: his developing psionic abilities. She needed reassurance, for she was terribly depressed now. But he had no way of knowing if the room were bugged or not, and he wasn't anxious to let the Brethren know they might be destroying themselves rather than him by administering the PBT.
    As they were finishing the meal, Polly heard the familiar two sets of footsteps approaching their door. "Margle and that beast?" she asked.
    He nodded. "Two doses a day."
    Her eyes widened. "But at two a day, you don't have any time to hold onto reality. You're either drugged or sleeping it off."
    "That's it," he said. He didn't tell her that he had been eagerly awaiting this dose, wanting a chance to meet the Other again.
    She tried to resist Jon Margle, but only earned herself a series of stinging slaps across the face and a more brutal injection than she might otherwise have received.
    Timothy was the model of docility, and Margle enjoyed that, smiling at him rather smugly and making