Deadtown d-3

by Nancy Holzner

  “Maria hasn’t been classified yet,” I told him. “We won’t know whether she’s human or demi-human until she reaches puberty. That means she should be treated as a human.” I wished Kane were here. He’d nail these idiots on the legali ties.

  “I agree. But I’m not in charge on this—I’m not even supposed to be here.” He pushed both hands through his blond curls, looking frustrated. “Chief Hampson is a Baldwin supporter. He’s dragging his feet because he doesn’t want to waste resources on a PA.”

  “What if she’s fully human?”

  “He’s betting she’s not.” He paused, like he was wondering whether he should stop there, then decided not to hold back. “New Hampshire troopers stopped the van.”

  Gwen had come up behind me. She broke in, her voice excited. “The cops have Maria? When are they bringing her home?”

  Daniel shook his head. “I’m sorry, but they let the van go. They said Sheila Gravett showed them a paper, signed by you, stating that Maria is paranormal and giving Gravett Biotech legal custody of her.”

  “That’s a lie!” Gwen’s face was gray, with bright red splotches on her cheeks.

  “You didn’t sign anything like that, Mrs. Santini?”

  “Of course not. I only—Oh, my God.” She caught her breath, and her eyes widened with horror. “It was just a formality. That’s what that bitch said. She said she needed my permission to draw a blood sample. I . . . I didn’t read the paper, but I signed it.” Gwen grabbed Daniel’s arm. “That can’t be legal, can it? She tricked me!”

  Daniel opened his mouth, but before he could answer, Nick appeared, looking worried and confused. Gwen collapsed against him, and both his sons started crying again. “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded.

  I explained the situation while Daniel went over to talk to another cop. After a few minutes, he returned with some new information. “We have an address, Mr. and Mrs. Santini. It’s near Seabrook, not far over the state line. Two officers checked on her there, and she’s all right. She’s a little scared and wants to come home, but Gravett wouldn’t dare do anything to mistreat her.”

  Not yet, I thought. Not until her legal status was resolved. But I couldn’t say that in front of Gwen.

  “You know where she is?” Nick said. “So go get her and bring her home.”

  “New Hampshire doesn’t recognize PA rights, Mr. Santini. We can’t just go in and take her; we have to determine her classification.”

  “Why?” Gwen wailed. “You’re acting like my daughter is . . . is that woman’s property.”

  “In New Hampshire, I’m afraid that’s what the law considers her to be.”

  Gwen screamed. Her knees sagged, and her face was dead white.

  “Daniel, don’t,” I said. “We don’t know yet how the law will play out. Kane will be all over this when he gets back.” But that wouldn’t be until Monday—and I had no intention of waiting that long. God, what a time for a full moon.

  “I’ll get my lawyer on it right now,” Nick began, then Gwen collapsed at his feet. He crouched down and held her, speaking softly.

  “Take Gwen home first, Nick. And the boys.” He looked up like he was going to argue with me, but he must have seen something in my expression, because he nodded.

  When Nick had loaded his family into a taxi and left, I turned to Daniel. “Where is she? I want the address.” I was already calculating how long it’d take to get to the garage and pick up the Jag before I could drive north. But—damn it all. The garage closed at noon on Saturdays. Well, that didn’t matter. I’d break in if I had to.

  “Vicky, you can’t go charging off to New Hampshire. It’s too dangerous.” He put his hand on my arm. “They’re not doing anything to her right now.”

  I shook him off. “You expect me to sit around while my ten-year-old niece is being held captive by that madwoman?”

  “Slow down a minute. You drive a distinctive car. The New Hampshire cops know what’s going on—they’ll be watching for you. You won’t make it a mile past the border.”

  He was right. Okay, so the Jag was out. I’d break into the garage and steal somebody else’s car. Nothing was going to stop me from getting to Maria.

  “Think about a young girl,” I said, “locked in a strange room, crying for her mother. Think about a state that won’t help her because they define her as property. She’s a little girl, Daniel. And she’s not going to stay with those bastards any longer than it takes for me to get her the hell out of there.”

  “I can’t let you run off to a state where you have fewer rights than an animal.”

