Lost Souls

by Seth Patrick

  In the front passenger seat Never was leaning against his own door. He was moaning, his hand coming up to his head.

  The van had hit the front-left side of the car; the driver-side door had been impacted hard enough to be pushed in deep, the metal touching the steering wheel. Jonah tried to look outside but the glass next to him was opaque, a shattered web barely held together.

  There was enough light coming through to suggest that the van wasn’t there now. For an instant he wondered if help could already have arrived, but he knew that was the thought of a man desperate to hang on to the possibility that this had been some kind of accident. That the ‘cop’ who’d waved the other car through hadn’t simply been waiting for potential witnesses to vacate the scene.

  Everything about the situation screamed set-up, but the logistics of it seemed impossible. Heggarty would have needed people in place who knew where Bob’s car was, and knew where to send them so that they could be intercepted, detained.

  Dealt with.

  Jonah tried to speak but just ended up coughing. Then he heard footsteps.

  Someone pulled Bob’s twisted door, managing to force it open, the metal crying out. A hand came in and undid Bob’s seat belt, then grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled roughly.

  Jonah heard himself protest, his voice little more than a croak. Then his own door opened and hands took hold of him, dragging him onto the cold, damp ground, the pain overwhelming. Twelve feet away he could see Bob lying motionless where he’d been dropped. Someone in a long black coat strode over to Bob and raised a hand. Jonah saw the gun, saw it fire, saw Bob Crenner’s head come apart.

  ‘No!’ he screamed. ‘No!’ He kept screaming it, again and again, as the figure turned to him and approached; he tried to scramble backwards, unable to get to his feet, inching away pathetically as the black coat came for him.

  He thought of Never. He thought of Annabel. Then the figure leaned down beside him and he felt the sharp pain of a needle; as he lost consciousness, he thought of Annabel’s father, Daniel Harker, who had felt a similar stab in his arm before waking up to a long, slow death.

  31

  After she ended the call, Annabel stared at the phone.

  She’d called out Jonah’s name repeatedly, getting silence in return, and panic had taken hold.

  No coincidence. No way. The thought had made her hang up, an image forming in her mind of people closing in on the other phone, hearing her voice, knowing somehow where she was. And if it was just an accident, Jonah would be able to contact her, assuming . . .

  She closed her eyes.

  She was ready. Bag packed. Ready to leave, to disappear. And to hope that Jonah and Never would be in touch soon.

  Then there was a knock on the door of the apartment.

  Her blood froze.

  Andreas’s people couldn’t know she was there, surely. She was renting with a fake ID, and she’d been damn careful. They couldn’t know.

  The knocking grew louder. Ignore it, she thought. Stay calm. It had to be innocent, and there was no point in her rushing out to the fire escape for something innocent.

  With her eyes locked on the front door she reached over and grabbed the shoulder strap of her bag. She lifted it, slow and silent, and backed off to her bedroom, pushing the door across but not quite closing it, realizing just how familiar she’d made herself with the sounds her apartment could make: the door swung over without noise, but the handle would squeak if she used it, and shutting it without turning the handle would produce a resounding click as the latch found home.

  She opened the bedroom window, knowing it was silent. She stepped out onto the fire escape, something she’d tried twice in the weeks before. Three floors up, she’d not actually attempted the descent, but everything had looked well maintained.

  Now it was time to see.

  The knocking stopped, and so did she, half out of the window, not knowing if there would be the sound of a splintering door or if whoever it was would appear on the back street below at any moment.

  Then the knock came again, and she moved, closing her window, descending with care. Rather than lower the final section of ladder she opted to drop from the lowest point of the fire escape to a garbage container, then to the ground. She followed the route she’d planned, keeping as casual a stride as she could, cutting through a cemetery and heading for the parking lot where she’d been keeping a second car. As she exited the cemetery she knelt down and retied the shoelace on her left foot, giving cover as she reached over to the storm drain beside her and dropped her phone into the darkness. Just in case. As soon as she could, she would source a new phone.

  She stood and walked.

  Annabel blanked her mind and focused on getting out of there, on losing herself and keeping her head down.

  They couldn’t have known where she was. Ditching the phone had been an unnecessary precaution. The knock on her door had been innocent.

  And Jonah was fine.

  She knew, deep down, that at least one of those things wasn’t true.

  32

  Jonah opened his eyes to darkness, uncertain if he’d opened them at all.

  Something was covering the lower part of his face, and he couldn’t move his arms or legs. There was a smell of antiseptic in the air. Hospital, he thought, but he wasn’t in a bed; he was seated, lying back, like in a dentist’s chair.

  He didn’t know where he was, or why; he could only remember that something was wrong. He felt content, in a way he was immediately wary of. Given how badly injured he’d been when he was shot, he was familiar with the euphoric glow of opiate painkillers.

  He blinked, unseeing, as the memory of the car being hit returned, along with the image of Bob Crenner’s head fragmenting, and the sound of his own screams as the dark coat approached him.

  This was no hospital.

  He was aware of the pain lurking underneath the medication, in his side most of all, but every part of him seemed to have some grievance and the effect of the medication was fading fast.

  He tried to move again and could feel straps on his arms and legs; whatever it was on his face, it had his jaw clamped shut. His head was restrained. He listened: the echo of his own breathing suggested the room he was in was small.

  He thought of Never, moaning in the front seat of the car. Still alive. Back then, at least.

