by Tanya Huff
They both heard the silent corollary. You open them because I can’t. Because I’m afraid of what I might see.
“Who was your slave last year,” Celluci grumbled to cover it.
It was going to be a beautiful day. Several dozen birds were noisily welcoming the dawn and the air had the kind of clarity that only occurred in the morning in spring.
His watch said 6:22. “How long can he last in the sun?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m going to check outside. Just in case he almost made it home.”
No twisted, blackened body crawled toward the door. No pile of ash spread man-shaped in the parking lot. When Celluci came back inside, he found Vicki standing where he’d left her, staring at the window.
“He isn’t dead.”
“Vicki, you have no way of knowing that.”
“So?” Her teeth were clenched so hard her temples began to throb. “He isn’t dead.”
“All right.” Celluci crossed the room to her side and gently turned her to face him. “I don’t want to believe it either.” It was true, he didn’t. He didn’t understand half the responses Fitzroy evoked in him, but he didn’t want him gone. “So we won’t believe it together.”
Together. Face twisted into a scowl to stop the threat of tears, Vicki nodded. Together sounded a whole lot better than alone.
He could feel the dawn. Even through the terror and the frenzy and the panic, he could feel the morning approach. For a moment he fought harder, slamming his whole body up against the lid of his prison, then he collapsed back against the padding and lay still.
The familiar touch of the sun trembling on the edge of the horizon brought sanity with it. For too long he had known only the all pervasive stench of abomination and the pain he inflicted upon himself to get free. Now he knew who he was again.
Just in time to lose himself to the day.
Working on her own, it took Catherine until after seven to finish preparing Donald’s body and hook it up in number nine’s box. She’d intended to use number eight’s, but the intruder locked inside had forced her to change her plans. It wouldn’t hurt number nine to stay out for a while. It might even be good for him.
She yawned and stretched, suddenly exhausted. It had been a long and eventful night and she was in desperate need of a couple of hours sleep. The constant pounding from number eight’s box had been very irritating and more than a little distracting during certain delicate procedures. She very nearly turned the refrigeration unit back on just to see if that would cool him down.
How unfortunate that, when the pounding finally stopped, she’d been nearly finished and able to appreciate the quiet for only a short time.
Ten
Vicki woke first and lay staring blindly at the ceiling, uncertain where she was. The room felt unfamiliar, the dimensions wrong, the patterns of shadow that made up the world without her glasses not patterns she recognized. It wasn’t her bedroom, nor, in spite of the man still asleep beside her, was it Celluci’s.
Then she remembered.
Just past dawn, the two of them had lain down on her mother’s bed. Her dead mother’s bed. Two of them—where there should’ve been three.
All three of us in my dead mother’s bed? The edge on the sarcasm very nearly drew blood. Get a grip, Nelson.
She slid out from under Celluci’s arm without waking him and groped on the bedside table for her glasses, the daylight seeping around the edges of the blinds providing barely enough illumination for her to function. Her nose almost touching the surface of the clock radio, she scowled at the glowing red numbers. Ten minutes after nine. Two hours’ sleep. Add that to the time Henry had granted her and she’d certainly functioned on less.
Pulling her robe closer around her, she stood. She couldn’t go back to sleep now anyway. She couldn’t face the dreams—Henry burning and screaming her name while he burned, her mother’s rotting body a living barrier between them. If she wanted to save Henry, she had to go past her mother. And she couldn’t. Feelings of fear and failure combined, lingered.
My subconscious is anything but subtle.
Bare feet moving soundlessly over the soft nap of the carpet—it was still nearly new; Vicki could remember how pleased her mother had been to have replaced a worn area rug with thick wall-to-wall plush—she made her way to the walk-in closet where Henry had been spending his days. After a moment’s groping to find the switch, she flicked on the closet light and closed the door silently behind her.
It was, as Henry had said, just barely large enough for a not-so-very-tall man. Or a not-so-very-tall vampire. A pad of bright blue compressed foam, the sort commonly used for camping, lay along one wall under the rack of woman’s clothes. On it, a neatly folded length of heavy blackout curtain rested beside a leather overnight bag. Another piece of curtain had been tacked to one side of the door which itself had been fitted out with a heavy steel bolt.
Henry must’ve put it up. Vicki touched the metal slide and shook her head. She hadn’t heard hammering but, given Henry’s strength, hammering might not have been necessary. We’d better remember to take it down or it’ll confuse the hell out of the next tenant.
The next tenant. It was the first time she’d considered the apartment as anything but her mother’s. Only reasonable, I suppose. She let her head fall back against the wall and closed her eyes. My mother’s dead.
The scent of her mother’s cologne, of her mother, permeated the small enclosure, and with her eyes shut it almost seemed that her mother was still there. Another time, the illusion might have been comforting—or infuriating. Vicki was honest enough to admit the possibility of either reaction. At the moment, though, she ignored it. Her mother wasn’t the reason she was here.
Opening her eyes, she dropped to her knees beside the pallet and lifted the makeshift shroud to her face, breathing in the faint trace of Henry trapped in the heavy fabric.