  “Listen—”

  “But I can drive you there.” He flashed a quick smile and jerked his head sideways. “Let’s go.”

  THE ROADS WERE PACKED, AND WE WERE GETTING NOWHERE. Under good conditions, it takes nearly an hour to drive from Boston up into southern New Hampshire, but conditions were lousy. It felt like it took us an hour just to get across the Tobin Bridge into Chelsea. I checked my watch. Not an hour, but a very long twenty minutes.

  When Daniel saw me check the time, he rolled down his window and reached under his seat. He pulled out a rotator light and stuck it on the roof of the car, then plugged it into the cigarette lighter. Splashes of blue light washed across the hood. He glanced over at me and shrugged. “I’m not supposed to do this, but . . .” He flipped a switch and a siren blared.

  Cars began to pull over, and we got moving. Daniel weaved in and out of the lanes, picking up speed, coming up close behind the cars that wouldn’t get out of the way and leaning on the horn to make them move. He was a good driver, tightly focused on the road. I let him drive. I looked out the window and watched the triple-deckers and convenience stores give way to strip malls, Cineplexes, and car dealers. When those thinned out, replaced by trees, traffic grew lighter. He turned off the siren and unplugged the light.

  We drove the next several miles in silence. Then Daniel scratched his head and looked at me. “I don’t understand why your sister let that crazy doctor examine her kids in the first place.”

  “Gravett led Gwen to believe that she could do some tests to determine whether Maria is fully human or demi-human. She was lying. If Maria is Cerddorion, her DNA will actually change when she reaches puberty and gains the ability to shift. Until then, there’s no way to know.”

  “So why did Gwen believe her?”

  I sighed. “Gwen is ashamed of her heritage. More than anything she wants Maria to be a human girl. She wants her daughter to grow up normal, giggling about boys and hanging out at the mall, not trying to control her moods so she won’t shift into a warthog or a monkey.” Of course, getting kidnapped by a mad scientist wasn’t exactly part of a normal human childhood, either. “Gwen hoped Gravett could find a cure. That’s what she called it: a ‘cure.’ That wishful thinking must be killing my sister right now.”

  Daniel steered into the left lane to pass an eighteen-wheeler. When we were past it, he said, “If there’s no difference between human and Cerddorion DNA at her age, then the courts will have to rule that she’s human.”

  “Maybe. There’s no precedent for a case like this.” Again, I wished Kane were here. He’d be filing motions left and right. “Anyway, I’m not waiting around for the courts to settle anything. I’m taking her home.”

  He nodded. We passed the exit for Byfield. Only about ten miles to the state border.

  “You do realize,” Daniel said, “that Gravett might be setting a trap for you, using your niece as bait.”

  “That doesn’t matter.” I had been thinking about it, though. There was a high likelihood that she’d try. As soon as I crossed the state line into New Hampshire, I’d lose the few rights I had in Massachusetts. Gravett could grab me and then, even if the courts made her return Maria, she’d have me as her own personal guinea pig. “She’s already tried to snatch me once.”

  Daniel glanced sideways at me. “When?”

  “Two days ago. Thursday. I got a distress call from a fa
ke client at a bogus address. When I showed up there, three guys in ski masks jumped out of a van and tried to kidnap me. It was black van, the same one as today.” I felt a twinge of guilt for thinking Kane had set that up.

  “Jesus, I’m glad you weren’t hurt. How did you get away?”

  “I shifted into a panther and mauled one of them.”

  He turned and stared at me, mouth open. I met his gaze.

  A horn blared as we drifted into the other lane. Daniel whipped his head around and jerked the wheel. After that, he kept his eyes on the road. We moved smoothly forward, but his knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

  “It’s what I am, Daniel.”

  He nodded but didn’t reply. I watched the bare trees go by.

  When Daniel spoke again, his voice was thoughtful. “So that’s why you missed our appointment on Thursday. I thought I’d done something wrong.” He ducked his head. “Or that you just plain didn’t like me.”

  “I like you, Daniel, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  But you’re married and you didn’t bother to mention it. “Nothing. This isn’t something to talk about now.”

