Part 13

"It's what I said," asserted Pat. "It's a devil, and what you've just told me about tumors proves it. They're devils, that's all, and some day some student is going to cut one loose and raise it to maturity outside a human body, and you'll see what a devil is really like! And go ahead and laugh!"

"I'm not laughing, Pat. I'd be the last one to laugh at your theory, after facing that thing last night. It had satanic powers, all right--that paralyzing fascination! You felt it too; it wasn't just a mental lapse on my part, was it?"

"I felt it, Dr. Carl! I'd felt it before that; I was always helpless in the presence of it."

"Could it," he asked, "have imposed its will actively on yours? I mean, could it have made you actually do what it asked there at the end, just before I recovered enough sense to let out that bellow?"

"To take off--my dress?" She shivered. "I don't know, Dr. Carl.--I'm afraid so." She looked at him appealingly. "Why did I yield to it so?" she cried. "What made me find such a fierce pleasure in its kisses--in its blows and scratches, and the pain it inflicted on me? Why was that, Dr. Carl?"

"Why," he countered, "do gangsters' girls and apache women enjoy the cruelties perpetrated on them by their men? There's a little masochism in most women, and that--creature was sadistic, perverted, abnormal, and somehow dominating. It took an unfair advantage of you, Pat; don't blame yourself."

"It was--utterly evil!" she muttered. "It was the ultimate in everything unholy."

"It was an aberrant brain," said Horker. "You can't judge it by human standards, since it wasn't actually human. It was, I suppose, just what you said--a devil. I didn't even keep it," he added grimly. "I destroyed it."

"Do you know what it meant by saying it was a question of synapses?" she asked.

"That was queer!" The Doctor's voice was puzzled. "That remark implies that the thing itself knew what it was. How? It must have possessed knowledge that the normal brain lacked."

"Was it a question of synapses?"

"In a sense it was. The nerves from the two rival brains must have met in a synaptic juncture. The oftener the aberrant brain gained control, the easier it became for it to repeat the process, as the synapse, so to speak, wore thin. That's why the attacks intensified so horribly toward the end; the habit was being formed."

"Last night was the very worst!"

"Of course. As the thing itself pointed out, I made the mistake of drugging the normal brain and giving the other complete control of the body. At other times, there'd always been the rivalry to weaken whichever was dominant."

"Does that mean," asked Pat anxiously, "that Nick's character will be changed now?"

"I think so. I think you'll find him less meek, less gentle, than heretofore. More spirited, perhaps, since his energies won't be drained so constantly by the struggle."

"I don't care!" she said. "I'd like that, and anyway, it doesn't make a bit of difference to me as long as he's just--_my_ Nick."

The Doctor gave her a tender smile. "Let's go home," he said, pinching her cheek in his great hand.

"Can you leave him?"

"I'll run back after a while, Honey. I think he'll do." He took her hand, drawing her after him. "Don't forget to slip in unseen, Pat, and rumple up your bed."

"Rumple it!" She gave him a weary smile. "I'll be _in_ it!"

"Good idea. You look a bit worn out, Honey, and we can't have you getting sick now, or even pull a temporary faint like that one last night."

"I didn't faint!"

"Maybe not," grinned Horker. "Perhaps the proceedings grew a little boring, and you just lay down on the couch for a nap. It _was_ a dull evening."