by Tanya Huff
Raise your right leg.
Raise your left leg.
Walk.
She remembered walking.
Slowly, lurching to compensate for a balance subtly wrong, she crossed the room.
Door.
Closed.
Open.
It took both hands, fingers interlaced, to turn the handle—not the way memory said it should work, but memory lay in shredded pieces.
There was something she had to do.
Needed to do.
Number nine watched. Watched the walking. Watched the leaving.
This new one was not like the other. The other had no . . .
No . . .
The other was empty.
This new one was not empty. This new one was like him.
Him.
He.
Two new words.
He thought they might be important words.
He stood and walked, as he’d been taught, toward the door.
Six
“This isn’t the eighteenth century, Fitzroy. Medical schools stopped hiring grave diggers some time ago.”
Henry tugged at the lapels of his black leather trench coat, settling it forward on his shoulders. “You have a better idea, Detective?”
Celluci scowled. He didn’t, and they both knew it.
“Historical precedents aside,” Henry continued, “Detective Fergusson seems certain that there were medical students involved; an opinion based, no doubt, on local precedents.”
“Detective Fergusson blames Queen’s students for everything from traffic jams to the weather,” Celluci pointed out acerbically. “And I thought your opinion of Detective Fergusson wasn’t high.”
“I’ve never even met the man.”
“You said . . .”
“Enough,” Vicki interrupted from her place on the couch, the tap, tap, tap of her pencil end against the coffee table a staccato background to her words. “Logically, all the storage facilities in the city should be searched. Also logically, for historical reasons, if nothing else, the medical school is the place to start.”
“Those who refuse to learn from history,” Henry agreed quietly, “are doomed to repeat it.”
“Spare me the wisdom of the ages,” Celluci muttered. “These places don’t do public tours at midnight, you know; how are you planning on getting in?”
“It’s hardly midnight.”
“At twenty to nine, it’s hardly open house either.”
“It’s April, the end of term, there’ll be students around, and even if there aren’t, it isn’t easy to deny me access.”
“Don’t tell me. You turn into mist?” He raised a weary hand at Henry’s expression. “I know; I watch too many bad movies. Never mind, I meant it when I said don’t tell me. The less I know about your talents for B&E the better.”
“You have the photograph?” Vicki asked. Tap. Tap. Tap. “You’ll be able to make an identification?”
“Yes.” Henry doubted Marjory Nelson still looked much like her picture, but it was a place to start.
Tap. Tap. Tap. “I should go with you.”
“No.” He crossed the room and dropped to one knee by her side. “I’ll be able to move faster on my own.”
“Yes, but . . .” Tap. Tap.
Henry covered her hand with his, stopping the pencil from rising to fall again. Her skin felt heated and he could feel the tension sizzling just under the surface. “I’ll be able to move faster,” he repeated, “on my own. And the faster I move, the sooner you’ll have the information.”
She nodded. “You’re right.”
He waited a moment, but when she said nothing further, he stood, reluctantly releasing her hand.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Very lightly, he brushed his fingertips across her hair then turned.
Celluci met him at the door. Together, they glanced back at the couch. Vicki had removed the shades from both end-table lamps and, in the harsh light, the area around her mouth and eyes looked both bruised and painfully tight.
“Don’t leave her alone,” Henry murmured, and left before the detective could decide on a reply.
The sound of the pencil tapping followed him out of the building.
The door almost stopped her; the latching mechanism was almost beyond her abilities. The line of stitches just above the hairline gaped as her brows drew in and she forced her fingers to push and pull and prod until finally the door swung open.
There was something she had to do. Perhaps it was on the other side of the door.
Most of the overhead lights were off and she shuffled along from shadow to shadow. She was going somewhere. The halls began to look familiar.
She passed through another doorway and then into a room so well known that, for an instant, chaos parted and she knew.
I am . . .
Then the maelstrom swept most of it up again and she was left with only scattered fragments. For a single beat of her mechanically enhanced heart, she was aware of what she’d lost. Her wail of protest throbbed against the walls, but even before the last echo died, she’d forgotten she’d ever made it.
She crossed the room to a pair of desks, pulled one of the chairs out, and sat. It felt right. No, not quite right. Frowning, she carefully moved the World’s Greatest Mother coffee mug from the center of the blotter over to the far right side. It always sat on the right side.
Something was still wrong. After a moment of almost thought, she scrabbled at a silvery frame lying facedown, finally managing to grab hold and lift it. With trembling fingers, she gently touched the face of the uniformed young woman whose photograph filled the frame. Then she stood.
There was something she had to do.
She shouldn’t be here.
She had to go home.
He didn’t know where the other one was, so he walked, following the path of least resistance, until he bumped up against a tiny square of reinforced glass that showed him the stars.
Outside.
He remembered outside.
