Two hands gripped her shoulders, and she screamed again.
“Stop,” she heard Roman shout. But she wasn’t going to stop. She was going to keep going until this dead, mutilated carcass was away from her being.
“You’re bleeding.”
Eliza shook her head, her arms, her whole body. “Get it out. Get it out.”
A slap hit her across the face. Not hard. Not enough to bruise or even leave a mark, but the shock instantly stilled her. The severed hand remained tangled in her hair, its skin rough and cold against her, but she didn’t move.
“Hey? Look at me. You’re bleeding.”
Eliza glanced up and saw her saviour, his face still hidden beneath the shadow of his hat. “Are you one of them?”
“One of what?”
Eliza looked towards the corpse lying on the floor. “One of them.”
“No.”
“But you died. I saw you die.”
Roman sighed, almost silent, but she heard it. The hardness in his eyes softened, and the urgency towards her bleeding withered.
“How can you be alive when I saw you die?”
His warm hands covered hers and lowered them to her lap. “Just hold still.”
Eliza felt his fingers move quickly through her hair, and within seconds he held the severed hand in front of her. A twinkle sparkled in his eyes, a mischievous look she hadn’t seen before, and he smiled. “Safe to say he won’t be needing any more manicures.”
Eliza vomited.
Roman casually threw the detached hand over his shoulder, where it landed in the sink. “Now we need to stop that bleeding.” He pointed to her stomach, where a small circle of blood stained her T-shirt.
“You smashed his face in?” Eliza wiped her mouth.
“Mash the brain any way you can.”
“But he was already dead.”
“And now he’s dead again.”
“But he was walking.”
“It happens.” Roman wiped a splatter of blood from across her neckline. “Are you bleeding anywhere else?”
“How? How does it happen?”
“Now’s probably not the time for a Q and A session.”
“You were dead too, I saw you die.” This man was supposed to be her proof that she wasn’t losing her mind. Instead, he seemed to be like everything else – part of her crazy imagination. “Are you like him?”
“No.”
“But you did die.”
Roman stood. “For a bit.” He turned for the door, bloodstained boot prints marking his retreat like hers had at the nurse’s station.
“Where are you going? There are others like him upstairs.”
“Shush.” Roman paused in the doorway. His shoulders tensed, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Wait here.”
He didn’t turn to face her, and instead walked to the door. “And check you’re not bleeding anywhere else.”
Then he was gone.
The corpse, who’d now died twice, lay only yards from Eliza. His left eye hung from its socket, his nose pushed somewhere to the back of his head. Like hell I’m going to wait here, Eliza thought, getting to her feet.
She was at the door when something thundered past inches from her face and smashed into the mortician assistant’s desk. She jumped back, and when she refocused she saw Jason Devlin lying face down by her feet. His head twitched, as did his arms and legs. Then, slowly, he got to his feet. His head turned towards her, losing interest in whatever had pushed him back, and his demeanour changed. Dragging his broken leg behind him, he came for her.
“Jason? It’s Eliza… Nurse Hamilton.” She edged back into the morgue.
Jason followed.
Roman appeared in the doorway and watched, back in control. “You won’t get much conversation out of him.”
“Aren’t you going to help me?”
Roman said nothing.
“Help me.” Eliza’s hand brushed against a toppled gurney. Fallen instruments lay around her feet. She grabbed one, a steel thermometer, and stabbed it forward, plunging it deep into Jason’s navel.
Jason paused. His arms dropped to his sides, and he glanced at the metal rod protruding from his stomach.
“He’s not dying. Why’s he not dying?”
Jason stepped towards her.
“Do something,” Eliza yelled at Roman.
Roman unfolded his arms, and casual as could be, grabbed Jason by the shoulder and spun him around. Jason raised his arms in the same slow, awkward manner the cadaver had shown moments before. In the blink of an eye, Roman slammed his palms against Jason’s temples and twisted. Jason’s head rotated with a sickening crack until all he saw when he glanced down was his own bare arse. He looked back up and focused on Eliza. The stunned expression that clouded his face changed to one of bloodthirsty hunger. He still wanted her.
