Brimstone p-5

by Douglas Preston

  { 19 }

  Nigel Cutforth threw back the covers and sat up in an empty bed. Eliza had taken exception to his little trip to Thailand and had gone off to stay with a girlfriend in the Village. Good fucking riddance.

  He looked around. The bedside clock glowed 10:34 in red letters. Jesus, only 10:30? His plane left at six in the morning, and around eight he'd knocked back two fingers of gin and crawled into bed, desperate for a little sleep. But sleep had been slow to come. And now here he was, suddenly wide awake, sitting up in bed, heart beating hard. Christ, it was hot. He flapped the covers, trying to stir up the dead air of the room, but it seemed only to draw the heat closer around him. With another curse, he flicked on the light, swung his legs over the bed, and put his feet on the floor. At the rate he was going, the jet lag to Bangkok would be so bad he might just have to extend his vacation another week. But that would be hard to pull off: the fall was a big time in the cutthroat music business, and you had to stay vigilant.

  He stood up, padded across the floor, and checked the thermostat. It was off, as he knew it would be, but the thermometer itself registered eighty-five degrees. He put his hand over the forced-air grating, but it felt cool to the touch. No heat there.

  Heat. It was just what Grove had complained about.

  He reminded himself again that this was the twenty-first century and that Grove had been insane in the closing days of his sorry life. He walked over to the balcony, ran back the heavy curtains, unlocked and slid open the glass door. A welcome stream of cool October air washed over him, and the faint sounds of traffic rose from below. Cutforth breathed deeply and stepped out onto the balcony, feeling sanity return. There was New York: solid, modern, rational New York. The buildings of Midtown stood like glowing ramparts against the night sky, and Fifth Avenue was like a brilliant stripe of moving light, changing from white to red as it passed below his window. He breathed again and, feeling the sweat chill on his skin, stepped back inside. The heat within seemed worse than ever, and now he felt a prickling sensation beginning to creep over his scalp and face and move down his limbs. It was very odd, like nothing he'd ever felt before, this sensation of heat and cold at the same time.

  He was getting sick. That's what was happening. An early case of the flu.

  He put on his slippers and walked out the bedroom, across the living room, to the wet bar. He jerked open the cabinet doors, pulled out the bottle of Bombay Sapphire, some ice, and a jar of olives, and mixed himself another drink. A Xanax, three Tylenol capsules, five vitamin C tablets, two fish-liver-oil pills, a selenium tablet, and three tabs of coral calcium followed, each washed down with a generous gulp of gin. After finishing the glass, he mixed himself another and went to the floor-to-ceiling windows of the living room. These windows looked east, past Madison and Park to the 59th Street Bridge and Roosevelt Island. Beyond lay the dark wasteland of Queens.

  Cutforth was finding it hard to think. His skin was crawling with unpleasant sensations, as if he was covered with spiders that were scuttling around and nipping at him. Or bees, maybe: he felt like he was wearing one of those human bee cloaks, and the bees were moving around, not exactly stinging him, but prickling him with their dry hairy legs.

  Grove had been crazy, he had to remind himself. Grove lost it completely, he'd succumbed to his own fantasies. Not surprising, given the kind of life he'd led. And then there was that other thing: the thing Cutforth never, ever wanted to think about again .

  He shook this thought away furiously and took another slug of gin, feeling the liquor and the sedative starting to kick in. Under any other circumstance, it would be delightful, relaxing, a sensation of slowly drifting down. But it didn't seem to be doing anything about that itchy, hot, crawling sensation on his skin. He rubbed a hand on his arm. Dry and hot: his skin felt like sandpaper.

  Grove had complained about a strange sensation of heat, too. That and the smell.

  He tossed back the drink with a shaking hand. Don’t get paranoid, Nigel dear. He was getting sick, that was all. He hadn't had his flu shot, and it was hitting him early this year. Great timing, on the eve of his departure for Thailand.

  "Fuck," he said out loud. The drink was gone. Should he mix himself yet another? Why the hell not? He reached for the bottle, grasped it, filled the glass, and set it back down on the bar.

  I am coming.

  Cutforth spun around. The apartment was empty.

