“You too,” I said. “Sorry about your place.”
She laughed.
“This is one of many. You can never be too cautious, can you, immortal man?”
Interlude (2)
From the journal of Dr. Lew Cambridge
Day forty-three.
* * *
Adam’s limited understanding of the patient’s physiology led to our assumption that she’s fully human, in the same way that he’s fully human.
* * *
This may not be the case.
* * *
There are a tremendous number of qualifiers in this assertion. Both Adam and (ha-ha) Eve are human-but-immortal, which by default means they are not human in the same sense that the rest of mankind might be called human. Leaving aside, for the moment, genetic markers, a minimum expectation of a human being would be age and infirmity. Adam neither ages nor becomes sick. Eve does not age, and until whatever happened to her sometime in the past year transpired, she didn’t become sick either.
This should mean they’re something other than human.
* * *
Adam agreed to donate blood and hair samples before leaving the island. He was exceedingly reluctant to do this, citing the multiple occasions in which a medical professional attempted to use such samples for ill—something about a secret government project, on which he declined to elaborate. The argument that this testing might in some way aid me in curing Eve was what won the day. This was even after he made the point that he and the patient are from different “stock”, as he put it.
* * *
I’ve run extensive tests on the samples he provided, and have found no evidence to contradict his self-identified humanity. I don’t have the material or the time to do any DNA sequencing (I’m sure he’d be happy to know this) but I don’t think it would lead to any different conclusions. At the same time, I can appreciate his trepidation, because my curiosity is positively afire: if I had a sequencer, I would definitely be using it.
* * *
We ran the same tests on the patient as the ones on Adam’s samples. The patient yielded slightly different results, although I’m becoming convinced that what I’m looking at may be a cross-contamination, because the tests indicate she’s both human, and goblin.
* * *
It was an odd result for many reasons, the primary being that there’s no such thing as a human/goblin hybrid.
* * *
Species hybridization is not at all unheard-of, but the only confirmed instances are: incubus-human; satyr-human; and imp-human. My unusual field of study admittedly has more unknowns than knowns—for instance, next-to-nothing is known about the breeding habits of rakshasas, wraiths or the yeti. I have also never been able to get a straight answer from an iffrit. And of course, there is a lengthy list of creatures whose existences I can’t confirm at all, never mind gaining a substantive understanding as to how they reproduce.
* * *
The point remains: to my understanding, goblins and humans cannot produce an offspring. There should ergo be no reason to expect to find traces of both species in one donor.
* * *
Upon receipt of that unusual result, I took a second blood sample and re-ran the test, taking extra caution to avoid any contamination. (I don’t know how the first sample could have become contaminated, as neither myself nor my lab assistant are goblin-born. However, it’s the most likely explanation, and so the best thing to do is attempt to control for that.)
The second test yielded the same result, but a different ratio: the percentage of the sample that could have been called goblin was only slightly larger than the error margin of the test itself.
* * *
This presents a tantalizing possibility.
* * *
To date, we have been unable to fully isolate and examine the disease within the patient. We had a similar problem isolating it in the residual samples we had left from the mermaid, but this was in large part due to the lack of information we have on mermaid biology as a whole. (This study is ongoing, on the remaining liquefied samples. The living mer-folk have all left the island, blessedly.) There are no other active carriers of the disease at this time.
* * *
It has been a cardinal frustration for myself and my team, that despite the patient’s evident biological humanness—about which we know a great deal more than we did about the mermaid—we still can’t definitively isolate a sample, even though she clearly suffers from the disease.
I’m left with the cynical conundrum: I’d like samples of the disease so as to develop a cure for it, so that the next being to be afflicted can be saved; and I would like another being to contract the disease so that I can get a clean sample.
* * *
Finally, there’s this: if the presence of goblin within the patient is declining, I can’t escape the notion that her body’s strikingly effective immune system is busy eradicating it.
* * *
On many levels, this is preposterous, and seems even more preposterous now that I’ve committed the notion to paper. The test we performed wasn’t designed to identify infections or contaminants in the patient; it was only to flag the genetic markers of the patient’s species. If there were goblin within her—if, for instance, she was injected with the blood of one—it wouldn’t present in this way at all.
* * *
Yet, I can’t shake the idea that this is what we’re seeing happening.
We have decided to wait a week and then take a new sample and re-test it, to see if the markers for goblin continue to decline.
4
Ina’s people got us out of the building in the back of a van holding soiled linens, to an alley, four blocks away. We were on our own from there, which was really okay. Separating from Ina as much as possible as soon as possible was better for everyone concerned.
