Petrified

by Graham Masterton

  ‘And what do you think? You watch a lot of Murder, She Wrote.’

  The woman blinked rapidly. ‘I really don’t know. But if there was an unwelcome visitor in this patient’s room, why was he unwelcome? And how did he get in – because there is no record of any visitors for this particular patient in the visitors’ log. More to the point, how did he get out, because nobody saw him.’

  ‘You should have been a PI,’ Jenna told her. ‘Can you tell me the patient’s name, please? I think it might be a good idea if we go talk to him.’

  ‘Professor Nathan Underhill. He’s in ten-twenty-two.’

  ‘Underhill? Why do I have the feeling that I’ve heard of him?’

  ‘He’s a zoologist. Quite famous, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘All right, then. Let’s see what this quite famous zoologist has to say for himself.’

  Nathan was already dressed and sitting in his armchair drinking black tea when Jenna and Dan knocked on his door.

  ‘Professor Underhill?’ said Jenna. ‘We’re police detectives. Do you think we could have a moment of your time?’

  ‘Police detectives?’ Nathan asked her. He put down his cup and stood up. ‘Does this have anything to do with what happened last night? I heard that somebody got themselves killed, down in the parking lot.’

  ‘That’s right. Somebody got themselves killed. To tell you the truth, somebody got themselves very killed.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear it. What happened?’

  ‘Well, that’s what my partner and I are looking into. One of the hospital administrators tells us that you called for security, round about the same time this fatality took place.’

  ‘I – ah – yes. I did. But I don’t see the relevance.’

  ‘We’re just trying to build up a picture of everything that occurred last night. It helps us to place where everybody was, and if anybody was likely to have witnessed anything meaningful.’

  Nathan would have done anything to be able to tell this detective that he had seen a living gargoyle diving off the roof of the building opposite, and that its creator had been here, right here in this room, making threats against him. But she would simply think that he was delusional, and worse than that, it could put his family in danger. Theodor Zauber had staged this grisly performance to show Nathan that he was completely ruthless, and that he would allow nobody to deter him from getting what he wanted.

  Apart from that, even if he explained to her what had happened, how was she going to find Theodor Zauber – a man who was capable of walking past the noses of two security guards without them seeing him?

  Nathan said, ‘I was asleep. I thought that there was an intruder in my room, but I guess I must have been dreaming. My doctor has had me on morphine for the past twenty-four hours, and the dream was so totally vivid that I believed it was real. That’s why I called security.’

  ‘Did you call security before you woke up, or after?’

  ‘Well – after, of course.’

  ‘But when you woke up you must have realized that there was nobody there.’

  ‘No – it was dark and I was still convinced that there was somebody here. They could have been hiding behind the drapes, or under the bed.’

  ‘Under the bed?’

  Nathan shrugged. ‘Isn’t that where boogeymen always hide – under the bed?’

  Jenna wasn’t amused. ‘Was it anybody in particular, or just some unknown intruder?’

  ‘It was dark.’

  ‘But you felt threatened?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you feel threatened, if you thought that there was somebody in your bedroom in the middle of the night?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think it would depend entirely on who it was. If it was George Clooney, maybe not.’

  Jenna went to the window and peered down into the parking lot, ten stories below.

  ‘You didn’t see or hear anything unusual?’

  Nathan said nothing. Withholding information from the police was difficult enough, but he found it almost impossible to tell an outright lie.

  ‘No screams?’ asked Jenna. ‘No thumping noises? Nobody shouting out for help? After all, the window’s open.’

  Still Nathan said nothing. Jenna came up close to him and stared at him intently.

  ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘What are you not telling me?’

  He turned his face away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I can’t help you.’

  ‘I have a feeling that you can, but for some very obscure reason you just don’t want to.’

  Dan’s cell warbled. He flipped it open and said, ‘Rubik.’ Then, ‘OK. Sure. OK. We’ll be down there directly.’ He closed his cell and said, ‘Captain Wilson’s arrived. He’s going to make some kind of statement to the media, and he wants us to brief him first.’

