by Rachel Lee
In part the word thrilled her. But she also felt the dismay, knowing that was only partly Gary. Only partly the man she loved. She would have to deal with that later. First, though, she had to deal with the present.
"Yes," she whispered.
"It's time to work," he said. "Get in the study."
She scurried into the room, knelt on the floor and picked up her drawing pad.
"Find the old witch," he said. "Find her now."
"I…don't understand."
Now he spoke with a voice that was not his own. It was the wavering, icy-cold voice from the tape. "Find the old witch now!"
This wasn't how it worked. Hadn't she been looking through Annie's eyes last night? She could have sworn she was. This was different. Annie—and she had no doubt whose voice that was—Annie wanted her to find someone.
Which meant…she hadn't been seeing through Annie's eyes after all. But whose, then?
"I need a cigarette," she said, softly. "Please."
"You may," Gary replied. That was Gary's voice. Her husband's voice. Her lover's voice. A voice she could trust.
She lit a cigarette and watched the smoke rise from the tip, letting her consciousness drift on its streams and eddies. She cast aside the certain knowledge of what Annie would do to Loleen. She couldn't think about that now. If she did, she would hesitate.
And Annie's wrath would come to her.
Blue smoke rising in the near darkness. Curling in on itself. Twisting in the stir of air. Rising toward the desk lamp. Rising into the light…
* * *
Markie had no idea where to start looking. Loleen had closed her eyes in prayer, murmuring quietly, the rattle all but still in her hands. When she finished and opened her eyes, their bottomless brown color had returned.
"Best be gettin' on," she said to them.
"But…" Markie wanted to argue, wanted to plead for more information. But Loleen turned her head away, dismissing them.
Looking at Dec, Markie saw the same urge to question on his face.
"Loleen," he said.
"It's time you go," was her answer, spoken in a voice as old and crackly as dead leaves. "Go see Jolly."
* * *
Kato sniffed around the feet of the old woman. She had the smell of age about her, and something more. Curious, he looked up and for an instant met her dark gaze.
It was time for her soul to fly. She knew that, and she was trying to pass something on to him. He felt it as a brush deep within his mind, a touch of something bright. Then he felt her stiffen herself, getting ready.
Oh, no. Not her, too. He scented it in the distance, cold and black rotten, like meat that had gone rancid in a cold box. He knew she knew, in the way she turned her head and looked into the distance. Then he felt its icy breath, still a long way away.
He knew what he had to do. He gripped Markie's slacks with his teeth and pulled at her. The car. Go. Now!
The old woman spoke, a word that Kato understood.
"Go," she said.
And in his mind he felt the stern command: Now!
He tugged again, a whine emerging from his throat. Dec understood and took Markie's hand. He pulled her toward the car with a force that left no time or place for argument.
Moments later they were driving away from the bad place. Kato stared out the back window of the car and saw the black, rotten shadow waft toward the old woman.
And in his mind he heard her say to the shadow, "It's time."
The contact was severed. Later he felt the old woman's soul fly free and joyously. He looked up and whimpered, at once happy for her and mournful, for her liberation had not been an easy one.
* * *
"Well, hell," Dec said as he slowed through a hairpin curve. "Jolly sends us to her, and she sends us to him."
"I know." Markie's voice was subdued. "It was so…vague."
"Maybe vague is all she knows. Maybe Jolly knows something more. Unless you object, I'm going to hunt him up."
"Why would I object? Lord, I feel like I've dropped through the rabbit hole. I still can't believe that I'm thinking what I'm thinking."
"About…her?" He didn't want to say Annie's name. It was an old superstition that a name could hold power, but it was a superstition he didn't want to test right now.
"Yes. Her."
"Me, too. But…last night outside your house…I didn't want to tell you, because I felt so stupid about it. I saw a dark shadow pass by. It dimmed the streetlights."
She drew a sharp breath. "Did Kato alert?"
"He was the reason I went to look. And that shadow was the reason I called Pedro. I think I'm beginning to find religion again."
