Mercurial Dreams

by Hadena James

  “Uh, time for you to go to the hospital,” Xavier said, not daring to touch me.

  “I have questions,” I turned on him.

  “And we’ll get answers or rather, Gabriel will get answers then relay them to you,” Xavier took a tentative step towards me. “You need stitches and some tests.”

  “Fine,” I walked from the room, resisting the urge to kick my intruder as I passed. Although, since the urge had just been to kick him, I thought I should get double bonus points.

  University Medical Center didn’t look much different than any other hospital on the planet. There were architectural differences but that was about it. The hospital itself had similar paint schemes to other hospitals I had been in; white rooms with soothing colored hallways that didn’t really soothe. This one was done in browns and pinks, not unfitting for the desert landscape that surrounded the oasis that was Las Vegas.

  Medical staff hurried to and fro, wearing the same blue scrubs that were present in most hospital emergency rooms. They tended to dozens of people. Nights in Vegas appeared to be dangerous and the only “special priority” I was given as a federal law enforcement agent was being hustled into a room and left to rot on the bed.

  It had been at least an hour since I had seen so much as a nurse. Xavier was busy entertaining himself by going through the cabinets and drawers in the room. I swung my legs, hoping to get enough blood spatter on everything to get a doctor or nurse interested in treating me. It was petty and I knew it, but anyone could have handed a needle and stitching thread to Xavier and let him do it.

  Unfortunately, I had bled into a small puddle on the floor and Xavier had tossed towels over it. Of course, it had stopped in the SUV on the way over and I had busted open the first scab getting out of the vehicle when I hit the edge of the door. Now, the bleeding had stopped again after creating the small puddle. To stitch my leg they were going to need to remove yet another scab that had formed over it. Or they might chalk it up as a lost cause since it was scabbed over and I would have another jagged tear on an already scarred patch of skin.

  “Let’s go,” I stood up.

  “No,” Xavier looked at me. “The stitches aren’t just to close the wound, they help it heal better.”

  “But I’m not going to get stitches in this century. If I was bleeding profusely, I might get some attention, but I’m not. So, it is becoming less and less likely that anyone is going to attend to my wounds,” I said.

  “I need the equipment here to do the nerve test,” Xavier countered.

  “We already know I have severe nerve damage to that area of my calf, why test it?”

  “Because the last time it was tested, the nerves were registering some stimulation. Now it appears they aren’t. We need to know if they are completely dead.”

  “They aren’t,” I answered and hoisted myself back up onto the table.

  “Seriously or are you lying to get out of here?” He asked.

  “Seriously. It may not have hurt when it happened, but I feel an annoying throbbing now. Part of it was nerve damage, part of it was adrenalin,” I shrugged.

  “I have to admit, Ace, I don’t believe you,” he shook his head. “Look at the wall and close your eyes.”

  I sighed, but did as instructed. I found a spot that looked like a grease stain, which seemed odd in a hospital, and stared at it for a couple of seconds, before closing my eyes. I sat and waited. When Xavier’s gloved fingers dug into the scab, ripping it from my leg, I let out a small yelp. It really had hurt.

  Blood was again gushing from my leg. It ran down my socked foot and dripped onto the towels on the floor. Xavier took off his glove and tossed it in the trash can.

  “Ok, so you do feel something,” he admitted.

  “Told you so,” I looked at my leg. The gash was about two inches long. However, the edges were not clear. It cut through a large swatch of skin that had been burned by electricity some time ago. The nerves there were mostly toast. The skin looked terrible. I hadn’t needed grafts, but I had come close. The results though looked worse than if I had needed a skin graft. Standing about an inch out from my leg, it was shiny, white, and hairless. The edges were a strange mottled color of my normal skin tone, the white scar and some skin that had turned very brown. Despite physical therapy, I had serious twitches in that leg for weeks after the incident. Even now, it would still occasionally spasm enough to cause my knee to give out.

  “I’ll get a doctor,” Xavier stood and walked from the room. Outside the door, I could hear him shouting at someone. I considered what sympathy felt like, but couldn’t muster the actual emotion. The best I could do was be glad it wasn’t me being reamed by him.