Eliza scrambled to put distance between them, but Roman stepped forward and punched Jason in the back of the head. His knuckles exploded out through Jason’s forehead, and clotted blood and brain sprayed Eliza’s face and splattered her clothes.
Roman’s fist withdrew, and Jason dropped to the floor. “I told you to stay where you were.” Roman reached for a paper towel and wiped the mess from his hand. He scrunched the towel into a ball and threw it across the room. It landed in the sink along with the severed hand.
“Here.” He took another towel and passed it to Eliza. “Wipe yourself off. I need to be sure none of that blood on you is yours.”
Eliza stared at him. No words came.
“What’s wrong with you? Can’t you move?”
Eliza didn’t move.
Roman approached her. A flicker of warmth flashed across his otherwise emotionless eyes, and he sighed. “Shit. Look at the state of you.”
He dabbed another towel gently across her forehead. Stopped, and sighed again. “C’mon. Let’s get you back upstairs.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Yes, you are.” Roman reached into his pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief.
“What’s that?” Eliza said.
“Just something to make you sleep.”
Eliza backed away. “I don’t want to sleep.”
“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.”
Eliza turned to run, but the toppled gurney blocked her escape. The cloth covered her nose and mouth, and hard as she lashed out in retaliation, an arm wrapped her chest and pulled her into a vice-like hold. Gradually, Eliza’s hearing faded. Her legs trembled beneath her and gave way, but she didn’t hit the floor as expected. The cloth left her face, and Roman scooped her into his arms. Eliza’s head lolled against his chest, and thoughts of Shadows and zombies whirled through her dazed state. Maybe she would wake to find it had all been a nightmare…or maybe she wouldn’t wake at all.
The subtle smell of body odour wafted beneath a stronger one of aftershave. She had just watched this man butcher two dead people, and all that came to mind was how nice he smelled. Exhaustion, both physical and mental, drained her to her very core. Her eyelids drooped until she could no longer see, and the last thing she remembered hearing as Roman carried her up the stairs was a comment about her stinking of puke.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Roman kicked the emergency bar, and the stairwell door to the ground floor flew open.
Moments earlier, he’d felt Eliza’s hand slip from his shoulder, and now it dangled somewhere around the base of his spine. He stepped into the corridor, letting the door bang shut behind him. There were no signs of life, or the walking dead. When he passed the open-doored rooms, he didn’t look in. There was no need. The sleeping patients inside had been ripped apart by the old naked couple. The same went for the security guard stationed by the entrance. His bloodied remains splattered the inside of the staff toilet. But behind other closed doors, some lucky patients survived, still sleeping and totally unaware of just how close death had been.
Ro
man glanced down towards Eliza. Ceiling light, artificial and unflattering, lit her sleeping face. Her eyes raced from side to side beneath their lids. Her lips parted as though she was about to speak, then the frown dispersed, and her body relaxed. Once again, she looked at peace. Against his better judgement, he let his gaze linger, her soft porcelain skin masked by fragments of Jason Devlin’s brain. On her neck, her pulse throbbed in perfect symphony with her beating heart, slow and rhythmic as his had once been.
God, she was beautiful.
The base of Roman’s neck tightened, and he forced himself to look away from her.
Refocus. She’s just your key to getting to Jane.
But he was struggling. The smell of her freshly washed hair almost masked the stench of vomit. At her house earlier, this girl had been given the chance to run, yet she’d stayed and fought…to help him. Nobody had ever helped him. The tightness in his neck started to ache. Compassion did not come easy to him, and in all the years he had walked this earth, he only felt guilty about one thing. To feel any kind of emotion towards this girl irritated the hell out of him, and his inability to control it only added anger into the mix. Eliza’s wellbeing was not his concern, just as both his son’s and Jane’s deaths had not been his fault.