She gave a hollow laugh. "I've already got it, but it doesn't seem to be helping."
He reached out a hand and gripped hers. "It will. It's all got to be part and parcel of the same thing. Two sides of the same supernatural coin."
"You think?"
"It's the only way I can explain what I'm experiencing. I may feel like a jackass when this is over, but right now…right now I need faith. It's all I've got."
She squeezed his hand. Fingers linked, they drove in silence the rest of the way.
* * *
Jolly's mortuary was closed for the night, but the side light was on, illuminating the path to the stairs that led up to his apartment above the business. Markie and Dec climbed them together, Kato on their heels. It was plain to both of them that Kato wasn't going to let either of them out of his sight, and, for the moment at least, Markie was in full agreement.
As she had told Dec, "He's the only early warning system we have."
Jolly answered the door himself, and a smile of welcome creased his dark face. "You saw Loleen?"
Dec nodded. "She sent us to you."
Jolly chuckled. "And you're wondering why you're getting the runaround. Come in, come in. Sorry to say I'm all alone. Bettina took the children to the States to see her mother, and now they won't let her come home."
"Maybe," Dec answered, "we'll get lucky and settle this trouble soon."
"I hope." Jolly led them into a comfortable living room furnished in wicker and rattan in the popular island colors of pink and turquoise. It was a light and airy place, even at night. "Coffee or tea?" he asked.
"I'd love some coffee," Markie admitted. "I don't think I ever want to sleep again."
Jolly returned moments later with cups of coffee for everyone and sank into a chair that creaked beneath his bulk. Markie and Dec sat side by side on a rattan couch.
"What did Gram tell you?" he asked.
"That…" Dec hesitated and looked at Markie.
She spoke, a tremor in her voice. "That someone stirred up Annie. That she wants her gold. That we have to find the people who stirred her up and take her heart out of them somehow. That Dec would know what to do. It's so…confused."
"Not confused," Jolly corrected her. "Difficult to express. English doesn't have a vocabulary for this sort of thing."
"That's true." Markie looked at Kato, who was sitting alertly at her feet. "She said we have to follow my dog. That he would find them. And that it's a shame the pouches you gave me rotted because I needed them."
Jolly nodded. "Indeed. It is. You do."
Markie lifted her eyebrows.
Jolly chuckled. "I'm a good Christian, Markie, but I'm also a shaman in the old ways. I can give you some protection of that kind. A little extra never hurts."
"No, of course not." Markie didn't want to offend him, though she had her doubts. If anything should protect her, it was the crucifix around her neck.
"I'll take one, too," Dec said. "And Kato might like one."
Jolly looked down at the wolf and held out his hand. Kato sniffed it cautiously, then licked his fingers. "This wolf," Jolly said, "has got all the power he needs. See, he isn't constrained by language. What he experiences, he experiences. What is simply…is. He's better prepared for this than any of us."
"Well, short of having a stroke
and losing my faculty for language, what then?" Dec asked. "We're supposed to find the people who are stirring up the problem, but what about the folks they might hurt along the way?"
"Like Alice," Markie said, her throat tightening. "And the Shippeys."
Jolly waved a hand, as if making a sign in the air. "Anyone who sees her had best look out for themselves."
They left Jolly an hour later, both of them wearing leather pouches around their necks. Neither Markie nor Dec had the least curiosity about what might be in them. Some things were better left alone.
"I'm tired," Markie said.
"It's been a long day."
"I need to go back to my place. Shower. Change."
"You're not staying there, though." He faced her, his features stern. "I saw that shadow. You're coming to my place."
"We'll see."
Dec opened the car's passenger door. Kato jumped in and over to the back seat. Markie slid in, feeling wearier than she could remember feeling in her entire life. Wearier than a day at the clinic and a trip to the ruins should have left her.
Knowing she was going to be a lot wearier before this was over.
Then Dec said, "Before we go to your place, I want to go to the hospital."
