by Tanya Huff
“Well, yeah.”
“So stop worrying. It was unfortunate that they decided to open the casket, but it’s hardly the disaster you’re making it out to be. Don’t you have a tutorial this afternoon?”
“I thought you wanted me to stay close?”
“I want you to behave exactly as you normally do.”
He grinned, unable to worry about anything for long. “That is to say, badly?”
Dr. Burke shook her head and half-smiled. “Go.” He went.
“Is he in any danger, Dr. Burke?”
“Didn’t I just say he wasn’t?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Catherine, I have never lied to Donald. Lies are the easiest way to lose the loyalty of your associates.”
Apparently unconvinced, Catherine gnawed on her lower lip.
Dr. Burke sighed. “Didn’t I promise you,” she said gently, “back when you first approached me, that I’d take care of everything? That I’d see to it you could work without interference? And haven’t I kept my promise?”
Catherine released her lip and nodded.
“So you needn’t worry about anything but your work. Besides, Donald’s dedication to science isn’t as strong as ours.” She patted the isolation box that held the remains of Marjory Nelson. “Now then, if you could set up the muscle sequences, I’d best get back to my office. With Mrs. Shaw home having hysterics, God only knows what’s going on up there.”
Alone in the lab, Catherine crossed slowly to the keyboard and sat, staring thoughtfully at the monitor for a few moments. Donald’s dedication to science isn’t as strong as ours. She’d always known that. What she was just beginning to realize was that perhaps Dr. Burke’s dedication to science wasn’t as strong as it might be either. While there’d always been a lot of talk about the purity of research, this was the first she’d heard of infinite applications and profit sharing.
Behind lids that had lost the flexibility to completely open or completely close, filmy eyes tracked her every movement.
Number nine sat quietly, content for the moment to be out of the box.
And with her.
“So, how is she?”
Celluci stepped out of the apartment and pulled the door partially closed behind him. “Coping.”
“Humph. Coping. This evil thing has happened and all you can say is she’s coping.” Mr. Delgado shook his head. “Has she cried?”
“Not while I’ve been with her, no.” It took an effort, but Celluci managed not to resent the old man’s concern.
“Not other times either, I bet. Crying is for the weak; she isn’t weak, so she doesn’t cry.” He thumped a gnarled fist against his chest. “I cried like a baby—like a baby, I tell you—when my Rosa died.”
Celluci nodded slowly in agreement. “I cried when my father died.”
“Celluci? Italian?”
“Canadian.”
“Don’t be a smart ass. We, my Rosa and young Frank and me, we came from Portugal just after the second World War. I was a welder.”
“My father’s family came just before the war. He was a plumber.”
“There.” Mr. Delgado threw up both hands. “And if the two of us can cry, you’d think she could manage a tear or two without lose of machismo.”
Vicki’s voice drifted into the hall. “Mr. Chen? Perhaps you can help me, I’m looking for a young man, early twenties, named Tom Chen . . .”
Mr. Delgado’s shoulders sagged. “But no. No tears. She holds the hurt inside. You listen to what I’m saying to you, Officer Celluci. When that hurt finally comes out, it’s going to rip her to pieces.”
“I’ll be there for her.” He tried not to sound defensive—Vicki’s inability to deal with this wasn’t his fault—but he didn’t entirely succeed.
“What about the other guy? Will he be there, too?”
“I don’t know.”
“Humph. None of my business? Well, maybe not.” The old man sighed. “It’s hard when there’s nothing to do to help.”
Celluci echoed the sigh. “I know.”
Back inside the apartment, he leaned against the closed door and watched Vicki hurl the Kingston phone book across the room. “No luck?”
“So he doesn’t have a listed number, or a family in town.” She jabbed at the bridge of her glasses. “He’s probably a student. Lives in residence. I’ll find him.”
