by V. E. Schwab
“I did.” Victor glanced back at the body. “But it didn’t work. Start looking for the next lead.”
IV
FIVE YEARS AGO
PERSHING
TWO weeks after his resurrection, the buzzing started.
At first, it was negligible—a faint humming in his ears, a tinnitus so subtle Victor first took it for a straining light bulb, a car engine, the murmur of a television rooms away. But it didn’t go away.
Almost a month later, Victor found himself looking around the hotel lobby, straining to find a possible source for the sound.
“What is it?” asked Sydney.
“You hear it too?”
Sydney’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Hear what?”
Victor realized she hadn’t been asking about the noise, only his distraction. He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, turning back to the desk.
“Mr. Stockbridge,” said the woman, addressing Victor, “I see you’re with us for the next three nights. Welcome to the Plaza Hotel.”
They never did stay long, bounced instead from city to city, sometimes choosing hotels, and other times rentals. They never traveled in a straight line, didn’t stay at places with any regularity, or in any particular order.
“How would you like to pay?”
Victor drew a billfold from his pocket. “Cash.”
Money wasn’t a problem—according to Mitch it was nothing but a sequence of ones and zeroes, digital coinage in a fictional bank. His favorite new hobby was skimming minute quantities of cash, pennies on the dollar, consolidating the gain into hundreds of accounts. Instead of leaving no footprint, he created too many to follow. The result was large rooms, plush beds, and space, the kind Victor had longed for and lacked in prison.
The sound inched higher.
“Are you okay?” asked Syd, studying him. She’d been studying him since the graveyard, scrutinizing his every gesture, every step, as if he might suddenly crumble, turn to ash.
“I’m fine,” lied Victor.
But the noise followed him to the elevators. It followed him up to the room, an elegant suite with two bedrooms and a sofa. It followed him to bed and up again, shifting subtly, escalating from sound alone to sound and sensation. A slight prickle in his limbs. Not pain, exactly, but something more unpleasant. Persistent. It dogged him, growing louder, stronger, until, in a fit of annoyance, Victor switched his circuits off, turned the dial down to nothing, numbness. The prickling vanished, but the buzzing only softened to a faint and far-off static. Something he could almost ignore.
Almost.
He sat on the edge of his bed, feeling feverish, ill. When was the last time he’d been sick? He couldn’t even remember. But with every passing minute, the feeling worsened, until Victor finally rose, crossing the suite and taking up his coat.
“Where are you going?” asked Sydney, curled on the sofa with a book.
“To get some air,” he said, already slipping through the door.
He was halfway to the elevator when it hit him.
Pain.
It came out of nowhere, sharp as a knife through his chest. He gasped and caught himself on the wall, fought to stay upright as another wave tore through him, sudden and violent and impossible. The dials were still down, his nerves still muted, but it didn’t seem to matter. Something was overriding his circuits, his power, his will.
The lights glared down, haloing as his vision blurred. The hallway swayed. Victor forced himself past the elevator to the stairwell. He barely made it through the door before his body lit again with pain, and his knee buckled, cracking hard against the concrete. He tried to rise, but his muscles spasmed, and his heart lurched, and he went down on the landing.
His jaw locked as pain arced through him, unlike anything he’d felt in years. Ten years. The lab, the strap between his teeth, the cold of the metal table, the excruciating pain of the current as it fried his nerves, tore his muscles, stopped his heart.
Victor had to move.
But he couldn’t get up. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. An invisible hand turned the dial up, and up, and up, until finally, mercifully, everything went black.
* * *
VICTOR came to on the stairwell floor.
The first thing he felt was relief—relief that the world was finally quiet, the infernal buzzing gone. The second thing he felt was Mitch’s hand shaking his shoulder. Victor rolled onto his side and vomited bile and blood and bad memories onto the landing.
It was dark, the light overhead shorted out, and he could just make out the relief on Mitch’s face.
“Jesus,” he said, slumping backward. “You weren’t breathing. You didn’t have a pulse. I thought you were dead.”
“I think I was,” said Victor, wiping his mouth.
“What do you mean?” demanded Mitch. “What happened?”
Victor shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.” It wasn’t a comfortable thing for Victor, not knowing, certainly wasn’t something he cared to admit to. He rose to his feet, bracing himself against the stairwell wall. He’d been a fool to kill his sensitivity. He should have been studying the progression of symptoms. Should have measured the escalation. Should have known what Sydney seemed to sense: that he was cracked, if not broken.
“Victor,” started Mitch.
“How did you find me?”
Mitch held up his cell. “Dominic. He called me, freaking out, said you took it back, that it was like before, when you were dead. I tried to call you but you didn’t answer. I was heading for the elevator when I saw the light burned out in the stairs.” He shook his head. “Had a bad feeling—”
The cell started ringing again. Victor took it from Mitch’s hand and answered. “Dominic.”
“You can’t just do that to me,” snapped the ex-soldier. “We had a deal.”
“It wasn’t intentional,” said Victor slowly, but Dominic was still going.