Face pressed to the glass, eyes on the stars, he pushed at the barrier, sneakers pedaling against the tile floor. More by luck than design, his hands clutched at the waist-high metal bar. Another push, and the fire door swung open.
The alarm drove the stars from his head. He moved away from the hurting as fast as he was able, onto the dark and quiet pathways that ran between and behind the university buildings. He would find her. Find the kind one. She would make it better.
“Now, then, don’t you feel better?”
“I suppose so.”
“You suppose so?” Donald sighed and shook his head. “The best pizza in Kingston, not to mention my congenial company, and you’d probably rather have stayed in the lab, munching on a stale sandwich, if you’d remembered to eat at all, exchanging wisecracks with the dead stooges.”
“Did you leave the door open?”
“Did I what?” He peered down the dimly lit hall at the door angled out into the corridor. “You sure that’s ours?”
“Of course, I’m sure.”
“Well, I closed it when we left and I heard the lock catch.”
Catherine broke into a run. “If something’s happened to them, I’ll never forgive myself.”
Donald followed considerably more slowly, half inclined to bolt. Although Security kept an eye on entrances and exits, they didn’t bother to patrol the interior. The old Life Sciences building was a rabbit warren of halls and passageways and strangely subdivided rooms and, had the university budget extended to demolition, it would have long ago been turned into a much more useful three-story parking garage. While Donald had occasionally wondered if they were the only clandestine lab operating, he’d never been worried about discovery.
Except that he knew he’d closed the door.
And Dr. Burke, who carried the only other set of keys, would never leave it open.
So it appeared they’d been discovered.
The question is, he mused, bouncing on the balls
of his feet, uncertain whether he should go forward or back, have we advanced far enough that the end will justify the means in the eyes of the authorities? Numbers one through nine, after all, had been bodies donated for research purposes. Unfortunately, he didn’t think that even Dr. Burke could talk her way around body number ten, not without the final payoff of death overcome, and they were a while away from that.
Right. He had no intention of going to jail. Not for science. Not for anything. I’m out of here.
“Donald! They’re gone!”
He froze, half-turned. “What do you mean they’re gone?”
“Gone! Not here! They left!”
“Cathy, get a grip! Dead people don’t just get up and walk away.”
Her glare, anger and exasperation equally mixed, burned through the shadows between them. “You taught them to walk, you idiot!”
“Oh, lord, we’re fucked.” He ran for the lab. “You sure somebody didn’t break in and steal them?”
“Who? If someone found them, they’d still be here waiting for an explanation.”
“Or off calling the cops.” He waved aside her protest and pushed past her. A quick glance at the monitors showed number eight remained in its isolation box, refrigeration units humming at full capacity in an attempt to prevent further decomposition. The chairs where they’d left numbers nine and ten were empty. The other two boxes were empty. He checked under the tables, in the closet, in the storeroom, around and below every bit of machinery in the lab.
If no one had found them, and logic pointed to that conclusion, then they had to have left on their own.
“It’s impossible.” Donald sagged against the door-frame. “They don’t have abstract thought processes.”
“They saw us leave.” Catherine grabbed his arm and dragged him back out into the hall. “It was imitation if nothing more.” She shoved him to the left. “You go that way!”
“Go where that way?”
“We have to search the building.”
“Then call out the Mounties,” he snapped, rubbing at his forehead with trembling fingers, “because it’ll take you and me alone years to search this place.”
“But we have to find them!”
He couldn’t argue with that.
Voices.
Number nine moved toward the sound, drawn by almost familiar cadences.
Was it her?
“Cathy!” Donald pounded the length of the hall and rocked to a panting stop beside the other grad student. “Thank God I found you. We’ve got bigger trouble than we thought. I went over to talk to the guys at the security desk in the new building, just to see if they might have heard something. Well, they did. They heard the fire alarm. Someone went out the fire door at the back.”
“Outside?” Pale skin blanched paler. “Unsupervised?”
“At least one of them. Where’s your van?”
“In the lot behind the building.” She turned and raced toward the exit. “We’ve got to find them before someone else does!”
Hand pressed tight against the stitch in his side, Donald followed. “Brilliant deduction, Sherlock,” he gasped.
The voices were closer. He stopped at the border between soft ground and hard, head turning from side to side.
“I’m telling you, Jenny, sweetheart, no one ever comes back here. It’s perfectly safe.”
“Why can’t we park by the tower, like everyone else?”
“Because everyone else parks there and I have a moral objection to cops shining flashlights in my face at delicate moments.”
“At least let’s close the windows.”
“It’s a beautiful night, let’s celebrate spring. Besides, steamy windows are a sure sign that something naughty is going down if anyone happens to pass. And speaking of going down . . .”
“Pat! Wait, I’ll put the seat back. Be careful . . . oh . . .”
His soles scuffed as he lurched forward, aiming for the deeper shadows where two buildings joined. He didn’t understand the new noises, but he followed them to a metal bulk he recognized as car.