  After several more minutes, the blood had almost stopped flowing again. My leg still hurt and I wondered if Xavier needed to trim his nails. I made a mental note to look when he returned.

  Finally, he came back, dragging a doctor with him. The doctor looked less than happy about being pulled away from whatever he was doing. I understood. I had wanted to beat a confession out of the idiot that had broke into my hotel room, but Xavier hadn’t let me.

  “Hi,” I said as the doctor grumbled something under his breath. “If you could just stitch this up, that would be great.”

  “What is it?” The doctor, whose name tag said he was Dr. Gilliam, asked. I refrained from asking him if his father was a Python, but it took effort.

  “We think it’s a gunshot,” Xavier frowned at him.

  “You were shot?” Dr. Gilliam asked.

  “Well, I was shot at, I don’t think I was actually shot. I think it just grazed my leg,” I told him.

  “Any other injuries?” Dr. Gilliam pulled out a stethoscope. Since there was nothing wrong with my heart and I was attached to a monitor, I frowned at him.

  “Nope, if there had been, she would have bled to death waiting for treatment,” Xavier snipped at the doctor.

  “This wound doesn’t seem very serious,” Dr. Gilliam ignored Xavier’s dig. “I’ll get it stitched up and we’ll get you on your way.”

  “Thanks,” I chirped, trying not to be annoyed or at least not sound annoyed. I was sure the doctor and the hospital was busy, after all, it was Vegas.

  Thirteen

  My would-be assassins turned out to be hoods and nothing more. My death was retribution for the arrests earlier in the day and there was something about bonus points for killing federal agents. It was turned over to some gang squad and we had moved to a new hotel. We were now back to twiddling our thumbs.

  Actually, at the moment, I was breathing down the neck of the mummy expert. He was not liking it much and kept moving away from me. On the other hand, I was determined to get some kind of clue, so I just moved with him.

  Dr. Edward Baldwin was technically a forensic anthropologist who seemed to take a ton of notes. Xavier was glued to his hip, also taking notes. I couldn’t see the notes, regardless of the fact that I kept trying.

  They moved methodically from one body to another. Their scribbling would resume with minor comments made aloud that meant nothing, then they would move to the next body. My presence was useless, unless some monster broke in and decided to slaughter them or the mummies began returning to life.

  “Go sit down,” Xavier finally huffed at me. Dejected, I did, finding a very uncomfortable stool that spun around. I rotated in very slow circles while the doctors worked on the bodies.

  After about my tenth rotation, I was starting to feel nauseated. I got up and went outside, pulling off the patch as I went. I knew there was a pack of cigarettes hidden in the SUV. Popping the hatch, I dug around for them until I found them and a lighter. I closed the hatch, pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

  This whole patch thing wasn’t working. We’d tried the medications, but they just made me crazier. I hated chewing gum. So every day I stuck on a new patch and when I decided it wasn’t enough, I yanked it off and smoked a cigarette. Besides, I have never been one to be a quitter.

  Outside was hot
. Sweat was already starting to form on my brow and lip. The cigarette felt hotter than normal as I held it between my fingers. The first couple of drags, which were rough on a good day, now held the illusion of heat that seared my lungs.

  There was a large sign next to me announcing that the hospital was a smoke-free campus. I considered that for several seconds. I should move the twenty feet to the sidewalk, but honestly, I didn’t think my smoking a cigarette warranted arrest. The bodies inside the building were in far worse condition and it wasn’t of their own choosing. Besides, standing near me, even when I wasn’t smoking, increased a person’s risk of death.

  Off the Strip, Las Vegas looked like every other big city. It had too many people, too much traffic and a haze of smog that hung between the tall buildings like Death spraying pestilence upon the unsuspecting population. The buildings surrounding the hospital all seemed functional, not tourist traps. Office buildings, boutique stores and crowded restaurants lined both sides of the street. There were few neon lights and those were not the gaudy, overly bright, neons with intense special effects. They were mostly open signs.