  Jenna pulled a face. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘We’ll leave it like that for now, Professor Underhill. But a man was brutally killed here last night, and it wasn’t an accident, and I intend to find out how it happened, and who was responsible. Or what.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Friday, 8:47 a.m.

  When Aarif and Kavita stepped out of the elevator on the tenth floor, they found Nathan and Doctor Berman and three young interns already waiting for them.

  Aarif was sporting a red and white sweater with a reindeer pattern all around it, while Kavita was wearing a very short black wool dress and black rock-chick boots.

  ‘It’s not Christmas yet, Aarif,’ Nathan told him.

  ‘I am a Muslim, Professor. To me, a reindeer is only an animal, rangifer tarandus, so I can wear a reindeer sweater all the year round. But for this little girl with the burned face, maybe today will be Christmas.’

  He held up his black medical case, and smiled.

  Kavita said, ‘Torchy was much calmer this morning when we took the stem cell sample. He seems to have gotten used to it. There’s something else about him, too. His feathers are beginning to change color. He’s looking much brighter. And his beak is turning pink.’

  ‘Maybe he’s going to look like Voltaire’s description of a phoenix after all,’ said Nathan. ‘I can’t wait to see him again.’

  ‘Show me your hand,’ said Kavita. ‘Is it all healed?’

  Nathan held out his left hand, and then held out his right hand for comparison. It was now impossible to tell which hand had been so badly burned. Kavita took hold of both hands and looked up into Nathan’s eyes.

  ‘I admire you so much, Professor. You know that I have nothing but respect for what you did. It was in such a great scientific tradition. But please don’t hurt yourself again. Not for any reason. Every time you hurt yourself, you hurt me, too – more than you know.’

  Nathan nodded, and said, ‘OK. I promise.’ He wasn’t quite sure what Kavita was trying to say to him, but he could sense that her feelings for him went beyond the formality of professor and research assistant. He was flattered, but also slightly disturbed. Kavita was extremely pretty, but he was extremely married.

  Doctor Berman led them into Susan Harris’ room. Sukie was sleeping, although her lips were moving as if she were talking to somebody in her dreams.

  Nathan said, ‘We’ll inject the phoenix’s stem cells into her pterygoideus externus, her external jaw-muscles, which is the nearest we can get to the burns on her face. One injection into each jaw muscle now, and then another in twelve hours’ time. She’ll probably need a third injection tomorrow morning, but at the moment it’s too soon to be sure of that.’

  Doctor Berman nodded. ‘OK. But I want everybody here to be aware that I am personally taking full responsibility for this procedure. If anything goes wrong – if the patient’s condition deteriorates because of what we are doing here today, then the buck stops with me.’

  ‘You trust me that much?’ asked Nathan.

  ‘I examined your hand when they brought you in here, Professor, and I was convinced that you were going to suffer the most serious scarring and contracture, and that the burns to your first web
would limit thumb abduction to the point where your left hand was virtually useless. But look at it now. No scars, ninety percent flexibility.’ Doctor Berman looked away and said, ‘Don’t quote me. Any of you – you ever dare to quote me. But you’ve convinced me, Professor Underhill. Stem cells from mythical creatures? I’m a believer.’

  Suddenly, her voice muffled by her oxygen mask, Sukie blurted out, ‘No! Don’t look up! Don’t look up!’ She flapped her hands as if she were trying to swat wasps away.

  Kavita took hold of her hand and said, ‘It’s all right, sweet thing. Everything’s going to be fine. You just hold on a little longer.’

  ‘But they’re up there! They’re up in the sky!’

  Nathan looked at Doctor Berman, but Doctor Berman simply shrugged and said, ‘Delirium. It’s the shock, and the physical trauma, and the painkillers.’

  But now Sukie was reaching up with her bandaged hands and trying to pull off her oxygen mask. ‘They’re up there! Hundreds and hundreds of them! They’re up in the sky and they have tails and claws and they’re coming to kill us! And they’re so greedy!’

  ‘Who are you talking about, honey?’ Nathan asked her, trying to calm her down. ‘Who is it exactly, up in the sky?’