  Who the fuck had spoken? It was a low voice, lower than a whisper; more like a vibration, sensed rather than heard.

  He swallowed, licked dry lips. "Who's there?" His tongue felt thick and foreign, and he could barely get out the words.

  No answer.

  He turned, his full drink slopping over the sides of the glass and running down his hand. He raised the glass and sucked at it greedily. It couldn't be. He'd never believed in anything and wasn't about to start now. God didn't exist, the devil didn't exist, life was just some random shitstorm, and when you were dead, you were dead.

  Maledicat dominus.

  He jerked his head up, drink sloshing wildly. What was that, Latin? Was this some kind of joke? Where was it coming from? One of his crazy rap clients, being an asshole? Or, more likely, former client? There was one Haitian rapper in particular who had threatened revenge. This was probably him or his boys, trying to goad him into a premature heart attack with some voodoo nonsense.

  "All right!" he called out. "That's enough with the bullshit."

  Silence.

  His skin crawled, unnaturally hot and dry. Suddenly, it didn't feel like nonsense anymore. It felt real.

  It was happening to him. It was happening, like Grove had said.

  He raised the shaking glass to his lips, swallowing, tasting nothing.

  But it couldn't really be happening, could it? This was the twenty-first century. Grove must have been crazy, he must have. But, oh dear Jesus, those things the newspapers had hinted at . The cops weren't really saying much about how Grove had died, but the tabloids had been full of gossip about the body, burned from the inside, the marks of Lucifer on the walls.

  Was it really possible, after all this time?

  He let the half-finished drink fall to the floor and began casting desperately about. His late mother had given him a crucifix, which he'd kept around more as a memento than anything else. He'd seen it just last month. Where? He rushed back into his bedroom, to the walk-in closet, drew out a drawer with savage tugs, felt in the back. Cuff links, buttons, tiepins, coins rained to the floor.

  No crucifix. Where was it?

  He jerked open another drawer, then another, pawing roughly through watches, jewelry, gold. A sob escaped him.

  The crucifix! He grasped it tightly, sobbing with relief, held it to his breast, crossing himself.

  The sensation of being covered with crawling bees began to grow worse. Now it felt as if the bees were really stinging him, billions of agonizing little pricks.

  "Go away! Get away!" He sobbed.” Our Father, who art in heaven-" God, how did it go?

  The crucifix felt hot in his hands. Now his ears were buzzing. His throat felt as if it was caked with ash, as if he was choking on the hot air.

  I am coming now.

  He held out the crucifix in his shaking arms, this way and that, as if warding off something invisible. "Get thee behind me, Satan!" he shrieked.

  The crucifix felt very hot now. It was burning his fingers. Everything was hot: his nightclothes, even his eyebrows and the hairs on his arms, felt as if they were crisping.

  "Get away!"

  He dropped the crucifix with a cry. To his utter terror, smoke began curling from it, burning a mark into the rug. He gasped for breath, hands scrabbling at his throat, gagging in the sulfurous air.

  He had to get out. He had to find sanctuary. If he could get to a chapel, a church, anything, maybe he'd be safe .

  He rushed for the door, but just before he put his hand on the doorknob, there came a knocking.

  Cutforth froze,
suspended between relief and fear. Who was it?

  Maybe there was a fire? Yes, of course, that was it: the building was on fire, and an evacuation was under way. Something must have gone wrong with the sprinkler system. "I'm in here!" He sobbed, half in pain and half in relief. "In here!"

  He grasped the doorknob, felt the searing pain of red-hot metal, jerked his hand away." Fuck!"

  He looked at his hand in disbelief. His palm was burned, smoking, and it cracked as he opened it, blood and clear matter welling from the fissure and running down his wrist. Left on the doorknob was a large piece of his skin, curling and frying in the heat like pork cracklings.

  The knock came again: slow, steady, like the tolling of a bell.