He didn’t know what car meant. Was it hurting her?
Bending carefully, he peered inside.
Pale hair.
Her face but not her face.
Her voice but not her voice.
Confused, he reached out and touched the curve of her cheek.
Her eyes snapped open, widened, then she screamed.
It hurt.
He began to back away.
Another face rose out of the darkness.
Hands grabbed for him.
His wrist caught, he clutched at air. He only wanted to get away. Then his fingers closed on something soft and kept closing until the screaming stopped. The second face lolled limp above his grip. Her face, not her face, gazed up at him. Then she screamed again.
He turned and ran.
He remembered running.
Run until it stopped hurting.
Soft ground under his feet.
He slammed hard against a solid darkness and pulled himself along it until he reached a way through. There were lights up ahead. She—the real she, the kind one—was where there were lights.
“There! Coming around that building!”
“Are you sure?”
“For chrissakes, Cathy, how many dead people are walking around this city tonight? Get over there!”
The van hadn’t quite stopped when Donald threw himself out onto the road. He stumbled, picked himself up, and raced toward the shambling figure just emerging from the shadows.
He ignored the sound of screaming rising from behind the building. Catching sight of number nine’s face under the streetlights, he figured he could pretty much guess what had caused it. Some of the sutures holding the scalp in place had torn and a grayish-yellow curve of skull was exposed above a flapping triangle of skin.
Dr. Burke’s going to have my balls on a plate! He skidded to a stop, took a deep, steadying breath, and, as calmly as he was able, said, “Follow.”
Follow.
He knew that word.
“Donald, I can hear screaming. And a car horn.”
“Look, don’t worry about it. Number nine’s in, so just drive.”
“Well, we should check to see if he’s all right. They might have hurt him.
“Not now, Cathy. He’s safe for the moment, but number ten isn’t. We’ve got to find her. It.”
Catherine glanced back over her shoulder at number nine lying strapped in place, nodded reluctantly, and pulled out into the street. “You’re right. First we find number ten. Where to?”
Donald sank back against the passenger seat, sighed, and spread his hands. “How the hell should I know?”
Marjory Nelson had not been in the university’s medical morgue; not in whole nor in part. Motionless beside the trunk of an ancient maple, ridding himself of the scent of preserved death, Henry considered how best to spend the remainder of the night. The city’s two large hospitals were close. If he checked both their morgues before dawn, and he saw no reason why he shouldn’t be able to, it would leave him available to . . . to . . . to what?
Over the last year, he’d learned that private investigators spent most of their time pulling together bits of apparently unconnected information into something they hoped would resemble a coherent whole—a little like first doing a scavenger hunt for jigsaw puzzle pieces and then constructing it with no idea of the final picture. They were more likely to spend time in libraries than in car chases and results were about equally dependent on training, talent, and luck. Not to mention an obstinate determination to get to the bottom of things that bordered on obsession.
Obsession. Vicki’s obsession with finding her mother’s body blocked the grief she should be feeling, blocked getting on with the rest of her life. Henry leaned back against the tree and wondered how long he was going to let it continue. He knew he could break through it, but at what cost. Could he do it without breaking her? Without losing her? Without leaving Detective-S
ergeant Michael Celluci to pick up the pieces?
Suddenly he smiled, the moon-white crescent of his teeth flashing in the darkness. You measure your life in centuries, he chided himself. Give her some time to work through this. It’s only been a couple of days. Too much of the twentieth century’s preoccupation with getting through unpleasantness as quickly and as tidily as possible had rubbed off on his thinking. Granted, repressing emotions was unhealthy but . . . two days hardly deserves to be called an obsession. It was, he realized, the presence of Michael Celluci that had made it seem so much longer. He can do no more for her than you can. Trust in her strength, her common sense, and the knowledge that as much as she is able, she loves you.
Both, added a small voice.
Shut up, he told it savagely.
Straightening, he stepped away from the tree, and froze, the hair rising on the back of his neck. A second later, the screaming started.
The sound echoed around the close-packed buildings, making it difficult for him to locate its source. After chasing down a number of false leads, he arrived at the small secluded parking lot just as the campus police screeched to a stop, their headlights illuminating a terrified teenage girl backing away from a rust-edged car and the body of an equally young man sprawled half out of it onto the pavement. The boy had obviously been dead when the car door was opened—only the dead fall with such boneless disregard for the landing.
Eyes narrowed against the intrusive glare, Henry slid into a patch of deep shadow. While it wouldn’t be unusual for a passerby to be drawn by the screams, anonymity when possible ensured a greater degree of survival for his kind. With less noise than the wind made brushing up against the limestone walls, he began to move away. The girl was safe and although he would have intervened had he been in time, he had no interest in the myriad ways that mortals killed mortals.
“Like the guy looked like he was dead! Like all rotten and dead! I am not hysterical! Like I’ve seen movies, you know!” The last word trailed off into a rising wail.