We headed back to the hotel on Boulevard Saint-Germain and camped out across the street for a half an hour, both to wait for my ears to stop ringing, and to see if anyone obviously problematic surfaced—the police, an armed goon or two, or something non-human would all qualify. Nobody like that did, so we went in.
“We need to be out of here before they realize we aren’t in the bomb wreckage,” Mirella said, almost as soon as we got back into the room.
I was already busy throwing my clothes into a suitcase, so I wasn’t sure what she meant about hurrying; I sort of already was. But she had this weird habit of never unpacking when we stayed in hotels, so there was nothing for her to do but watch me emptying drawers. In hindsight, this was probably the exact kind of situation she was anticipating when deciding not to unpack.
“That’ll take them a while,” I said.
“They only need to find the bodies near the fire exit to know I lived.”
“Fair, but they weren’t trying to kill you.”
“I’m only saying to hurry.”
“I get it.”
Trying to get the hell out of town while also trying to work out exactly what was happening was a little exhausting. I’m never comfortable with the kind of uncertainty a fluid situation like this engenders, because the way to survive is to be the one to not panic. This works in a lot of situations, actually: gunfights; fires in public places; stampedes. I didn’t like that we were reacting to the situation without fully understanding how we got into it in the first place.
“I want to make a phone call before we go,” I said.
“We can do that later.”
“I’d rather do it now.”
She glared.
“Come on,” I said, “let’s not overreact here.”
“There’s been a bounty on your head for three years, and the entire criminal element of Paris is evidently aware of this fact, so we need to leave Paris right now. How is this an overreaction?”
“I get all that, but running is also when we’re most exposed, so let’s do it right. Look: how many exits do we have?”
“Five to the public, plus a service exit to the
delivery dock. Two more with alarms. This is provided we can get off the floor, which only has two stairwells and an elevator.”
“There, see you’ve already scoped out the routes.”
“We need to get to the airport before they know we’re going to the airport, Adam.”
“There are a lot of different ways to flee a city, and we don’t have to go to the airport at all. We’ll be fine.”
She harrumphed.
“Fine,” she said. “Call. I don’t like waiting, and I don’t like standing still.”
From my pocket, I pulled out the phone that was only meant to be used to make this particular call, and dialed.
“Look at it this way,” I said, as it rang, “if they catch up to us now, you’ll get to kill more people. Don’t tell me you aren’t looking forward to that.”
Mirella stuck her tongue out, by way of response.
The call connected.
“Hello, Adam.”
The man on the other end of the line spoke with a terrifyingly deep voice. You’d think a voice like this would be soothing, but it was less Barry White and more, Angry Gregorian Chant. Also, he wasn’t a man.
“Grundle,” I said. “We’re burned.”
Grundle was a troll who lived in a cave, on the island we called home until our house was destroyed. He was the first intelligent troll I ever met, and also something of a genius when it came to all things relating to the Internet. Admittedly, the bar is pretty low when it comes to me and the Internet; I don’t even understand how radios work. Basic competence with search engines looks advanced to me.
It’s hard to make clear how unlikely it is to find a troll who can use a computer, to someone who’s never met a troll. (Almost nobody has.) It’s a little like finding a five-year old with a firm grasp of non-Euclidian geometry. Just trust me: it’s weird. About the only thing about him that was standard for his species was the home in the cave.
Well, that and the prodigious body odor.
“Explain,” he said. “Provided you’re speaking non-literally, and not dialing from the burn ward.”
“Someone sold us out.”
I decided to leave Jacques out of this conversation for the moment. Ina’s logic was compelling, but I wasn’t entirely convinced he was behind this.
“To whom? I’m not sure I understand. Who is out there prepared to buy you?”
“Sorry, I guess that doesn’t make sense. It’s been a long night. We just found out there’s a price on my head. I don’t understand how, but I have a feeling getting to the who will help with that, because as long as every thug in Europe means to put a bullet in my brain, we’re going to have a lot of trouble getting around.”
“I see. Is there a concern that Dimitri’s local cohort will be unable to resist the temptation?”
“There is. Although, if it comes up, the counterfeiter named Ina is pretty definitely not involved. Maybe Di-Di can post a positive review for her or something.”
“I take it you’re cutting ties, then. Can I help?”
“Only if you have your own secret criminal empire. No, we’ll make do; I have other options. But it would be great if you could figure out where the bounty is coming from.”
“Yes, I’ll see what I can find out.”
I used to have a guy I could rely on to do this sort of thing. His name was Tchekhy, and he also did my passports, so as you can imagine, I kind of missed him at this moment. But, he was one of the people I couldn’t contact now that I was ‘dead’. It was annoying, because this was the kind of thing he’d be able to get an answer about before I even hung up the phone. Although there was an equally good chance he wouldn’t take the call, because the line was insufficiently secure.