  Sukie lay silent for a moment, shivering and sniffing, like a crack addict brought in from the street. Nathan looked across at Doctor Berman and said, ‘What? How much did you give her? She’s out there on Planet X.’

  Doctor Berman checked Sukie’s vital signs and then bent over her bed with his stethoscope, and listened to her heartbeat.

  ‘Well?’ said Nathan. He knew that he might sound aggressive, but he didn’t want to inject Sukie with Torchy’s stem cells if there was any risk of heart failure or other complications.

  Something else disturbed him: the way she had screamed they’re up in the sky and they have tails and claws and they’re coming to kill us! It reminded him of an engraving by the eighteenth-century artist Gustav Doré that he had come across during his research of mythical creatures. It showed twelve flying demons called Malebranche from Dante’s Divine Comedy. Malebranche meant ‘Evil Claws’ and the demons were led by Malacoda, which meant ‘Evil Tail’.

  Dante was said to have invented the Malebranche, but Nathan had suspected from the first time he had seen Doré’s illustration that he had based them on gargoyles, from the days when gargoyles had flown in flocks across the skies of Europe, swooping on sheep and cattle, and – according to Theodor Zauber, anyway – on tens of thousands of unsuspecting men, women and children.

  A living gargoyle had been perched here at Temple University Hospital only a few hours ago. Had Sukie somehow sensed its presence? Had her father, too? If they had, then how?

  Doctor Berman stood up and shook his head. ‘She’s fine. Heart rate’s just over one hundred, which is a little high, but her respiration is twenty-two, which is acceptable, and her blood pressure is in the fifty-fifth percentile, which is also acceptable.’

  Nathan looked down at Sukie, with her shiny Jaloskin face. ‘You’re happy to go ahead, then?’

  ‘She might be a little upset, emotionally, but physically she’s fine.’

  ‘All right then, doctor. So long as you think we’re doing the right thing.’

  Aarif took out a hypodermic syringe and injected Sukie in the left side of her jaw. She had quietened down now, and she didn’t even flinch. He took out a second hypodermic and injected stem cells into her right jaw muscle.

  ‘Well, then, that’s it,’ said Nathan. ‘All we can do now is wait. I’m going to go home and change and have something to eat. Then I’m going to the lab to take a look at Torchy. But I’ll be back in a couple of hours to see how she’s progressing.’

  Kavita said, ‘Would you like me to drive you home, Professor? I have my car here.’

  ‘That’s OK, Kavita. It’s way out of your way. I’ll take a cab.’

  ‘It’s no trouble, really. Besides, I would like a chance to talk to you about the phoenix.’

  ‘OK,’ said Nathan. ‘That’s very kind of you. Appreciate it.’

  As they drove northward on Wissahickon Avenue in Kavita’s bright red VW Beetle, Nathan said, ‘You’ve really been great, Kavita. You and Aarif – the work that you’ve been doing. There’s only one word for it and that’s “inspired”.’

  Kavita glanced across at him and smiled. ‘No, Professor. You’re the one who’s inspired. I can’t believe that Schiller tried to cut off your funding.’

  ‘Well . . . if young Sukie gets her face back, maybe they’ll change their minds.’

  There was a long pause, and then Kavita said, ‘It could be . . . maybe they’ve changed their minds already.’ She was trying to sound offhand, but Nathan could detect an odd flatness in her voice.

  ‘What are you saying? You’re kidding me. Where do you get that from?’

  She stopped at a red traffic signal at West Rittenhouse Street. ‘Mr Kasabian promised me that he’s going to talk the board again tomorrow, and see if he can persuade them to allocate us another three years’ finance.’

  ‘Ron said that? Really? But Ron was dead set against it.’

  Kavita didn’t look at him. The sun was shining through the trees beside the intersection and playing patterns across her face as if she were wearing a black lace veil.

  ‘Ever since I came to work with you, Professor, Mr Kasabian has shown an interest in me.’

  ‘What kind of an interest? You mean a personal interest?’