He wasn’t dead. She refused to believe it. He was too real to be dead.
He wasn’t dead.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not entirely certain.” With knuckles white around the folds, she set the piece of curtain down and turned to face Celluci, standing outlined in the doorway. He’d opened the blinds in the bedroom and the morning sun behind him threw his face into shadow. Vicki couldn’t see his expression, but his tone had been almost gentle. She didn’t have a clue to what he was thinking.
He held out his hand and she put hers into it, allowing him to pull her to her feet. His palm was warm and callused. Henry’s would have been cool and smooth. With her free hand resting on a crumpled expanse of shirtfront, she had the sudden and completely irrational desire to take that one extra step into the circle of Celluci’s arms and to rest her head—not to mention the whole mess she found herself in—if only for a moment, on the broad expanse of his shoulders.
This is no time to be getting soft, Vicki, she told herself sternly, fighting the iron bands tightening around her ribs. You’ve got far too fucking much to do.
Celluci, who’d read both the desire and the internal response off Vicki’s face, smiled wryly and moved out of her way. He recognized the growing strain that painted purple half-circles under her eyes and pinched the comers of her mouth and knew that some of it needed to be bled off before it blew her apart. But he didn’t know what to do. Although their fights had often been therapeutic, this situation went a little beyond the relief that could come from screaming at one another over trivial disagreements. While he could think of a few nontrivial disagreements available for argument, he had no intention of hurting her by bringing them up. All he could do was continue to wait and hope he was the one in the right place to pick up the pieces.
Of course, if Fitzroy’s actually bought it . . . It was a dishonorable thought, but he couldn’t stop it from taking up residence.
“So.” He watched her cross to the open bedroom door and wondered how long he’d have been content with the status quo had Fitzroy not co
me into their lives. “What do we do now?”
Vicki turned and stared at him in some surprise. “We do exactly what we have been doing.” She jabbed her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose. “When we find the people who have my mother’s body, we’ll find Henry.”
“Maybe he just went to ground, got caught out too late and had to take what shelter he could.”
“He wouldn’t do that to me if he could help it.”
“He’d call?” Celluci couldn’t prevent the mocking tone.
Vicki’s chin went up. “Yeah. He’d call.” He wouldn’t leave me to think he was dead if he could help it. You don’t do that to someone you say you love. “We find my mother. We find Henry.” He couldn’t call if he was dead. He isn’t dead. “Do you understand?”
Actually, he did. After nine years, he’d gotten proficient at reading her subtext. And if his understanding was all she’d take . . . Celluci spread his hands, the gesture both conciliatory and an indication that he had no wish to continue the discussion.
Some of the stiffness went out of Vicki’s stance. “You make coffee,” she told him, “while I shower.”
Celluci rolled his eyes. “What do I look like? Livein help?”
“No.” Vicki felt her lower lip tremble and sternly stilled it. “You look like someone I can count on. No matter what.” Then, before the lump in her throat did any more damage, she wheeled on one bare heel and strode out of the room.
His own throat tight, Celluci pushed the curl of hair back off his face. “Just when you’re ready to give up on her,” he muttered. Shaking his head, he went to make the coffee.
Running her fingers through her wet hair, Vicki wandered into the living room and dropped onto the couch. She could hear Celluci mumbling to himself in the kitchen and, remembering what had happened on other occasions, decided it might be safer not to bother him when he was cooking. Without quite knowing how it happened, she found herself lifting the box of her mother’s personal effects and setting it in front of her on the coffee table.
I suppose no day’s so bad that you can’t make it worse.
There was surprisingly little in it: a sweater kept hanging over the back of the office chair, just in case; two lipsticks, one pale pink, the other a surprisingly brilliant red; half a bottle of aspirin; the coffee mug; the datebook with its final futile message; her academy graduation portrait; and a pile of loose papers.
Vicki picked up the photograph and stared into the face of the smiling young woman. She looked so young. So confident. “I looked like I thought I knew everything.”
“You still think you know everything.” Celluci handed her a mug of coffee and plucked the picture out of her grasp. “Good God. It’s a baby cop.”
“If I ignore you, will you go back into the kitchen?”
He thought about it for a second. “No.”
“Great.” Pulling her bathrobe securely closed, Vicki lifted out the loose paper. Why on earth did Mrs. Shaw think I’d want a bunch of Mother’s notes? Then she saw how each page began.
Dear Vicki: You’re probably wondering why a letter instead of a phone call, but I’ve got something important to tell you and I thought I might get through it easier this way, without interruptions. I haven’t written a letter for a while so I hope you’ll forgive . . .
Dear Vicki: Did I tell you the results of my last checkup? Well, I probably didn’t want to bore you with details, but . . .
Dear Vicki: First of all, I love you very much and . . .
Dear Vicki: When your father left, I promised you that I’d always be there for you. I wish I . . .
Dear Vicki: There are some things that are easier to say on paper, so I hope you’ll forgive me this small distance I have to put between us. Dr. Friedman tells me that I’ve got a problem with my heart and I may not have long to live. Please don’t fly off the handle and start demanding I see another doctor. I have.