  "Help me!" Cutforth cried at the door. "There's a fire! Fire! "

  He felt a sudden wave of pain along his skin, as if it was being peeled away, and then a grotesque feeling deep in his belly, as if someone had just stirred his guts for him. He lurched back. He was at the door. The feeling came again, a strange internal pressure, a terrible writhing of the intestines. He screamed, gripping his stomach, doubling over. He managed to stagger back into the bedroom. As he moved, little darts of pain raced across his skin and his eyes clouded with red mist. He could feel the terrible pressure mounting within him, and then all went black and the pressure became unbearable, and there was a sound like frying eggs and suddenly the pressure was gone and a hot wetness was running down his face.

  He screamed, writhing on the floor, his legs beating a frenzied tattoo on the rug, his hands tearing at his nightclothes, his hair, trying to claw the skin from his own body because it was searingly hot, so unbearably hot .

  Here I am here I am here.

  { 20 }

  Letitia Dallbridge lay awake, motionless, rigid in her bed. At last, she arose in cool fury, slipped into a satin robe, flicked open her glasses, and put them on. Then she checked the time: 11:15. She compressed her lips. This was intolerable. Intolerable.

  She picked up the building telephone and buzzed the desk; instantly a voice was on the line.

  "May I help you, Mrs. Dallbridge?"

  "You certainly may, Jason. The gentleman in the apartment directly above me, number 17B, has been thumping incessantly on the floor. Shouting as well. It's been going on and on, and I don't mind telling you, this is the second time this month I've had to complain. I am an old woman, and I simply cannot tolerate this kind of noise in the middle of the night."

  "Yes, Mrs. Dallbridge, we'll take care of it immediately."

  "I shall speak to the condominium board about this at the next meeting."

  "I don't blame you, Mrs. Dallbridge."

  "Thank you, Jason."

  She laid down the phone and listened. True, the thumping was fainter now; more irregular. In fact, it seemed to have stopped, along with the shouting. But it would pick up again soon-it always did. That dreadfully coarse music producer was having another party, no doubt. With drinking, dancing, drugs, all kinds of carrying-on. And on a weeknight, no less. She pulled her robe tighter around her narrow frame. There was no point trying to go back to sleep now-at her age, it would be an exercise in futility.

  She crossed the living room into the kitchen, put a kettle of water on to boil. She removed a silver teapot, put three bags of chamomile inside, and waited for the whistle. When it came, she removed the kettle from the heat, poured the water into the teapot, and slipped a tea cozy over the pot to keep it hot. A silver teaspoon and two slices of buttered toast completed her petit déjeuner . She lifted the tray and returned to the bedroom. She glanced up darkly at the ceiling. Then she propped up her satin pillows and poured her tea.

  The flowery aroma and the warmth of the liquid soon calmed her. Life was too short to allow oneself to be disturbed longer than necessary. It was now quiet as a tomb in the apartment above. No matter: she would take strong measures to ensure she wasn't awakened like this again.

  She heard a faint noise and listened. A faint pattering. Raining again, it seemed. She would have to remember the Burberry when she went out that morning to .

  The pattering grew louder. And now there was a smell like frying bacon in the air, faint but distinct. Like the rain, it grew steadily stronger. It was not a pleasant smell, either: it was repellent, like burnt meat. She sniffed, looking around. Had she left the stove on? Impossible, she hadn't even-

  Plop! A huge greasy drop landed in the middle of her tea, splashing her. Then another fat drop, and another, splattering tea all over her face, her dressing gown, her beautiful satin puff.

  She looked up in horror to see a stain on her bedroom ceiling. It was spreading fast. It glistened, oleaginous, in the dim light of her reading lamp.

  Letitia Dallbridge snatched the phone out of its cradle, buzzed downstairs again.

  "Yes, Mrs. Dallbridge?"

  "Now there's a leak from the apartment above! It's coming right through the ceiling of my bedroom!"

  "We're sending someone up immediately. We'll turn the water off in that apartment now."

  "This is an outrage! My beautiful English puff is ruined! Ruined! "

  Now the liquid was pattering down from the ceiling in several places, accumulating in the corners of the crown molding, even streaming down the Venetian chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. It was raining on her Louis Quinze chairs, the Chippendale highboy. Against her better judgment, she leaned forward and touched one of the brown splatters on the china cup with her finger. It was warm and greasy, like tallow or candle wax. She shrank in horror.