“Vicki . . .” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “You’re looking for a fake name. Anyone with the brains to pull this off also had the brains to work under an alias.” That he had to keep telling her this was a frightening indication of how deeply she’d been affected both by the death and the loss of the body. It was a conclusion any first-year police cadet would come to and should never have had to be pointed out to “Victory” Nelson. “Tom Chen is . . .”
“All we’ve got!” A muscle jumped in her jaw as she spat the words at him. “It’s a name. It’s something.”
It’s nothing. But he didn’t say it because behind the challenge he could hear her desperate need for something to hold onto. I suppose I should be happy she’s clutching at this instead of at Fitzroy. What would it hurt to go along with her? At least it would keep him close and in time she might decide to hold onto him. “All right, if he lives in residence, where’s he keeping . . .” Not your mother. There had to be something better to call it. “. . . the body?”
“How the hell should I know? First thing tomorrow, I get my hands on the university registration lists.”
“How?” Celluci crossed the room and dropped onto the couch. “You don’t have a warrant and you can’t get a warrant. Why don’t you let the local police take care of it? Detective Fergusson seems to be positive it’s med students so I’m sure he’ll check the university.”
“So? I don’t care what Detective Fergusson checks. I don’t care if the whole fucking police force is on the case.” She stood and stomped into the tiny kitchen. “I’m going to find this son of a bitch and when I do I’ll . . .”
“You’ll what?” He surged up off the couch and charged into the kitchen after her, forgetting for the moment that Tom Chen was a name and nothing more. “Why do you want to find this guy before the police do? So you can indulge in a little more participatory justice?” Grabbing her shoulder, he spun her to face him, both of them ignoring the coffee that arced up out of the mug in her hand. “I closed my eyes last fall because there wasn’t a way to bring Mark Williams to trial without causing more damage than he was worth. But that isn’t the case here! Let the law deal with this, Vicki!”
“The law?”
“Yeah, you remember, what you used to be sworn to uphold.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Celluci. You know just how much manpower the law is going to be able to allot to this. I’m going to find him!”
“All right. And then?”
She closed her eyes for a second and when she opened them again they were shadowed, unreadable. “When I find him, he’s going to wish he’d never laid a finger on my mother’s body.”
The calm, emotionless tone danced knives up Celluci’s spine. He knew she was speaking out of pain. He knew she meant every word. “This is Fitzroy’s influence,” he growled. “He taught you to take the law into your own hands.”
“Don’t blame this on Henry.” The tone became a warning. “I take responsibility for my own actions.”
“I know.” Celluci sighed, suddenly very, very tired. “But Henry Fitzroy . . .”
“Doesn’t know what you’re talking about.” The quiet voice from the doorway pulled them both around. Henry looked from Vicki to Celluci then settled himself on a kitchen chair. “Why don’t you tell me what went wrong?”
Henry stared at Celluci in some astonishment. “Why on earth do you think I would know the reason the body is missing?”
“Well, you’re . . . what you are.” It might have been said, but Celluci still wasn’t going to say it. Not right out. “It’s the sort of thing you should know about, isn’t it?”
She shrugged. She really didn’t care why, all she wanted to know was who.
“Unless it wasn’t body snatching.” Celluci frowned, turning over a new and not very pleasant idea.
Henry’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Suppose Marjory’s body wasn’t taken.” He paused, working at the thought. “Suppose she got up and walked out of there.”
Vicki’s coffee mug hit the floor and shattered.
“You’re crazy!” Henry snapped.
“Am I?” Celluci slammed both palms down on the table and leaned forward. “A year ago, some asshole tried to sacrifice Vicki to a demon. I saw that demon, Fitzroy. Last summer, I met a family of werewolves. In the fall, we saved the world from the mummy’s curse. Now I may be a little slow, but lately I’ve come to believe that there’s a fuck of a lot going on in this world that most people don’t know shit about. You exist; you tell me why Marjory couldn’t have got up and walked out of there!”
“Henry?”
Henry shook his head and caught one of Vicki’s hands up in his. “They embalmed her, Vicki. There’s nothing that could survive that.”