  The smog caught my attention again. Whether it was because of the heat or some strange Las Vegas phenomenon, it seemed darker, thicker than most cities. It was definitely more obvious, creating an opaque haze that hunkered around the very tops of the tallest buildings before spreading out to create a cap between the city and the sky.

  A car backfired and I instantly reacted, ducking behind the SUV. My lifestyle was making me paranoid. Of course, if it hadn’t made me paranoid, I’d probably be dead. No need to complain. I peeked around the SUV in time to see it backfire again. Black smoke puffed from the tailpipe and all the windows were down. In the backseat sat two small girls. In the front sat a tired looking woman, hair frizzy and standing out from her head.

  With over ten thousand serial killers currently active in the United States alone and the number growing all the time, it was possible that at least one had driven by while I had smoked a cigarette. Or if they weren’t killing yet, a serial killer in the making had driven past. I briefly wondered if it was one of the twin girls from the car belonging to the overworked, underpaid mother.

  Sweat now soaked into my shirt. I ran my hand over my head and found my hair was starting to come loose from its ponytail. I took out the elastic hair tie and smoothed it all back into place. A comb would have helped, but my hair was trained to be in this position. It smoothed down, even the short pieces that should have been standing up. I re-wrapped the ponytail holder and then picked off the strands of hair that had fallen onto me.

  Today, I had chosen a black T-Shirt from a band called Eisbrecher. Their logo was in deep blues and grays. My hair stood out in stark contrast. The brown strands that had showered me, obscured the logo and coated the shirt. I popped the hatch on the SUV again and found a lint roller. Carefully, I rolled my shirt, front, back, sleeves, trying to remove every strand of the offending hair. It was getting long again, I needed a haircut. One grey strand caught my attention, maybe a color was in order as well. I had few physical vanities, but my hair was among the few. I tossed the lint roller back into the SUV and shut the hatch.

  My body felt stiff from sitting on the stool. My lower back had a slight ache in it, my calves had cramped and my neck didn’t want to rotate. I took another few minutes and stretched in the heat. When I was finished, my T-Shirt was sticking to me and my jeans had damp patches on them.

  I pulled a new patch from my pocket and stopped. I could stick it on, but that would remove my excuse to go back outside. I slid it back into my pocket.

  The air conditioning in the hospital made me shiver. It was colder in the basement. I pulled out my phone and checked the time. It was nearly noon. Instead of heading back to the morgue, I meandered until I found the cafeteria. Xavier and I would both need to eat soon.

  In the hallway, just outside the door, was a painting. It was of a woman, mostly nude except for a drape that covered the naughty bits. Her head was thrown back at an odd angle. Either she was dying or orgasming, I didn’t know which. I doubted anyone at the hospital realized the significance of her look. They probably had bought it because it looked “pretty.” I smiled and moved inside the busy cafeteria.

  I grabbed a dozen food items and arranged them on two trays. That’s when I noticed the paperback rack. I had never been in a hospital where the cafeteria sold books. I gave them a quick once over, selected one by an author I had never read and paid for everything.

  Xavier stood hunched over a body. Dr. Baldwin was pointing something out to him. I let the door bang close behind me. They both stood up and noticed me.

  “Food,” Xavier took off his goggles.

  “Not in here,” Dr. Baldwin told him. He pointed back out into the hallway. I thrust one of the trays at Xavier, who took it. We followed Dr. Baldwin out into a small sitting area. “Because the remains are mummified, they are more likely to have contaminants floating around the room.”

  Since I knew the bodies were essentially sterile from the mummification process, I had to think about his comment a minute. Then it dawned on me, I’d be eating dried people in that room. Their bodies would be sending bits of itself floating around in the air, hence the HEPA-Filter masks and goggles. It was a good thing all the food was wrapped when I entered the room.

  “So?” I asked, tucking into a turkey sandwich.

  “Well,” Xavier stared at a cheeseburger. “We were able to fix a rough time of death on some of them. Ages and genders on a few more victims.”