The entrance doors automatically slid apart, and he walked outside to his car. Carrying Eliza’s body in his arms felt good, too good, and the lure to steal another glance…
He focused on his car, his one joy in life, and carefully put Eliza in the passenger seat. With the corner of his shirt, he began to wipe Jason Devlin’s blood from her face. Then down across her neck, her shoulders, the soft ivory of her skin, inviting and alluring. Roman stopped, his fingers lingering on the neckline of her T-shirt. He closed his eyes for a second, clearing the lustful thoughts from his mind, then stood and closed the door before she could screw with his head anymore.
He didn’t bother buckling her seatbelt.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was just before sunrise when Billy reached the records office.
If he couldn’t run a number-plate check, he sure as hell could find out who owned the house he’d followed Eliza’s mystery guy back to. He parked in the empty car park, got out, and strolled along the brick-paved pathway to the front of the building. He wasn’t at all surprised when he pulled the doors and they shuddered but remained closed.
Inside, the security guard looked up from his desk. He waved his hand dismissively, and returned his attention to the small television monitor.
Billy hammered his fist against the glass until he had the guard’s attention again.
The guard shook his head with obvious irritation. He slapped his hands on the desk. “Do you know what freaking time it is? We’re closed.” He pushed his chair away from the desk, re-zipped his trousers, and waddled to the door.
“I thought my uniform’d give away the fact that I’m here on police business,” Billy said. “I need to check some information on a property.”
“At this hour?”
“This can’t wait. Our computers are down.”
The guard grumbled again and pulled a bunch of keys from his belt. He prodded a long silver one into the lock and pulled open the door.
Billy stepped into the foyer and, although low, immediately heard a woman’s pleasurable groans over a dated porn composition. Billy turned to the small television set on the guard’s desk. “I’m not keeping you from anything important, am I?”
The guard straightened. “What floor do you want? We’re still repairing damage caused by the freak storms last week. The entire basement was flooded, y’know.”
“I want land registry on seventh.”
The guard eyed him for a moment, then relocked the door. “Follow me,” he said, plodding back to his desk. He slumped into his chair, which groaned for mercy beneath his weight, switched off the TV monitor, and slid the visitor’s register across the desk. “Sign this.”
Billy scrawled an illegible name, and pushed the book back towards the guard. “Anyone else up there?”
“You’re kidding, right? At this hour?”
“Are the computers working there?”
“No. Like I said, the place is closed due to water damage. Everything’s off.”
“Not the TV though, right?” Billy pocketed the guard’s pen and turned for the lifts.
“You need a visitor’s pass.”
“What for?”
“In case you get stopped by security.”
“But you are security.”
A victorious smile curled the corners of the guard’s lips. “Those are the rules, pal.”
Billy shook his head and trudged back towards the desk. He snatched the laminated badge from the guard’s hand, shoved it into his trouser pocket, and started to head back to the lift.
“It has to be visible.”
Billy smiled and pressed the lift button. Patience had never been a strong point of his. He bit his tongue, fighting to hold back the build-up of profanities, and stabbed the pin through his cotton shirt. It pricked the skin just above his left pec and, in frustration, he whacked the lift button again.
“Lifts are turned off after midnight,” the guard said, enjoyment oozing from his voice. He made an obvious effort to check his watch. “Missed them by some fourteen minutes. You’ll have to use the stairs.”
Billy glanced towards the stairwell. Seven flights? Sometimes, police life sucked.
By the time he reached the seventh floor, he was more out of breath than he liked to admit. He gave himself a minute or two for the ache in his legs to ease, and then pushed open a large set of doors. The room inside was dark, and the musty smell of old books and papers clung to the place like mist to an evening ocean. The stuffiness of the room and the lack of oxygen tickled the back of his throat, and he coughed. Unable to find a light switch that worked, he manoeuvred past various outlines of furniture and drew back a wooden shutter from the window. With no sunlight, it made little difference to aid his sight, so instead he pulled the torch from his belt and switched it on. Millions of dust particles hovered in the air. Beyond them row upon row of bookshelves, all crammed with records dating back centuries, to when Fowey was a little fishing village and smugglers inhabited the area. Billy removed his hat and ran a hand through his hair. Registry records for the village he wanted were kept upstairs. The balcony was where he needed to be.