“Maybe they didn’t.” Her fingers turned until she clutched at him. “They were confused about the rest. Maybe they didn’t.”
“No, Vicki, they did.” Celluci touched her gently on the arm, wondering why he couldn’t learn to keep his big mouth shut. He’d forgotten about the embalming. “I’m sorry. I should’ve thought it through. He’s right.”
“No.” There was a chance. She couldn’t let it go. “Henry, could you tell?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Then go. Check. Just in case.”
“Vicki, I assure you that your mother did not rise . . .”
“Henry. Please.”
He looked at Celluci, who gave the smallest of shrugs. Your choice, the motion said. I’m sorry I started this. Henry nodded at the detective, apology accepted, and pulled his hand free of Vicki’s as he stood. She’d asked for his help. He’d give it. It was a small enough thing to do to bring her at least a little peace of mind. “Is the casket still at the funeral home?”
“Yes.” She began to rise as well, but he shook his head.
“No, Vicki. The last thing you need right now is to be picked up by the police while breaking and entering. If they’re watching the place, I can avoid them in ways you can’t.”
Vicki shoved at her glasses and dropped back in her chair, acknowledging his point but not happy about it.
“If I thought you suggested this merely to remove me,” Henry said quietly to Celluci at the door as he pocketed the directions, “I would be less than pleased.”
“But you don’t think it,” Celluci replied, just as quietly. “Why not?”
Henry looked up into the taller man’s eyes and smiled slightly. “Because I know an honorable man when I meet one.”
An honorable man. Celluci shot the bolt behind his rival and let his head drop against the molding. Goddamnit, I wish he’d stop doing that.
If the embalming had been done, the blood drawn out and replaced by a chemical solution designed to disinfect and preserve, to discourage life rather than sustain it—and from both Vicki’s and Celluci’s reports, the younger funeral director was certain it had—then there was no way that Marjory Nelson had risen to hunt the night. Nor did the manner of her death suggest the change.
Henry parked the BMW and stared into the darkness for a moment, one hundred percent certain that he would find nothing at the funeral home that the police had not already found. But I’m not going for information, I’m going for Vicki. Leaving her to spend the night alone with Michael Celluci.
He shook his head and got out of the car. Whether or not Celluci would take advantage of the time was irrelevant—Vicki had shut everything out of her life except the need to find the person or persons who had taken her mother’s body and the need to be comforted had been buried with the grief she hadn’t quite admitted. Because he loved her, he wouldn’t lie to her. He’d go to the funeral home, discover what he already knew, and let her delete one possible explanation beyond the shadow of a doubt.
But first, he had to feed.
Vicki hadn’t had the energy to spare and while he’d been tempted to prove his power to Celluci, that was a temptation he’d long since learned to resist. Besides, feeding required an intimacy he was not yet willing to allow between them and feeding from Celluci would take subtleties they hadn’t time for.
Head turned into the wind, he searched the night air. Half a block behind him, a dog erupted in a frenzied protest. Henry ignored it; he had no interest in the territory it claimed. There. His nostrils flared as he caught a scent, held it, and began to track it to its source.
The open window was on the second floor. Henry gained it easily, becoming for that instant just another shadow moving against the wall of the house, flickering too fast for mortal eyes to register what they saw. The screen was no barrier.
He moved so quietly that the two young men on the bed, skin slicked with sweat, breathing in identical tormented rhythms, had no idea he was there until he allowed it. The blond saw him first and managed an inarticulate exclamation before he was caught in the Hunter’s snare. Warned, the other whirled, one heavily muscled arm flung up.
Henry let the wrist slap against his palm, then he closed his fingers and smiled. Held in the depths of hazel eyes, the young man swallowed and began to tremble.
The bed sank under the weight of a third body.
He became an extension of their passion which quickly grew and intensified and finally ignited, racing up nerve endings until mere mortals became lost in the burning glory of it.