Yes, I’m afraid. Any sensible person would be. But mostly I was afraid that something would happen before I found the courage to tell you.
I don’t want to just disappear out of your life like your father did. I want us to have a chance to say good-bye. When you get this letter, call me. We’ll make arrangements for you to come home for a few days and we’ll sit down and really talk.
I love you.
The last and most complete letter was dated from the Friday before Marjory Nelson died.
Vicki fought tears and with shaking hands laid the letters back in the box.
“Vicki?”
She shook her head, unable to push her voice past an almost equal mix of grief and anger. Even if the letter had been mailed, they still wouldn’t have had time to say good-bye. Jesus Christ, Mom, why didn’t you have Dr. Friedman call me?
Celluci leaned forward and scanned the top page. “Vicki, I . . .”
“Don’t.” Her teeth were clenched so tightly it felt as though there was an iron band wrapped around her temples. One more sympathetic word—one more word of any kind—would destroy the fingernail grip she had on her control. Moving blindly, she stood and hurried toward the bedroom. “I’ve got to get dressed. We’ve got to look for Henry.”
At 10:20, Catherine lifted the lid of the isolation box and smiled in at the woman who had once been Marjory Nelson. “I know; it’s pretty boring in there, isn’t it?” She pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and deftly unhooked the jack and laid it, gold prongs gleaming, to one side. “Just give me half a sec and we’ll see what we can do about getting you out of there.” Nutrient tubes were tugged gently from catheters and tucked away in specific compartments in the sides of the box. “You’ve got amazingly good skin tone, all things considered, but I think that working a little estrogen cream into the epidermis might be in order. We don’t want things to tear while you’re up and moving around.”
Catherine hummed tunelessly to herself as she worked, stopping twice to make notes on muscle resilience and joint flexibility. So far, number ten proved her theory. None of the others, not even number nine, had responded to the bacteria quite so well. She couldn’t wait to see how Donald—number eleven—turned out.
Had she seen the girl before? Why couldn’t she remember?
The girl was not the right girl, although she didn’t understand why not.
Hooking her fingers over the side of the box, she pulled herself up into a sitting position.
There was something she had to do.
Catherine shook her head. Initiative was all very well but at the moment a prone, immobile body would be of more use.
“Lie down,” she said sternly.
Lie down.
The command traveled deeply rutted pathways and the body obeyed.
But she didn’t want to lie down.
At least she didn’t think she did.
“You’re trying to frown, that’s wonderful!” Catherine clapped gloved hands together. “Even partial control of the zygomaticus minor is a definite advance. I’ve got to take some measurements.”
Number nine watched closely as she moved about the other one like him. He remembered another word.
Need.
When she needed him, he’d be there.
Just for an instant, he thought he remembered music.
With number ten measured, moisturized, dressed, and sitting at the side of the room, Catherine finally turned her attention to the intruder. She’d heard no sounds at all from what had been number nine’s box since she’d returned to the lab and she rather hoped he hadn’t died. With no brain wave patterns and no bacteria tailored, it would be a waste of a perfectly good body, especially as, if he’d suffocated or had a heart attack, there wouldn’t even be any trauma to repair.
“Of course, if he has died, we could use Donald’s brain wave patterns and the generic bacteria,” she mused as she lifted the lid. “After all, it worked on number nine and he wasn’t exactly fresh. It’d be nice to have a little backup data for a change.”
She frowned down into the isolation box. Th
e intruder lay, one pale hand curled against his chest, the other palm up at his side. His eyes were closed and long lashes, slightly darker than the strawberry blond hair, brushed against the curve of pale cheeks. He didn’t look dead. Exactly. But he didn’t look alive. Exactly.
Head to one side, she pushed his collar back and pressed two fingers into the pulse point at his throat. His flesh responded with more resilience than she’d expected, far more than a corpse would have but, at the same time, it seemed his body temperature had dropped too low to sustain life. She checked to make sure that the refrigeration unit had, indeed, been shut off. It had.
“How very strange,” she murmured. Then things got stranger still for just as she was about to believe his heart had stopped, for whatever reason, a single pulse throbbed under her fingertips. Frown deepening, she waited, eyes on her watch as the seconds flashed by. Just over eight seconds later, the intruder’s heart beat again. And then eight seconds after that, again.
“About seven beats a minute.” Catherine drummed the fingers of both hands on the side of the isolation box. “The alternation of systole and diastole occurs at an average rate of about seventy times per minute in a normal human being at rest. What we have here is a heart beating at one tenth the normal rate.”
Brows knit, she carefully lifted an eyelid between thumb and forefinger. The eye had not rolled back. The pupil, rather than being protected under the ridge of brow bone, remained centered, collapsed to pinprick dimensions. There was no reaction of any kind to light. Nor, for that matter, to any other kind of stimuli by any other part of the body—and Catherine tried them all.
Accompanied by low level respiration, the heart continued to beat between seven and eight times a minute, undetectable had she not been specifically searching for it. These were the only signs of life.