The spiral staircase wobbled as he climbed the cast-iron steps. Ten short bookcases, which was five more than there was room for, squeezed alongside each other. This made the space cramped and claustrophobic, something Billy wasn’t entirely happy with. He hung his hat on the top of the handrail, and walked to the eighth aisle. The torchlight flickered and died, its battery life expended no matter how hard he whacked it. He fished a lighter from his trouser pocket and struck the wheel.
Files and manuscripts packed the shelves in a disorganised mess, and even with the light of the flame Billy found it hard to read the worn and frayed book spines. He held the lighter closer, and finally found what he was looking for. The burgundy spine lit up, and the gilt lettering sparkled under the flickering flame: Fowey’s housing records – before the days of computers, when people still used paper and pen. It was a long shot. Who was he kidding, it was a million-to-one shot that some anorak geek still kept these written files up to date. Regardless, he found the area he was after, honed in on the most up-to-date copy he could find, and pulled the thick, leather-bound book from the shelf. It was dated from 1800 to 1959. Disturbed dust clouded the air in front of him, and the inside of his nose tingled with an impending sneeze. He waited for it to arrive, which it did half a minute later, followed by a second, and then a third. He paused, nose poised, waiting for a fourth. When it didn’t manifest, he crouched down, balanced the heavy book on his thighs, and began to fan through the handwritten inscriptions.
A list of illegible signatures scrawled the paper, the black ink of the older ones now grey
and faded with decades of age. Pages turned and further dust wafted from the book, and the fourth sneeze arrived.
A page caught Billy’s eye, and he stopped to read the name of the road he was after: Orchard Lane. Running the tip of his finger over the addresses, he paused midway at number twenty-four. His fingernail dug into the paper as he underlined the words: Purchased 30th April 1937: Mrs P A Gardener.
Who the hell is P A Gardener?
The lighter burned hot in Billy’s hand and he flipped the lid shut, letting the dark surround him for a moment. Some old dear who’d be at least a hundred years old by now – if she wasn’t six feet under – was definitely not the man he’d seen enter the house. Grandson? Great grandson? Or no relation at all. The house had probably been sold five times over since 1950 anyway.
Shit.
Nothing but a waste of time that could have been spent with Eliza at the hospital. And that’s where he should be now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
FRIDAY
The Catacombs. Paris, France
Roman leapt the wall.
On the other side, loose gravel and rock crumbled beneath his boots and he slid rather than walked the bank, not stopping until he reached the disused rail tracks below. He was way out from the centre of town right on the edge of Paris, and when he glanced inside the underground tunnel, he found – as he had been informed – the French authorities hadn’t yet sealed this illegal entrance into the Catacombs.
Eliza, bound and gagged, pushed her way into his mind, and although confident the drugs he’d sedated her with would hold her in slumber for a few more hours yet, he wondered if she’d still be where he’d hidden her by the time he returned. But he couldn’t worry about that, or her, now. Not while he had a job to do. He pulled a laminated map from his backpack. The tracks would lead him a mile into the tunnel, where he would find a hole in the ground to crawl through. He glanced up at the tunnel opening, old brick walls covered in moss and years of neglect. He’d been a thief for over two decades, and never once had he failed to obtain what he’d gone after. The Catacombs, with its labyrinth of ancient tunnels and passageways, would be no different. The third piece of wood was in there, over three hundred feet below street level and buried among the resting places of millions of corpses, all exhumed from Paris cemeteries and dumped into the Catacombs at the end of the eighteenth century.
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