Alex nodded automatically as the white-haired girl slowed again, this time to examine Elliot's wounds; he imagined her telling the man he'd be fine in a few days.
“Alex," McDole said gently at his side. "Alex, I'm so sorry. Is there anything, anything at all, that I can do?"
Alex shook his head and increased his pace. He didn't want McDole to see the tears dripping on the shroud that covered Deb's body.
"Don't touch her!"
Perlman threw his hands up and stepped back as Alex started to grab for his machete. "Sure, Alex. Whatever you say." He glanced warily at McDole; for once the older man seemed to have run out of words. Alex's expression was dangerously rigid, his eyes wild and suspicious.
"Hey, man," C.J. said, "the reason we did this was so that the doc could—"
"Shut up!" Alex snarled. He clutched Deb's silent body closer. "Just … shut up." His voice dwindled and he bent his head as if meaning to kiss Deb's cold lips through the covering. The others looked at one another uneasily.
Calie drew in her breath and spoke. "Shall we take her downstairs, Alex? Where it's dark and she'll be more comfortable?"
"Down … stairs," he repeated. His eyes, the circles beneath them like smudges of mud, flicked to Perlman and he tightened his hold around the woman in his arms. Within the thick wrappings, Deb began to stir. "No," he decided. "I've changed my mind. I won't let you use her."
A shocked moment of silence, then Deb moaned in her sleep, a faint, dry sound of despair. Calie had a sudden, horrible certainty that Deb could literally hear Alex make this monumental choice on her behalf and was helpless to stop him.
"Alex."
All gazes turned in Jo's direction as she walked to Alex and gently brushed his cheek. "You're upsetting her. Can you feel it?"
Alex's breath hitched miserably. "But he'll … do something to her. He'll hurt her."
"He won't mean to. And you know it's what she wanted, the only thing that will bring her comfort. Would you deny her that?" He hesitated, then shook his head, and Calie saw moisture trickle onto the canvas wrappings. "Let the doctor take her, Alex. He'll put her where it’s dark and she can sleep quietly for today." Jo motioned to Perlman and the physician came forward carefully, When Alex didn't resist, Perlman set his jaw and slipped his arms beneath the body, lifting it from Alex's hold. The younger man stood for a second with his arras extended, as though his lover were still safely nestled within them. Perlman hurried soundlessly away with C.J. and Louise following.
As they watched Perlman go, Alex's face was a mask of anguish. When the trio disappeared down the stairwell, Calie felt Jo's gaze on her as the teenager guided Alex to a chair and McDole fumbled about the small table on which sat the makings for his ever-present coffee. For a long time after McDole had placed a cup in his hands, Alex said nothing, then his gaze lifted and Calie cringed at the haunted look in his brown eyes.
"It's going to hurt her, isn't it?" he asked in an almost inaudible voice. "I told her it wouldn't, but it will."
Calie opened her mouth to reassure him, but Jo stopped her. "Yes," she admitted. "What she's become cannot be undone without a price."
"But it wasn't her choice! Why does she have to pay?"
"I don't have all the answers, Alex. I wouldn't want to. I do know the final gift for Deb is the peace that would have been forever lost. She doesn't want to exist like this. You know that." As he nodded and stared once more into his cup, Jo went to the window. "I'm going back to St. Peter's now," she said in a soft voice. The girl glanced at Calie and McDole. "He'll need something else to give him a sense of purpose." Her smile was kind, and despite Alex's misery, Calie wanted to smile back. Jo walked to the door, then nodded toward Alex again.
"You know," she said, "he's just what you need to get those people out of the Mart."
Then, as always, she was gone.
"What people in the Mart?" Jo's parting words had caught Alex's attention, momentarily pulling him from his self-pity. He watched numbly as McDole peered down the stairwell. "Forget it," Alex finally said. "I've been through this before. She's good at disappearing."
Relenting, McDole spun a chair in front of Alex and straddled it, leaning his arms across its back. Calie sat on the floor a few feet away. "There's something I've been meaning to ask you," McDole said. "What did you do about the lower level and the subway entrances into the Daley Center? How did you keep from being overrun by those things in the tunnels?"