  Kavita nodded. The traffic signal changed to green and she shifted into drive.

  Nathan stared at her. ‘I never really noticed. You mean like a lecherous interest?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. He’s the CEO, for Christ’s sake. He’s married, with three kids in high school.’

  ‘I know. But that did nothing to stop him. From the very first day, he asked me almost every day to go out for a drink with him. And he kept on making suggestive remarks. “Are you wearing anything under that lab coat?” That kind of thing. He invited me to go to Seattle with him when he went to that pharmaceutical convention. He even asked me if I would come with him to Paris.’

  Nathan said, ‘And now all of a sudden he’s changed his mind about our funding? I hope you’re not going to tell me what I think you’re going to tell me.’

  Kavita’s eyelashes were sparkling with tears. ‘Professor – he was going to close down the phoenix project, for ever! If that happened, it would be a tragedy! It would mean the end of the most wonderful time I have ever had in my entire life.’

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and then she said, ‘I love the phoenix project. It’s like the three of us being magicians. Every day we make something impossible become real. And we’re going to bring so much good to so many suffering people. Look at that poor little girl today, with her face all burned up.

  ‘I love it,’ she repeated; and then she turned to Nathan and said, ‘I love you, too, Professor. I love you with all of my heart. How could I lose both the project and you? I couldn’t bear it.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Nathan, ‘why don’t you pull over here? You don’t want to drive when you’re upset.’

  Kavita turned into West Johnson Street, a quiet suburban side street lined with trees, and parked halfway up the curb. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so stupid.’

  ‘You’re not stupid at all,’ Nathan told her. ‘You’re one of the brightest, cleverest research assistants I’ve ever had working for me. Every reading you give me, every analysis, they’re always one hundred percent accurate.’ He paused, and then he said, ‘I know that doesn’t sound very romantic, but it means that I rely on you, Kavita. I couldn’t have created Torchy without you.’

  Kavita pulled a crumpled Kleenex out of her sleeve. ‘Look at my mascara. It’s a mess now. God, I’m stupid.’

  Nathan waited while she dabbed her eyes and blew her nose. Then he said, ‘You still haven’t told me what made Ron Kasabian change his m
ind about my funding.’

  Kavita took a deep breath. ‘Late yesterday evening, maybe ten p.m., when I was settling Torchy down for the night, Ron came into the laboratory. He told me how sorry he was that I was going to be leaving, and asked me if I would go out with him for one last drink. This time I said yes.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Nathan.

  Kavita wouldn’t look at him, but stared straight ahead along West Johnson Street as if she thought she recognized somebody in the distance.

  ‘He took me to the Swann Lounge at the Four Seasons for cocktails. Well – he had a couple of Martinis but I only had one glass of white wine. We talked about the phoenix project and I told him how much it meant to me, and how upset I was that Schiller had cut off our funding.’

  ‘And what did Ron say?’

  ‘He said that I was a fantastic-looking girl and what a great future I had ahead of me. Maybe as a personal favor to me he could find a way to keep the phoenix project going, at least for a few months longer. Maybe he could divert some of the money that Schiller have been investing in that new denture cleanser.’

  ‘Jesus. What a Casanova.’

  Kavita gave a bitter little smile, but still didn’t look at him. ‘I have to say that he was completely honest about what he wanted in return. If he was going to do me a personal favor, then he expected me to do him a personal favor. Or favors, rather, for as long as our funding continues.’

  Nathan said nothing, but waited for Kavita to finish.

  ‘He booked a room,’ she said. ‘We went upstairs.’ She hesitated, and turned her face away, and then she added, ‘He wasn’t very good.’

  Nathan whacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. ‘Christ almighty, Kavita! How could he have done that? How could you have done that?’

  ‘Because I thought it would save the phoenix project! Because I couldn’t think of any other way! Because I love you!’

  ‘Do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to cut off Ron Kasabian’s pecker and feed it to Torchy for breakfast. What a bastard! Do you seriously think that I’m going to take any more of Schiller’s money if you have to prostitute yourself for it?’