“Good, thanks. Actually, maybe we should keep the detail about the contract away from Dimitri until we have more. I don’t know how much money this is for, but if it’s enough he might be tempted himself.”
Grundle laughed. His laugh was terrifying, even at a distance.
“He would never do that, Adam. He owes you his life.”
I wanted to say, yes, but he’s a criminal, but decided not to. Grundle literally lived in a cave; he might not appreciate this side of Dimitri Romanov.
“I know. Keep it between us anyway. Tell him we’re taking our own path, and we’ll fill him in later.”
“Adam,” Mirella said, in a tone of voice that made me want to duck. She was at the window.
“I have to go, Grundle,” I said. I nearly hung up, but there was one more thing.
“How is she?” I asked.
“Oh! She’s awake.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
“She’s awake?” I repeated, almost too loudly. Mirella, on the other side of the room, stopped caring about what she saw out the window for a few seconds, because this was news.
“Why didn’t you lead with that?” I asked.
“You jumped right in, I’m sorry. About the burnt thing. It was very confusing.”
“Right, right, right, sorry, so she’s awake, did she say what happened?”
“No. It was only a day or two ago. Lew said she has no memory of what happened. She didn’t even know where she was, and she’s too weak to get out of the bed.”
"All right. Um. Please update us if that changes.”
I didn’t entirely know what to say, because the fact of Eve being unconscious was sort of why we were doing what we were doing. It knocked me for a loop.
“Of course,” Grundle said, as if this was the most reasonable thing. The most reasonable thing would have been to call me two days ago, and that hadn’t occurred to him. I would have given him some grief about that, but Mirella was glaring at me again, so I just hung up.
“So your terrifying dream girl is awake,” Mirella said. “Good. Now let’s get out of here.”
For reasons I will never be fully clear on, Mirella sometimes acts jealous of Eve. Granted, Eve is beautiful and also immortal, but she also sort of hates me.
I decided to ignore the dream girl classification and skip ahead. It was an argument we’d probably have to get through eventually, but in a more leisurely setting. Assuming we found one.
“What are you seeing?” I asked instead, getting to the window.
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Not yet. I just wanted you off the phone.”
“Really? I figured an army was outside.”
“You would have been another half an hour with the troll otherwise, and then there would be an army. Can we go now?”
We were traveling pretty light, with one bag apiece. On a good day—meaning, a day in which Mirella didn’t feel any compunction to arm herself—about a quarter of her bag was taken up by weapons. No guns, just a variety of knives. Roughly a third of my bag was occupied by cash.
It was actually sort of amusing. Depending on the problem, we would either open up my money belt or her knife collection to solve it. It was also ironic, given she’s wealthier and I’ve definitely killed more people. I’ve had a longer time to work on my body count, though.
We exited through a loading dock that opened on an alley next to the hotel. From there, we reached the sidewalk, which was busy with tourists—I’m pretty sure on any given day, Paris is about 60% tourist in every direction—and blended into the crowd.
An hour later—reasonably assured nobody was in pursuit—we were at a table at a pricey restaurant with a view of the Seine. The seats were at the corner of a railing with a twenty foot drop on the other side. Unless they were gifted with the power of flight, an attacker would have to get through the entire restaurant first to reach us. I could tell it was an effective defensive position because it was the first time Mirella really relaxed since we’d walked into Ina’s penthouse.
Me, I was just happy to have somebody bring me alcohol.
“So,” Mirella said, after ten minutes of eyeballing everyone sharing the patio with us. “Who did you piss off this time?”
“Well that doesn’t seem fair. What makes you think I
brought this on myself?”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“You sort of did, but that’s okay. It’s not like I haven’t racked up a decent number of enemies, it’s just that none of them are still alive.”
She laughed.
“I think perhaps you’re mistaken about that.”
“Yeah, maybe. This feels like something new, though. I mean, for starters, I don’t exist anymore.”
“That could be the part where you’re mistaken.”
You probably don’t think about your own life like this—or if you do, not often—but you’re leaving a footprint everywhere you go. What I mean is that you’ve got one life, and in that life there are family members, friends, enemies, coworkers, and so on. As benign as that existence may or may not be, if one day someone came up and said, there’s a bounty on your head, you would at minimum have to evaluate your life to come up with the name of somebody who felt strongly enough about you to do this. That evaluation would take a while, because you’ve left a lot of footprints.
I’ve obviously left a lot of footprints too. More than anybody. But the difference is that my footprints are largely historical.
“The who, seems less important to me right now than the why,” I said. “I think if we get the why down, we’ll find the who.”
“Something you did, then, rather than someone to whom you did something.”
Immortal From Hell Page 5