He left the way he came. In the morning, they’d find the catch on the screen had been broken and have no idea of when it had happened. Their only memory of his participation would keep them trying, night after night, to recreate what he had given them. He wished them joy in the attempt.
The casket had not been moved from the chapel. Henry stared down at it in distaste. He could no more understand why they’d covered the wood with blue-gray cloth than he could the need to enshrine empty flesh in expensive, beautiful cabinets, sealed against rot and protected from putrefaction. In his day, it was the ceremony of interment that had been important, the mourning, the declarations of grief, the long and complicated farewell. Massive monuments to the dead were placed so people could appreciate them, not buried for the pleasure of the worms. What was wrong, he wondered, stepping closer, with a plain wooden box? He’d been buried in a plain wooden box.
The sandbags had been taken away, but the imprint still showed in the satin pillow. Henry shook his head and leaned forward. There was no comfort for the dead and he couldn’t see how denying that comforted the living.
Suddenly, he hesitated. The last time he’d bent over a coffin that should not have been empty he’d ended up nearly losing his soul. But the ancient Egyptian wizard who called himself Anwar Tawfik had never been dead and Marjory Nelson assuredly had. He was being foolish.
There was a hint of Vicki’s mother about the interior. He’d spent the day surrounded by her scent and he easily recognized the trace that still clung to the fabric under the patina of odor laid on by the day’s investigation. Straightening, he was certain that whatever else she’d done in her life, or her death, Marjory Nelson had not risen as one of his kind.
But there was something.
Over the centuries, he’d breathed in the scent of death in all its many variations, but this death, this faint suggestion that clung to the inside of nose and mouth, this death he didn’t know.
Five
“Dr. Burke, look at this! We’re definitely picking up independent brain wave patterns.”
“Are you certain we’re not just getting echos of what we’ve been feeding in?”
&nbs
p; “Quite certain.” Catherine tapped the printout with one gnawed nail. “Look at this spike here. And here.”
Donald leaned over the doctor’s shoulder and squinted down at the wide ribbon of paper. “Electronic belching,” he declared, straightening. “And after thirty hours of this-is-your-life, I’m not surprised.”
“You may be right, Donald.” Dr. Burke lightly touched each peak, a smile threatening the comers of her mouth. “On the other hand, we might actually have something here. Catherine, I think we should open the isolation box.”
Both grad students jerked around to stare at their adviser.
“But it’s too soon,” Catherine protested. “We’ve been giving the bacteria a minimum of seventy-two hours . . .”
“And it hasn’t been entirely successful,” Dr. Burke broke in. “Now has it? We lost the first seven, number eight is beginning to putrefy, and according to this morning’s samples, even number nine hasn’t begun any cellular regeneration in muscle tissue. The near disaster with number five proved that we can’t continue isolation much past seventy-two hours, so let’s see what happens when we cut it short.”
Catherine ran her hand over the curved surface of the box. “I don’t know . . .”
“Besides,” the doctor continued, “if these spikes do indicate independent brain wave activity, then further time in what is essentially a sensory deprivation chamber will very likely . . .”
“Squash them flat.”
The two women turned.
“Inelegant, Donald, but essentially correct.”
Pale eyes scanned the array of hookups: monitors and digital readouts and one lone dial. “Well, except for the continuous alpha wave input, she isn’t actually doing anything in there,” Catherine admitted thoughtfully.
Dr. Burke sighed and decided, for the moment, to let Catherine’s terminology stand. “My point exactly. Donald, if you would do the honors. Catherine, keep an eye on things and if there are any changes at all, sing out.”
The seal sighed open, the hint of formaldehyde on the escaping oxygen-rich air surely an illusion, and the heavy lid rose silently on its counterweights. The body of Marjory Nelson lay naked and exposed on what had been a sterile pad, huge purple scars stapled shut. Hair, already becoming brittle, fell away from the clips that held the top of the skull in place. A faint trace of burial cosmetics painted an artificial blush across cheekbones death-mask prominent.