Diana could feel her baby’s mind probing inside her own. Not the mind of a baby, true, but not quite the cold violence of the gaiaphage, either. The two were becoming one: Gaia and the Darkness. The two were growing together, and the resulting entity might be more than or less than, but definitely not equal to, either the baby or the monster.

Just one thing, though, that Diana couldn’t dismiss from her thoughts. Just one thing. The way Gaia reached into Diana’s memory and opened it up as if she was thumbing through a picture book. Like she was looking for something. Something the baby sensed must be there.

Not rustling around blindly, but looking for something.

Diana had no defenses against Gaia. She could hide nothing from her. Diana could only watch as her memories unfolded to reveal pictures of things past. And of people.

Gaia was studying the people Diana knew. Now Brianna. Now Edilio. Now Duck and Albert and Mary.

Not Panda. No.

Caine. Gaia lingered long on pictures of Caine. A first meeting at Coates. The many flirtations. The teasing. The way Diana had made him want her. The dark ambition she had seen in him. The first time he had revealed his power to her.

The terrible things they had done. Battles.

Murder.

Yes, but don’t look any further; all that I confess, Gaia, my daughter, but enough. Enough.

Please don’t.

The smell. That was what the baby found first. The aroma of roasted human flesh.

Diana’s eyes filled with tears.

“What’s the matter?” Brittney asked.

The baby tasted what Diana had tasted.

The baby felt her stomach gratefully receive the meat that had been a boy named Panda.

Yes, Diana said to the mind within her own, I’m a monster, and so are you, little Gaia. But your mommy loves you.

“There’s a string of lights up there,” Penny said. “They look like Christmas lights.”

Yes, go there, Gaia said inside Diana’s thoughts.

Fear, Chapter 36