Alex frowned, as though the answer was obvious. "I sealed the doors, of course." He scrubbed at the harsh stubble on his chin.
"But aren't they glass?" Calie asked. "You mean you boarded them up and none of the vampires tried to break through?"
"Don't be silly," Alex said impatiently. "The glass is unbreakable, but wood would've never held. I welded them shut. What's the matter?" McDole's mouth was hanging open and Calie was grinning widely.
"Well"—Calie's smile grew even bigger—"you really are the key to the Mart!"
Fury and Torment
2
REVELATION 8:9
And the third part of the creatures which had life, died …
"WHERE IS SHE?" Anyelet roared.
Silence. The others, cowering little rats that they were, had hidden in the recesses of the building, away from her rage and the tantrum that had enveloped her since she'd risen. She spun and pummeled the walnut-paneled wall; the wood shattered and pelted her with splinters, irritating her even more. Anyelet started to swing again, then stopped and touched her shaking fingers to her temples. Last night she'd been convinced that the woman would be dead by morning, ripped apart by outcasts or cooked by the sun and her own inexperience. Anyelet kicked petulantly at an end table, then flopped onto one of the loungers. Her dreams had destroyed that peace of mind, plaguing her with a creeping, faceless thing that chased her through a maze of streets darker than any she'd ever seen, a nameless, terrifying creature that forced Anyelet awake at dusk amid the ruins of her own shredded comforter. A creature Anyelet was positive represented that woman.
She glanced around, disgusted. Broken glass was everywhere, slivers and bits of wood and plaster, overturned furniture—all this and she still didn’t feel any better. Her head lifted at a sound drifting down the main corridor, echoing and vaguely musical—Hugh's voice, racked and ringing with nonsense as he sang along with band only he could hear. Anyelet cursed in a low voice; she didn't need this insane old man simpering and slobbering over her like some brain-dead slave, and besides, he had told them about the Art Institute in the first place.
She stopped. She was not so enraged that she would seek revenge for his innocent act, but then … there was Vic, wasn't there? And he needed to be punished, not only for letting that woman go, but for warning her of their attack to begin with. Had it not been for Vic, Gregory would be alive, Rita would be sane, and this Deb would be fully integrated into the nightside instead of haunting Anyelet's dreams.
Vic's deepest secret, so easily plucked from his mind.
"Mistress!" Hugh cried as he rounded the corner. He ran to her, dropped to his knees, and hugged her feet. "What can I do for you?" he begged. "just tell me—anything!"
Anyelet stepped away from his clutching hands and motioned him up. Immortality had not been kind to Hugh: his ancient face was drawn tight, The Hunger stretching his mouth and eyebrows taut while his fingers were little more than steel twigs with razored ends. He pushed to his feet and beamed, lost in his own mind and humming, then smiling with childlike pleasure when she opened her arms.
"You'll be my friend?" he asked happily.
"Of course," Anyelet said as she drew the old man into her strong embrace. She smiled evilly.
"What else?"
3
REVELATION 2:2
I know how thou canst not bear them which are evil… .
Alex was coming down the stairs.
She could sense him in the rhythm of the heartbeat she could already hear. He wasn't alone; the second set of fo
otsteps, quiet as a cat, belonged to that boy who wisely chose a compound bow as his weapon. Others waited at the top of the stairs so that Alex might have some privacy with their guinea pig, the doctor among them, fidgeting in his eagerness to play his medical games with her body, as though she were a toy that felt no pain.
Deb squeezed her eyes shut. Didn't they realize?
The bars were thrown on the door and thin light spilled into the room. "Deb?" Alex's voice was hoarse.
"I'm here." Her response was cold. "Where's the doctor?"
Alex hesitated. "Upstairs. You—you don't have to do this."
She stepped out of the corner blackness, her presence enough to silence him and make C.J. finger the bow as the distance between them dwindled to only a few feet. "Yes, I do."