  "It's not water," she cried. "It's some kind of grease !"

  "Grease?"

  "Yes! Grease! From the apartment above!"

  There was some confused talk in the background, then the voice came back on, a little breathless. "We're getting some alarms down here. It seems there may be a fire in the apartment above you, Mrs. Dallbridge. Listen carefully. Don't leave your apartment. If smoke begins to come under your front door, place a damp towel against it. Wait for instructions-"

  The voice was cut off by the unbearably shrill sound of the fire alarm in the hall, followed by the even louder blare of the siren within her apartment. She dropped the phone, covering her ears. A moment later there was a snapping noise as the sprinklers went off, and suddenly the room was full of water, streaming everywhere.

  Mrs. Dallbridge was in such a state of shock that she remained frozen as a statue, uncomprehending, while the spray slowly darkened her gown and her lovely bedspread and refilled the teacup on her tray with gray, chill water.

  { 21 }

  The stench hanging in the apartment entrance helped warn D'Agosta what was in store. It only grew worse as he walked through the dwelling on his way to the master bedroom. He'd been half asleep when he entered the building's lobby-filling out the incident report on the gunfire he'd exchanged in Riverside Park had taken longer than expected-but he sure as hell wasn't asleep now. It was amazing the way that stench just cut through everything: took away the 2A.M. grogginess, took away the aches in his joints, the pain of the skinned knees, the itch of the poison ivy he'd managed to roll through while evading the thugs.

  He had seen a lot of unpleasant homicides in his day, but nothing could have prepared him for what lay on the floor beside the bed. It was a corpse, that much at least was clear: it had ruptured in a way he'd never seen before, the corpse unzipping itself from pubis to sternum, vomiting a shrunken tangle of burned and blackened organs. In an almost unconscious gesture, he reached up and touched the cross underneath his shirt, feeling its reassuring presence. If there was a devil, this was how he'd do it. This was definitely how he'd do it.

  He glanced over at Pendergast and felt faintly gratified to see that even the great detective was looking whiter than usual. Pendergast's normal impulses to poke, pry, and sniff seemed to have deserted him. He stood there, dressed in white tie and tails, something almost like shock on his face.

  The last of the SOC boys-the fingernail picker-came back around the cor
pse on his hands and knees, bristling with test tubes and tweezers and swabs. He looked pretty green, too, and those guys were a tough bunch. They were the ones who had to find the fibers and hairs, swab stains, pick up all the bits and pieces. Close-in work, real close.

  The M.E. ducked in. "Finished?"

  "I sure hope so."

  Pendergast held out his shield. "Mind if I ask a few questions, Doctor?"

  "Shoot."

  "Do you have a cause of death?"

  "Not yet. Heating, burning , is clear. But as for the cause . I have no idea."

  "Accelerants?"

  "Negative, at least prelim," the SOC man answered. "There are other anomalies. Note the lack of the pugilistic effect-there's none of the contraction of the arm muscles one usually sees in such severe burn cases. Note also the heat fracturing in the bones of the extremities. Nearer the center of the body, the bones have actually been calcined. Do you have any idea how hot a fire would have to be to cause this kind of damage? Well over the combustion threshold. And yet there was no room flashover. In fact, from the look of things, the fire never even approached flashover. The heat was localized to the body, and the body only."

  "What kind of heat was applied?"

  The doctor shook his head. "No idea yet."

  "Spontaneous combustion?"

  The doctor looked up sharply. "You mean, like Mary Reeser?"

  "You know of that case, Doctor?"

  "It's kind of a legend in medical school. A joke, really. I seem to recall the FBI handled it."

  "Yes. And if the case file can be believed, SHC-spontaneous human combustion, as it's referred to-is far from being a joke."

  The doctor gave a low, cynical laugh. "You FBI fellows and your acronyms. I don't believe you'll find 'SHC' in the Merck Manual , Mr. Pendergast."

  "There is more in the world than is dreamt of in your philosophy, Doctor-or in the Merck Manual . I will send over the case file for your perusal."

  "As you wish." The doctor departed with the SOC man, leaving them alone with the body.