She looked at him. "Why?"
"To talk to Gardner and his guys. Maybe they found something."
She felt a surge of sympathy. "You're still hoping they'll find a bug. Something rational."
He glanced at her, the whites of his eyes glistening in the reflection of the streetlights. "Aren't you?"
Markie hesitated before answering, taking a serious check of her hopes and thoughts. Somehow it seemed important to be absolutely honest. "I was," she admitted. "It would be…easier. But now…now it feels too late."
* * *
The swirls of smoke still rose into the lamp, silvery gray, misty. Wendy felt as if she were twining with them, lifting with them, becoming one with them. The mist began to feel cold and wet, and it shrouded her mind like the foggiest day.
It was Annie. Annie's kindest touch, really, one that would take time to freeze her. Wendy didn't want to welcome it, but she had no choice. She needed to do it for Gary, and she needed to protect herself. To do anything else would enrage Annie.
Into the mist came the golden eyes again. Eerie eyes, at first not clear, as if a veil separated them from her. These eyes were important. The urge to strike out at them filled her, and she wanted to raise her cigarette toward them again.
But then she sensed something beyond Annie's rage. Something…frightened. She couldn't tell where the fear was coming from, but it held her rapt, trying to learn more about it.
At some level, she thought she sensed freedom.
As a child on Long Island, she had figured out how to stop her parents' incessant, trivial arguments. It had been so easy, in retrospect. She would simply go out onto the screened porch, leaving open the family room door. They would feel the breath of fresh air in a moment or two and realize that every word they said could be heard by the neighbors. Embarrassed, they would hush. When they asked her why she left the door open, she simply smiled and said that she'd gone outside to get away and left the door open to air out the house.
Fear of being overheard, of losing face with their neighbors, had quelled their fights. Fear of exposure. And that, she realized, was the key.
Annie had grown up in a coal-blackened world where no one cared what was done to her and had lived her adult life in a world of privilege where no one looked too deeply into what she did. Now she inhabited a netherworld where no one saw her, where few even dared to utter her name. All her life, and into her afterlife, she'd been…invisible.
But those golden eyes could see her.
And in that would lie Wendy's salvation.
23
The hospital parking lot was nearly empty, as was usual this late at night. However, even the emergency room appeared to be as empty, and that wasn't usual. Apparently people were staying so safely at home that the common accidents weren't even happening.
Behind the hospital, screened as much as possible from public view, were the CDC trailers, airtight constructions that looked much the same as the trailers on semis. There were two of them, one a lab and one for sleeping quarters. As far as Dec had been able to tell, even CDC had given up fear of airborne contagion a while ago. Tonight they were sitting outside their trailers on folding chairs, sipping beers and coffee and shooting the bull.
As Dec, Markie and Kato approached, however, their conversation fell silent. Joe Gardner stood up and looked at Markie and her dog. "That dog is supposed to be quarantined."
"That dog isn't sick," Dec said flatly. "Did you check out Carolyn Fletcher's tissue samples?"
"Should we have? Who's she? Another stiff?"
Markie scowled but kept her mouth shut.
"Actually, she was the victim of an attack, and she survived."
Joe cocked his head. "What kind of attack?"
"Her nose was melting when I took her to the hospital. Dammit, Joe, I left a message for you to take a look."
Joe flung the coffee from his cup, and dropped the mug on his chair. "I'll get my bag. We'll look into it right now."
Markie's jaw had dropped, and as Joe walked away, she faced Dec, her hands on her hips, her head tipped belligerently. "What do you mean, her nose was melting? All you said was that it was broken. Why did you lie to me?"
"I didn't lie to you," he reminded her. "I didn't want the woman freaking out. I lied to her. And I was hoping by now that Gardner could tell me what the hell happened. It really was like the cartilage in her nose had melted. She's going to need some serious plastic surgery."
"Oh, lord." Markie bowed her head and said a silent prayer.
Joe joined them a minute later with a small black case. "Let's go."