She was on C.J. before he could breathe, the bow in her left hand as her right easily lifted the snarling teenager from the floor. She dropped him with a little shove that made him stumble backward, then tossed him his weapon. One flight above, the panicked doctor and the ethers clambered down the stairs.
"It's okay!" Alex yelled shakily. The footsteps faltered. “Just give us a minute!"
"Do you see?" she hissed. Her eyes were glittering Its in the flashlight glow. She grabbed his collar just long enough to give him a single, hard shake. "Do you see what I've become?"
"I could be like you." C.J. gasped as Alex stretched his hand out, but she slapped it away.
"You dart want that." Her face, so pretty to begin with, was exquisite in its icy pallor as she motioned to her belly. "There's nothing here but a black, hungry hole." She turned her back, her pain too great to share. "You don’t know what this is like. It blots out the most precious memories, and nothing compares—not drugs, starvation, not even desire. It's all that and more, rolled into a dark, ugly addiction that never, ever leaves you." She laughed bitterly. "I even dream in red!"
"Deb—"
"Don't touch me!" She twisted away. "Don’t ever touch me!" She glared at them. “And don’t come down any more with less than four people, and always be armed!"
"But you wouldn't …"
"Oh, wouldn't I?"
Alex stared at her, then whirled and stormed up the stairs with C.J. backing out of the room after him. She heard the babble of voices above, then the clang of the bars as C.J. locked her in.
Then there was only the darkness to comfort her
4
REVELATION 21:4
For the former things are passed away.
It was ironic, Vic thought, that he had spent his entire night searching the building and skulking along the streets around it, hunting for Hugh as the old man continually carried on his blinded search for Vic's mother and Vic himself.
He ran a hand through his hair and peered at the shadows by the river's edge. His father should have been here by now, looking for Tisbee, never recognizing Vic, waiting for an easy meal. He scowled as he remembered Anyelet’s mindrape of last night; it was obvious she'd discovered that Hugh was Vic's father, but then what? It would serve no purpose for her to harm Hugh—except, perhaps, to strike at Vic.
Damn her, he seethed. With Deb gone, the only thing he cared about in this world was that stupid old man, and the thought that Deb may have already created her own dark lover made him tremble with jealousy. A wave of sickness hit and he staggered, then stumbled back toward the Mart's refuge of dark rooms. Dawn's pink light was leaking into the sky, making this morning the closest Vic had come to seeing the sun since the day before Anyelet had killed him. But he could close his eyes and till see its burning brightness in his mind.
His huge fists clenched and unclenched despite the weariness seeping through him as he slipped into the back stairwell. After all this time, was his father truly dead?
If so, perhaps Anyelet would like to see the fatal beauty of the sun for herself.
5
REVELATION 13:3
And her deadly wound was healed;
and all the world wondered after the beast.
Silent blackness, like floating deep in a midnight ocean. Calie's whisper seemed amplified a thousandfold. "This is unbelievably dangerous, Bill."
It was the first time she'd ever said his name without the "Doctor," so frightened was she that she'd forgotten her own joking formality. Perlman stretched his hands timidly along the wall; he knew the route by memory, but he'd traveled it in the dark only once before, during Alex's visit. Now it was nearing midnight.
"How're we doing?" McDole asked quietly from behind.
"We can almost use the flashlight," Perlman answered. "Careful here, eight steps going down." Every instinct screamed that they should all be barricaded in for the night, not crawling through Northwestern's basement like blind lizards in a subterranean cave, yet if his research was to continue, he had no choice. "You people shouldn't have come," he murmured. "I could have done this without putting everyone else in jeopardy."
"No way, man." C.J.'s voice drifted to him. "Besides, remember what she said—no less than four people at a time."
"This must be terrible for Alex," Louise said softly from her place in front of C.J. "No wonder he decided to stay upstairs."
"Was it bad for him earlier, C.J.?" Calie asked.
For a few seconds there was no reply. "Yeah,” he finally said. "Yeah, it was."