“One minute I’m fine and the next I’m on my hands and knees, trying not to pass out. No warning, nothing in my system to dull the pain, you don’t know what it was like—”
“I promise you, I do,” said Victor, tipping his head back against the concrete wall. “But you’re fine now?”
A shuddering breath. “Yeah, I’m back online.”
“How long did it last?”
“What? I don’t know. I was kind of distracted.”
Victor sighed, eyes sliding shut. “Next time, pay attention.”
“Next time?”
Victor hung up. He opened his eyes to find Mitch staring at him. “Did this happen before?”
Before. Victor knew what he meant. Once his life had been bisected by the night in the laboratory. Before, a human. After, an EO. Now, it was split down the line of his resurrection. Before, an EO. After—this. Which meant that it was Sydney’s doing. This was the inevitable flaw in her power, the fissure in his. Victor hadn’t avoided it after all. He’d simply ignored it.
Mitch swore, running his hands over his head. “We have to tell her.”
“No.”
“She’s going to find out.”
“No,” said Victor again. “Not yet.”
“Then when?”
When Victor understood what was happening, and how to fix it. When he had a plan, a solution as well as a problem. “When it will make a difference,” he said.
Mitch’s shoulders slumped, defeated.
“Maybe it won’t happen again,” said Victor.
“Maybe,” said Mitch.
Neither one of them believed it.
V
FOUR AND A HALF YEARS AGO
FULTON
IT happened again.
And again.
Three episodes in less than six months, the time between each a fraction shorter, the duration of death a fraction longer. It was Mitch who insisted he see a specialist. Mitch who found Dr. Adam Porter, a compact man with a hawkish face and a reputation as one of the best neurologists in the country.
V
ictor had never been fond of doctors.
Even back when he wanted to become one, it had never been in the interest of saving patients. He’d been drawn to the field of medicine for the knowledge, the authority, the control. He’d wanted to be the hand holding the scalpel, not the flesh parting beneath it.
Now Victor sat in Porter’s office, after hours, the buzzing in his skull just beginning to filter into his limbs. It was a risk, he knew, waiting until the episode was in its metastasis, but an accurate diagnosis required the presentation of symptoms.
Victor looked down at the patient questionnaire. Symptoms he could give, but details were more dangerous. He slid the paper back across the table without picking up the pen.
The doctor sighed. “Mr. Martin, you paid quite a premium for my services. I suggest you take advantage of them.”
“I paid that premium for privacy.”
Porter shook his head. “Very well,” he said, lacing his fingers. “What seems to be the problem?”
“I’m not entirely certain,” said Victor. “I’ve been having these episodes.”
“What kind of episodes?”
“Neurological,” he answered, toeing the line between omission and lie. “It starts as a sound, a buzzing in my head. It grows, until I can feel the humming, down to my bones. Like a charge.”
“And then?”
I die, thought Victor.
“I black out,” he said.
The doctor frowned. “How long has this been happening?”
“Five months.”
“Did you suffer any trauma?”
Yes.
“Not that I know of.”
“Changes in lifestyle?”
“No.”
“Any weakness in your limbs?”
“No.”
“Allergies?”
“No.”
“Have you noticed any specific triggers? Migraines can be triggered by caffeine, seizures by light, stress, lack of—”
“I don’t care what caused it,” said Victor, losing patience. “I just need to know what’s happening, and how to fix it.”
The doctor sat forward. “Well, then,” he said. “Let’s run some tests.”
* * *
VICTOR watched the lines chart across the screen, spiking like the tremors before an earthquake. Porter had attached a dozen electrodes to his scalp, and was now studying the EEG alongside him, a crease forming between his brows.
“What is it?” asked Victor.
The doctor shook his head. “This level of activity is abnormal, but the pattern doesn’t suggest epilepsy. See how closely the lines are gathered?” He tapped the screen. “That degree of neural excitation, it’s almost like there’s too much nerve conduction . . . an excess of electrical impulse.”
Victor studied the lines. It could be a trick of the mind, but the lines on the screen seemed to rise and fall with the tone in his skull, the peaks in rhythm growing with the hum under his skin.
Porter cut the program. “I need a more complete picture,” he said, removing the electrodes from Victor’s scalp. “Let’s get you into an MRI.”
The room was bare save for the scanner in the center—a floating table that slid into a tunnel of machinery. Slowly, Victor lay back on the table, his head coming to rest in a shallow brace. A framework slid across his eyes, and Porter fastened it closed, locking Victor in. His heart rate ticked up as, with a mechanical whir, the table moved and the room disappeared, replaced by the too-close ceiling of the machine in front of Victor’s face.
He heard the doctor leave, the click of the door shutting, and then his voice returned, stretched thin by the intercom. “Hold very still.”
For a full minute, nothing happened. And then a deep knocking sound resonated through the device, a low bass that drowned out the noise in his head. Drowned out everything.
The machine thudded and whirred, and Victor tried to count the seconds, to hold on to some measure of time, but he kept losing his grip. Minutes fell away, taking with them more and more of his control. The buzzing was in his bones now, the first pricks of pain—a pain he couldn’t stifle—crackling across his skin.
“Stop the test,” he said, the words swallowed by the machine.
Porter’s voice came over the intercom. “I’m almost done.”