  “You’re right.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything to talk about right now. The white lines flashed toward us, disappeared, flashed and disappeared, marking off the miles that would bring us to Maria. But Daniel pulled off at the Amesbury exit, still in Massachusetts.

  “Why are we getting off here?”

  “There’s a checkpoint at the state line. You don’t have a human ID, do you?”

  I shook my head. My driver’s license had PARANORMAL written across it in big red letters. I hadn’t even thought about identification.

  “They won’t let you through without one.”

  “You know another way in?”

  He turned on to a side street. “We’ll have to hike through the woods for about a mile. A buddy of mine left his car for us on the other side.”

  “You were pretty sure I’d let you come with me.”

  For a second, his tense expression switched to one of those dazzling Daniel smiles. “If you didn’t, I was coming anyway.”

  WE BUMPED ALONG A POTHOLED ROAD WITH WOODS ON both sides. Daniel parked in a pull-off. Two trucks and a car were already there.

  “Popular spot,” I commented.

  “This is an easy place for PAs to cross the state line.” He looked at a green pickup and frowned. “I hope that’s who’s in the woods.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a self-appointed civilian border patrol that watches this stretch of woods. If they catch us on the wrong side of the line . . .” He frowned at the pickup again.

  I followed his gaze. The truck’s empty gun rack suddenly looked ominous. “If they catch meon the wrong side, you mean. You’ll be okay.”

  He took my hand. “I’m with you, Vicky. No matter what happens.”

  I started to pull away, but he tightened his grip, his eyes intent on mine. Okay, I could use his help. For the moment, I’d let him be on my side. Then he could go back to his wife.

  We moved through the woods quickly, if not exactly silently. Both of us were city dwellers who didn’t have the faintest idea how to move quietly through the woods. Autumn had left a thick carpet of leaves, and every single one of them crackled and crunched under our feet. It sounded like we were stomping our way across a giant field of cellophane.

  “Shh!” Daniel squeezed my hand and stopped, gesturing with his other hand. I glanced around for a big tree to hide behind, but all the trees were slimmer than I was. So I dropped to a crouch, pulling Daniel down with me.

  He dropped my hand, reached inside his jacket, and took out his gun, a 9mm Glock. He nudged my arm, then gestured with the gun. Fifty yards away, a potbellied norm in a fluorescent orange hunter’s hat stepped through the brush, holding a rifle in both hands. He was looking away from us, so as quietly as possible, we stretched out flat on the ground. My nostrils filled with the dusty, loamy smell of dead leaves, and I pinched my nose to keep from sneezing. My heart pounded so loudly I couldn’t tell whether the hunter was moving closer or farther away.

  After what felt like an hour, Daniel tapped my arm. “He’s gone,” he whispered. “But he went the way we were heading. We’ll have to go around the long way.”

  I thought of Maria, locked away somewhere north of us, and every way seemed like the long way. We half ran, trying to be quiet, stopping every few yards to listen. Daniel kept the Glock out, but we didn’t see the hunter—whatever he was hunting—again. Twenty minutes later, we emerged from the woods onto another road. Daniel paused, looking left, then right. “I think it’s this way,” he said, turning right.

  We kept inside the woods, following the road. Twice we heard a car coming, and twice we dove for the ground. Finally, we rounded a curve, and there sat a blue Toyota with New Hampshire plates.

  “Okay,” Daniel said, holstering his pistol, “according to my buddy, the key’s under a trio of rocks next to a birch tree.”

  “There’s a birch tree,” I said.

  Daniel jogged over to it. “And here’s the key,” he said, coming back a minute later. He opened the passenger door with a flourish. “Welcome to New Hampshire!”

  So far, so good. We’d made it in. Now all we had to do was find Maria, avoid whatever traps Gravett had set, and make it out alive.

  26

  GRAVETT BIOTECH WAS A FORTRESS, A COMPOUND IN THE middle of the woods surrounded by eight-foot walls topped with razor wire.

  “How are we going to get in?” I said, looking at the high wall.

  “You’re a shapeshifter. Can’t you turn into a bird or something and fly over?”