  “And I can tell you that none of the bodies brought in were naturalized mummies. They were all manmade,” Dr. Baldwin said. “However, cause of death is still questionable. I found lots of holes that could be needle holes or they could be something else. However, the holes would correspond to major arteries and veins. That would make sense because you have to drain the body of blood in order to mummify it.”

  “We can send the hands to a forensics lab and have them rehydrated to get fingerprints,” Xavier smiled. “That would go a long way to identifying the victims.”

  “You guys are making progress, that’s good. Gabriel likes progress,” I commented. “What information can you tell me?”

  “From the fusing of...” I held up my hand as Dr. Baldwin began talking.

  “Ok, I took anatomy, but only enough to identify organs and a few bones. If you are going to start giving me aging patterns based on bone fusion, I’m going to stare blankly at you,” I said.

  “The victims range from early twenties to late fifties,” Dr. Baldwin corrected himself. “There is about a fifty/fifty split of male and female. And everybody we examined had the holes at the wrists, neck and thighs, some more damaged than others due to your inexperience in handling, but I can forgive that.”

  “What accounts for the contorted positions?” I asked.

  “It could be the mummification process,” Dr. Baldwin shrugged. “Normally, it isn’t that bad, but I have seen a few that were because they were desiccated in a small box or some other container. Or it could be your cause of death.”

  “Elemental mercury can cause muscle spasm and death,” I admitted, “but it isn’t normally that bad.”

  “Should we be looking for something else in the bodies?” Xavier asked.

  “Honestly, I don’t know. I have never heard of anyone using elemental mercury to kill. Arsenic and a few other poisons cause disfiguring contortions, but I’m not entirely convinced mercury alone does,” I shrugged. “But with no history to go on, who the hell knows what mercury does when injected directly into the blood stream.”

  “I did some reading last night and in other mammals, it causes extreme pain and muscle spasms that cause the body to contort,” Xavier said.

  “And people think my reading materials are disturbing,” I quipped.

  “But I only found one study on it,” Xavier shrugged, “so it could have been something else. I find it unlikely, considering what mercury does to the
body.”

  “But elemental mercury is safe, at least to eat and drink. I wouldn’t recommend it, but it could be done,” I countered.

  “That’s different than injecting it into your blood stream,” Xavier replied.

  “You two can argue this until you’re both blue and it won’t solve the problem,” Dr. Baldwin interrupted. “How he kills is far less interesting than what he does to the bodies afterwards. That’s how you’ll catch him. Mummifying a body isn’t easy or neat or clean. It is a lot of work. You have to drain the body of blood, you have to have something large enough to hold it, especially since the body cavities are being stuffed with salts and you have to have the time to let it mummify. It isn’t happening overnight.”

  “How long does it take to make a mummy?” I asked.

  “Depends on environmental factors. If there is humidity, it takes longer than somewhere arid. So the desert would suck out the moisture quickly, but inside a house, not as fast,” Dr. Baldwin said.

  “Guess,” I said.

  “Anywhere from two weeks to two years,” Dr. Baldwin answered.

  “Where do you hide a body for two weeks? Or two years?” I asked.

  “Once you drain the blood and start putting it in salt, you retard decomposition, no decomposition, no smell,” Xavier said.

  I considered that. No blood, no bacteria, no decomposition, no smell, you could literally hide a body anywhere in your house if there was no smell. That was usually the tipoff that something dead was in the area. Once you’ve smelt decomposition, you always knew the smell and almost everyone had smelled it in the form of road kill. Humans really aren’t that different than a deer when it comes to the overwhelming smell of death.

  “That’s useful,” I finally said, “by the way, the hospital has a painting of a woman having an orgasm, near the cafeteria. The irony was overwhelming,” I said.

  “This food is edible, it is far from orgasmic,” Xavier gave a small chuckle. It sounded like it had come from a normal person, unlike the insane hellish giggle. For a brief moment, I wondered if I giggled like that. However, I pushed the thought away as I finished my turkey sandwich and started on the vanilla pudding.