Victor fought to steady his breathing, but it was no use. His heart thudded. His vision doubled. The horrible electric hum grew louder.
“Stop the—”
The current tore through Victor, bright and blinding. His fingers clutched at the sides of the table, muscles screaming as the first wave crashed over him. Behind his eyes, he saw Angie, standing beside the electric panel.
“I want you to know,” she said as she began to fix sensors to his chest, “that I will never, ever forgive you for this.”
Alarms wailed.
The scanner whined, shuddered, stopped.
Porter was somewhere on the other side of the machine, speaking in a low, urgent voice. The table began to withdraw. Victor clawed at the straps holding his head. Felt them come free. He had to get up. He had to—
The current crashed into him again, so hard the room shattered into fragments—blood in his mouth, his heart losing rhythm, Porter, a pen light turning the world white, a stifled scream—then the pain erased everything.
* * *
VICTOR woke on the exam table.
The lights on the MRI were dark, the opening threaded with scorch marks. He sat up, head spinning, as the world came back into focus. Porter lay several feet away, his body contorted, as if trapped in a spasm. Victor didn’t need to feel for a pulse, or sense the man’s empty nerves, to know that he was dead.
A memory, of another time, another lab, Angie’s body, twisted in the same unnatural way.
Shit.
Victor got to his feet, surveying the room. The corpse. The damage.
Now that his senses had settled, he felt calm, clear-headed again. It was like the break after a storm. A stretch of peace before bad weather built again. It was only a matter of time—which was why every silent second mattered.
There was a syringe on the floor next to Porter’s hand, still capped. Victor slipped it into his pocket and went into the hall, where he’d left his coat. He drew out his cell as the text came in from Dominic.
1 minute, 32 seconds.
Victor took a steadying breath and looked around the empty offices.
He retraced his steps to the exam room, gathered up every scan and printout from Porter’s tests. In the doctor’s office, he cleared the appointment, the digital data, tore off the sheet on which the doctor had made his notes, and the one beneath it for safe measure, systematically erased every sign that he’d ever been inside the building.
Every sign aside from the dead body.
There was nothing to be done about that, short of setting fire to the place—an option he considered, and then set aside. Fires were temperamental things, unpredictable. Better to leave this looking as it did—a heart attack, a freak accident.
Victor slipped on his coat and left.
Back at the hotel suite, Sydney and Mitch were sprawled on the sofa, watching an old movie, Dol stretched at their feet. Mitch met Victor’s gaze when he walked in, eyebrows raised in question, and Victor gave a small, almost imperceptible head shake.
Sydney rolled upright. “Where were you?”
“Stretching my legs,” said Victor.
Syd frowned. Over the last few weeks, the look in her eyes had shifted from pure worry to something more skeptical. “You’ve been gone for hours.”
“And I was trapped for years,” countered Victor, pouring himself a drink. “It makes a body restless.”
“I get restless too,” said Sydney. “That’s why Mitch came up with the card game.” She turned to Mitch. “Why doesn’t Victor have to play?”
Victor raised a brow and sipped his drink. “How does it work?”
Sydney took the deck up from the table. “If you draw a number c
ard, you have to stay in and learn something, but if you draw a face card, you get to go out. Mostly just to parks or movies, but it’s still better than being cooped up.”
Victor cut a glance at Mitch, but the man only shrugged and rose, heading to the bathroom.
“You try it,” said Syd, holding out the deck. Victor considered her a moment, then lifted his hand. But instead of drawing a card, he brushed the deck from Syd’s palm, spilling cards across the floor.
“Hey,” said Syd as Victor knelt and considered his options. “That’s cheating.”
“You never said I had to play fair.” He plucked the king of spades from where it lay, upturned. “Here,” he said, offering her the card. “Keep it up your sleeve.”
Sydney considered the card for a long moment, and then palmed it right before Mitch returned. His eyes flicked between them. “What’s going on here?”
“Nothing,” said Syd without a second’s hesitation. “Victor’s just teasing me.”
It was disconcerting how easily she lied.
Syd returned to the couch, Dol climbing up beside her, and Victor stepped out onto the balcony.
A few minutes later, the door slid open at his back, and Mitch joined him.
“Well?” asked Mitch. “What did Porter say?”
“He didn’t have answers,” said Victor.
“Then we find someone else,” said Mitch.
Victor nodded. “Tell Syd we’re leaving in the morning.” Mitch slipped back inside, and Victor set his drink on the railing. He drew the syringe from his pocket, reading the label. Lorazepam. An anti-seizure drug. He had been hoping for a diagnosis, a cure, but until then, he would find a way to treat the symptoms.
* * *
“I don’t normally meet with patients after hours.”
Victor sat across the table from the young doctor. She was slim, and dark, eyes keen behind her glasses. But no matter her interest, or suspicion, her practice was located in Capstone, a city with strong government ties, the kind of place where privacy was paramount, discretion mandatory. Where loose lips could end careers, even lives.
Victor slid the cash across the table. “Thank you for making an exception.”
She took the money and considered the few lines he’d filled out on his intake. “How can I help you, Mr. . . . Lassiter?”