"If we're lucky," Dec said as they strode across the grass to one of the back entrances, "somebody's already taken samples and sent them to Pathology. But I'm concerned you didn't get my message."
"Me, too," Joe agreed. "You're not taking that dog inside?"
"Yes," said Dec, "I am. We're going straight to Path to see if I have any samples." Samples that should have been in Joe Gardner's hands hours ago. He hoped nobody had fucked them up. He would hate to have to disturb Carolyn Fletcher to get more.
The corridors were quiet, this end of the hospital closed for the night. Only one orderly passed them by, leaving the odor of cigarette smoke in his wake. He must have been outside in the lot, smoking. It always amazed Dec how many doctors, nurses and orderlies smoked, the same people who would cheerfully lecture their patients about the habit.
His office was dark, the sign over the door looking odd this evening, as if the colors had somehow been altered. He flipped on light switches, then signaled Markie and Kato to remain in the anteroom. He and Joe entered the main lab, flipped on more unforgiving fluorescent lights, and Dec opened the refrigerator.
"Well, what do you know?" he said. He pulled out a paper bag, stapled shut, with Carolyn Fletcher's name and patient number on it. "Somebody was awake in E.R."
"Are you used to people missing things like this?" Joe asked.
"We see so little on this island that's unusual that it can be easy to fall asleep at the wheel," Dec said frankly. "Most don't, but sometimes one of us does."
From the anteroom, Markie watched as the two men donned Tyvek gowns with the ties at the back and two layers of rubber gloves. Then they prepped a few slides from the samples contained in several vials.
Kato stood on his hind legs beside her, resting his paws on the window ledge, and watched, too. The minutes seemed nerve-stretchingly long.
"No unrecognizable organisms," Joe Gardner remarked finally.
"No," Dec agreed. "Everything looks normal. Except for one thing. Did you notice? Every single cell wall was ruptured."
Joe swore and straightened, looking at Dec. "Talk about missing the obvious! Damn, we've been looking for prions and viruses…
."
"I did the same thing," Dec said. "It didn't occur to me before to look at something this large."
Joe began stripping his gloves. "I want to see the patient. Then I want to check the samples we have from the DOAs."
"I'm with you."
Markie sat down on the bench, and Kato dropped down beside her. Every cell wall ruptured? Her stomach turned over as she tried to imagine what could have committed such violence so swiftly.
As if he sensed her need, Kato leaned into her, hugging her as best he could.
* * *
Two hours later, the two men sat on the steps outside the CDC trailers, cups of coffee quivering slightly in fatigued and nervous hands.
"Shit," Joe Gardner said succinctly.
"Exactly," Dec agreed.
Cells were remarkably resilient, Dec knew. He'd once marveled as he watched on a microscope as an ultrafine needle was inserted through a cell wall. Even with the tip of the needle only a few microns thick, the cell wall bent inward before it slowly, reluctantly gave way. Banging a shin on a coffee table would burst capillary walls to leave a bruise, but the cells themselves would be intact. The kind of force that could crush cell walls en masse, well, that was the stuff of gunshot wounds or pile drivers. It simply didn't happen in the ordinary course of things. And certainly not throughout an entire body.
Yet that was what they'd seen in slide after slide from the Shippeys and from Alice Wheatley. Bones, tendons, cartilage, internal organs…all ruptured and crushed at the cellular level. But not the skin. And, most horrifying of all, not nerve cells. Whatever—whoever, he knew, in his heart of hearts—had done this, it had kept the nerves intact. So the victims could experience every second of the agony of their bodies being shattered.
Nature, he was sure, could never devise so utterly sadistic an organism. No, this was the work of pure evil.
"I don't know anything that would do this," Joe Gardner said.
"No, you don't," Dec replied. "None of us does. We train for something else entirely. We're trained for the ordinary detritus of life on planet Earth. Illness. Injury. Even primitive violence. We're trained to do battle with the basic forces of Darwinian selection. But we're not trained for…this."