"I'm switching on the light," Perlman announced. "Cover your eyes." The sudden glow of the flashlight made the hallway more ominous, as though shapes danced just beyond the small circle of light.
"You're sure the light can't be seen?" McDole asked nervously.
"Positive. We're in the center of the building below street level. It's uncomfortable to be moving around at night, though."
C.J. snorted. "Uncomfortable? Jesus, Doc. Even I could think of a better word than that."
"Ten steps down to the shelter," Perlman warned. "Ready?" C.J. moved to his side and cocked the bow. At his nod, the doctor pulled the bars free and opened the door.
"I've been waiting for you."
Perlman shivered; Deb's voice was like a blast of cold air. He swallowed and spoke. "I'm going to turn on the spotlight, all right?" He waited a few moments, then hit the ON button.
She looked ghastly. Since their earlier visit, the skin across her cheekbones and nose had tightened perceptibly, sinking into deep hollows next to her mouth. Her pallor was so pronounced that he had to squint to be sure she had skin at all, and blue veins wandered across her face and hands like fine ink trails disappearing beneath the neck and sleeves of her clothes. She resembled something from a 1920s silent movie: black wig and alabaster makeup around a red slash of lips and soulless eyes.
Deb kept her gaze downcast, but her words were heavy with sarcasm. "If you want to get anywhere in this research of yours, Doctor, I suggest you stop being so nervous around your … just what am I? Your patient?" he grinned and he saw that her teeth were revoltingly long and sharp, and as blinding white as a young dog’s. Her smile evaporated. "What should I do?"
Perlman glanced at the others. He suddenly felt like a mad scientist hovering over a poor, helpless victim, though his "victim" could effortlessly kill them all, regardless of C.J. "I … I'd like a tissue sample, please, a scraping from inside your mouth." He stepped toward her hesitantly with a wooden stick, but she snatched it from his grip.
"I'll do it." An instant later she handed him back the moistened stick and he sealed it into a plastic bag. "What else?"
This was very hard. He'd spent the last eighteen months, except for a few days with the vampire child, convinced that vampires were walking corpses, and as such could be sliced and dissected at will.
Right.
"I need a piece of skin," he blurted.
Deb laughed. "Is that all?" She raised an arm and pushed back her sleeve, revealing a roadmap of harsh blue veins. Perlman fought nausea as she sank two fingernails into the skin, curled them under, and pulled free an inch-wide chunk of flesh. "Watch," she commanded, and held out her arm. In spite of him
self, Perlman was fascinated to see the newly opened wound meshing rapidly, growing edge to edge as though an invisible darning machine were busily filling in the hole. In the thirty seconds it took to seal the scrap of skin in a bag, the bloodless injury was gone.
Deb turned to face the wall. "No one asked how I … died," she said quietly. "I fought, you know. Killed one and mutilated another so badly that even being undead won't fix her." She looked at the floor, then thoughtfully ran a hand along her side. "Broke a couple of ribs during the fight, but they're healed." She raised her face suddenly. "Do you know that there are people being held in the Merchandise Mart?"
McDole looked startled, but nodded. "Can you tell us anything that will help us free them?"
Deb shrugged and leaned against the wall. "Not much. They're on the third floor, chained in little rooms. There's a fat man watching them during the day. I don't know if he's armed."
C.J. spoke up. "Is there a key ring or something?"
"No. The leader of the group is a woman named Anyelet. She chains them up, then tosses each key into the river."
"I knew it was too much to hope for," McDole muttered.
"How many are there?" asked Louise.
"Vampires or people? I have no idea of either," Deb answered. "I never saw anyone there but the man who did this to me. Everything I know comes from him. Ten, twenty, a bunch." Even with her gaze fixed on the floor, Perlman thought he saw red lights of hunger burning in her eyes. "You should get them out."
No one said anything for a minute. "Well," the physician said at last, "what I'm going to do now is give you something to … eat, then take another sample and see if—“
"That’s out of the question," Deb said flatly.
The doctor scowled. "The research won’t be complete if we don't. We could miss something vital—I have to be able to see how blood affects your body, what kind of change it causes."
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