“Perhaps it was your skill with subterfuge which saved you from being targeted?” she mused. “Perhaps that was how you escaped the Forgetting?”
“I was dead by Watergate,” I replied. “I suspect that played a bigger part.”
“Indeed. There was no indication of anything amiss until 1965. That was the year Club members began to disappear. At first we thought they were simply being assassinated, their bodies buried in unmarked graves–such things have occurred before, when linear authorities take too much interest in us–and will occur again, I think. But our own deaths and returns to life showed a far more sinister trend. Those who were kidnapped and killed had their memories destroyed first, which is a form of death that the Club cannot tolerate or accept. Here in Beijing we have lost eleven members to the Forgetting, two to pre-birth death.”
“From what I’ve gathered from the other Clubs,” I replied softly, “that seems a fairly average pattern.”
“There are more patterns,” she added with a stiff nod. “No one killed pre-birth was prior to 1896. This implies that their murderer is too young to act before that time. Assuming consciousness and faculties are obtained between four and five years old—”
“That puts our murderer’s birth at approximately 1890, yes,” I murmured.
Another strict nod of agreement as we rounded a corner. Students bustled against us, scurrying by to classes. Several groups marched together, carrying giant banners proclaiming STUDENTS UNITE FOR THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD! and other such tokens of impending calamity.
“The pre-birth killings appear to be targeted against older members of the Club,” she went on. “It would appear the intention is to remove the most active members of our kind who might be in a position to interfere at the start of the twentieth century. Naturally their removal has an impact on the future generations of the century, who are more grievously affected by their loss than if, for example, you or I were removed.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I joked, and she did not even flicker a smile.
“In 1931 there is a brief acceleration in the pre-birth murder rate. Where, before, the worldwide average for Club losses was six a year, concentrated mainly in Europe and America, in 1931 there is a spike to ten losses a year, including three in Africa and two in Asia.”
“The murderer reaching maturity,” I suggested. “Growing more active?” Yet even as the words passed my lips, I discarded them for the more obvious, more simple possibility. “Another kalachakra, one born later, is joining the killings.” I sighed. And of course I knew who.
“This seems most likely,” she confirmed. “The year in which the killings spike suggests a birthday around 1925.”
Yes, I could well believe Vincent was born in that year. “What about the Forgettings?” I asked. “Is there any pattern there?”
“They began in 1953, starting with the Leningrad Cronus Club. At first we assumed the Club had suffered some great political damage through the actions of the linears, but in 1966 both Moscow and Kiev were hit, with 80 per cent of the members of those Clubs kidnapped, their memories erased, and the bodies destroyed.”
“Eighty per cent?” I couldn’t keep the astonishment out of my voice. “That high?”
“Clearly the perpetrator has been monitoring the Club’s activities for a long time, taking note of its members. By 1967 most Clubs in Europe had been hit, as well as five in America, seven in Asia and three in Africa. Those members who had evaded attack were sent underground and all Club houses ordered closed until 2070, by which date it was assumed our attacker would be deceased. Messages were left in stone for future generations warning them of the danger. So far we’ve received no whisper reply.”
As the girl talked, my mind raced. I had known the situation was bad, known that Vincent had spread himself far and wide, but this? This was on a scale I hadn’t even considered possible.