  “I could. But then I’d be stuck in bird form for several hours, which wouldn’t help get you in—or Maria out.” Besides, I didn’t want to shift on the day of the full moon, not after what had happened during the panther shift. No eating people today—not if I could avoid it. We’d have to find a norm way inside.

  We ran alongside the wall, keeping low. Getting in would be the easy part. Gravett must be all in favor of welcoming me inside. It was getting out again that was going to be tough.

  “Look!” I pointed to a place up ahead, where the trees stood close to the wall; the branches of one huge pine tree reached right across it. “I can climb up there, then drop to the other side.”

  Daniel shook his head. “Won’t work,” he said. “The branches are too thin when they get close enough to the wall. They won’t hold your weight.”

  “I’m going to try.” I ran to the base of the tree and put my arms around the trunk. It was sticky and smelled like pitch. I tried to shinny up it, but I couldn’t get a foothold. And when I gripped the trunk with my knees, I couldn’t figure out how to move upward.

  Daniel caught up to me, panting. “Give me a boost,” I said.

  “Vicky. It’s. Not—” he said between pants. But when he saw my expression he laced his fingers into a kind of step. I put my foot in his hands, and he boosted me up so that I could grab hold of one of the lower branches. From there, I pulled myself up until I was sitting on the branch where it met the trunk.

  I was only about ten feet off the ground, but it felt higher. I could see far into the Gravett Biotech complex. Six brick buildings stood around a central courtyard. At the far side of the courtyard, almost directly across from my perch, was a barred gate. There was a gatehouse next to it, but from here I couldn’t see whether it was occupied by a guard. We had to assume it was. Everything was still—no patrols, no guard dogs, nothing. No people in lab coats bustling around with clipboards. The stillness worried me. It was like the place was holding its breath, waiting for me to make my move.

  Surprised at how unsteady my legs felt, I grasped the trunk, inching upward along it, until I stood at my full height on the branch. The tree seemed to shake with my own trembling. At chest level, another branch grew parallel to the one I stood on. I clutched the branch with bot
h hands and took one step, sideways, toward the wall. So far, so good. Another couple of steps, and my confidence grew. But the branch began to thin, and the farther I moved from the trunk, the more it bent. This branch would snap or dump me before I got past the wall. From where I stood, I could just about jump onto the wall—to be sliced up by razor wire.

  Then I had an idea. Clutching the higher branch with one hand, I shrugged off my leather jacket and dropped it to Daniel on the ground. “Toss that up so it covers the wire on top of the wall.” He lined himself up with the branch and flung the jacket upward, hanging on to one sleeve. The first try, he missed, and the jacket slid down the wall.

  On the second try, he got it. The jacket landed on a length of razor wire, flattening it. I’d have to jump carefully to make sure I hit the narrow strip protected by the jacket. I inched outward on the branch.

  “Wait a minute,” Daniel called. He took off his own jacket and threw it onto the wall next to mine. “Okay,” he said, “I think you can do it.”

  I wanted to close my eyes, but I didn’t. I kept them on my target, a four-foot-wide safety zone of leather. I took a deep breath, thought about Maria—and jumped.

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, DANIEL HAD JOINED ME INSIDE THE wall. “She’s in Building Four,” he said. “That’s what the report we got from New Hampshire said.”

  “Which one’s Building Four?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  As I’d seen from the tree, the complex held half a dozen buildings. We dashed from the shelter of the wall to the nearest one. The place was still deserted. It was Saturday, but it seemed like there’d be more activity, more excitement, after they’d stolen a possible Cerddorion child. The wide-open stillness of the place made me nervous. It couldn’t have felt more like a trap if they’d plunked down a big open cage in the middle of the lawn with a sign that read ENTER HERE.

  Still, if there were no obstacles to getting in and finding Maria, at least they were making half of our job easy for us.

  We edged along the side of the building until we got to the corner. Turning that corner would bring us into the courtyard, where we’d be in view of the other buildings. Daniel held up his hand, indicating I should wait. He pulled his pistol and held it pointing upward. Then he disappeared around the corner.