Separation by J.S. Frankel Page B

vigilante groups,
assailed him. In New York, roughly six months earlier, he and
Anastasia had been running for their lives and had found an
unlikely rescuer, a nearly blind woman named Josephine. She’d
willingly hidden them, fed them, and supplied them with enough
funds to continue their flight. “Why’d you help us,” was Harry’s
first question to her.
    She offered a beatific smile. “I helped you
because you’re good people. I knew you wouldn’t hurt me. I’m old, a
widow, and have no money, and if you’d wanted to kill me you
already would have. You didn’t, and that means I can trust
you.”
    He’d never forgotten her, and once settled,
he’d sent her enough money to help her live decently for however
long she had. It was a considerable sum, and he hoped it would be
used wisely.
    Now, he had to rely on the kindness of
strangers, and his hopes that humanity would understand rose, if
only by a few percentage points...
    There... the sound of a truck disturbed the
peace. Many vehicles had already passed by, but the smells of the
passengers had been the standard smell of humans, dry skin, milk
and meat. This time he smelled something different... something not
entirely human. Tilting his nose in the air, he sniffed again
and... yes, different. Anastasia came over to stand beside him.
“You smell them too, right?”
    “Yeah,” he affirmed with a nod. “I make two
of them being like us, but not.”
    The not part perturbed him. Even
though Anastasia’s sense of smell was superior to his, he’d always
been able to discern the differences between transgenics and
humans. Sometimes it was the fur and sometimes it was just a
deeper, heavier, gamier smell. This time... he wasn’t sure.
    A few seconds later, Istvan and Leo joined
them and they waited as the truck approached. It stopped, and three
people got out. One of them was human, a small, slender man in his
fifties. Harry recognized him as Lambert, the liaison from the
French government.
    The others resembled goats, with small horns
protruding from their skulls, although their features were
essentially human. They looked like twins, and Harry remembered
reading about experiments performed on twins in an earlier,
terrible war...
    “You must be Harry Goldman,” the man said in
an elegant French accent, and then nodded politely at Anastasia.
“Are you his girlfriend?”
    “I’m his wife,” she said.
    Lambert nodded. “It is good you have found
each other. I also see a special guest, one my Italian compatriot,
Monsignor Morello, told me about.” He aimed his forefinger at
Istvan. Leo blinked and looked away, as if disconcerted at not
being included in the introductions.
    “I am the French government’s special envoy
for transgenic affairs,” he continued, indicating his men with a
slight wave of his hand. “These are my bodyguards. We have some
trouble, and it is vital that we tell you.”
    “What kind of trouble are we talking
about?”
    Lambert glanced around and muttered something
to one of the goat-men. “Not here. We are in an open place, and
there have been attacks as of late. Follow us.”
    He gestured to his truck and everyone piled
in. One of his men took the wheel and rapidly drove to a small
house on the outskirts of town. Surrounded by open field, it seemed
like an outpost in the middle of nowhere.
    A rustic looking place made of wood and
sparsely furnished, it contained only a few couches and chairs.
Lambert spoke to his guards, one of whom promptly went outside. “My
guard will watch over us,” he said as the other goat-man took up a
position near the window.
    “We have been contacted by some members
within the Vatican, chief among them Monsignor Morello,” Lambert
began. He leaned over, elbows on his knees and a thoughtful look on
his face. “You must understand, when the transgenics first came to
us, we did not know how to handle them. Their needs are special and
our attitudes were not so...” he deliberated for a