  The lights in the room stuttered on, chasing away the last of the euphoria.

  The white room was tiled and bare. Easily cleaned, he thought. Up high in one corner, a camera watched over him. Unable to turn his head, he could just see a table on his right but couldn’t tell what was there. Glints of steel, though.

  He closed his eyes again.

  A sound made him look to the far wall. A door opened; as pure white as the wall, it seemed to appear from nothing. Through it came a short man with a genuine smile. He wore a white coverall, the kind Jonah wore at revivals to keep from contaminating the scene. The kind that kept your clothes clean, too. When there was too much blood.

  The man’s face was ruddy, his hair short and failing. There seemed to be nothing crouched on his shoulder but Jonah knew he needed to be wary of his new-found ability.

  The man closed the door and approached, the smile growing. ‘Welcome,’ he said.

  Jonah tried to talk, but it was muffled by whatever was covering his face.

  ‘Wait, wait,’ said the man. ‘Allow me.’ He leaned across and gently removed it; a leather mask. Before Jonah could speak the man brought over a container with a plastic straw, placing the straw in Jonah’s mouth.

  ‘Drink,’ said the man. Thirsty, Jonah took a short sip before he thought he should be suspicious of what was offered. It seemed to be just water. ‘Now,’ said the man. ‘What do you wish to say?’

  ‘The others . . .’

  ‘Ah. Well, now. I’m afraid the grab team let us down. We were supposed to have all three of you here, but the impact had been misjudged. The injuries of your detective friend were such
that the decision was taken to leave him. Naturally, he had to be finished in a way that rendered him impossible to revive. You understand, Jonah?’ The man paused, seeming to expect an answer.

  ‘Fuck you,’ said Jonah, the sound of his voice appallingly small.

  The man frowned. His hand shot out, slapping Jonah across the cheek hard enough to daze him for a moment. ‘No,’ said the man. ‘Respect me.’ He watched Jonah, their eyes locking, Jonah confused and scared. ‘Your other friend is here,’ said the man. ‘In the room next door, with my colleague. Listen.’

  He reached somewhere out of Jonah’s sight. There was a click, an intercom. ‘Can you hear me?’ said the man.

  ‘I can,’ said another man’s voice.

  ‘Jonah wants to hear his friend. If you would oblige.’

  ‘Of course.’

  A few seconds passed. Then there was the sound of a dull impact and a muffled yell, followed by a string of angry cursing. Unmistakeably, it was Never.

  The intercom was flicked off.

  ‘There. You see? He’s perfectly well.’

  ‘Why am I—’ started Jonah. He was cut short by another expertly delivered slap.

  ‘Speak only if I tell you to,’ said the man in a calm voice, raising again the mask he had removed from Jonah, fitting it back with practised ease. ‘There. Better.’ He smiled in his genuine way.

  A man who enjoys his work, thought Jonah, rage building within him alongside the fear.

  ‘Now,’ said the man. ‘You want to know what this is. I understand. And luckily, I plan to tell you. You’re here to answer one question. Your friend is here to help you answer. Are you ready?’

  Jonah stared. The man raised an eyebrow, prompting a response. With his head restrained, Jonah was only barely able to nod.

  ‘Good,’ said the man. ‘My question is this: do you know the whereabouts of Tess Neil?’

  Jonah shook his restrained head as best he could.

  ‘Have you had any encounter or communication with Tess Neil since the Reese-Farthing incident?’

  Again, Jonah shook his head.

  ‘Good, good,’ said the man. ‘I believe you, Jonah. I believe you.’ Then the man’s smile faded, his face growing theatrically sad. ‘Unfortunately, that’s not how this works. You see, I’m a compassionate man. I’m far too trusting. As such, procedure demands that my own feelings are left out of this. Instead, I have to make sure. Make sure that anyone interested in the answer will also believe you, when they watch the footage.’ He nodded to the camera in the corner of the ceiling. ‘It’s really very similar to your own line of work, in that respect. You understand. As one professional to another.’

  Again, the man looked at Jonah and waited for a response. Jonah nodded. Tears were starting to creep out of his eyes now, as if they were deserting him. Trying to escape.

  ‘You can call me Hopkins,’ said the man. ‘Not my real name, of course, but our subjects perform better if they have a name for their . . . advisor.’ Hopkins allowed himself a chuckle. ‘It’s good that I can be open with you, Jonah – a fellow inquisitor. Of course, with you, your subjects are dead before they enter your care. But you see how our terminology is similar, yes? Subjects? And “advisor” is so like “reviver”, isn’t it? They take equal liberties with meaning, I think. We “advise” our subjects just as meaningfully as you “revive” yours. I doubt that our subjects feel that much useful advice has been imparted by the process, and your subjects, I think I can safely say, don’t exactly feel recovered, mmm?’ The hostility in the man’s eyes contrasted horribly with the smile on his lips. ‘So, yes, Hopkins is how you should think of me. I almost always use that name in a session. It’s a joke, of sorts. My colleagues believe it’s a movie reference, which is true in a way, but not the one they think. Do you have any inklings, Jonah?’

  Jonah shook his head, but part of him thought he knew.

  The man’s face fell. ‘Shame, shame. No matter. But we have business to attend to, yes? So we’ll begin, in earnest. Let me explain. My employers wish to know the whereabouts of Tess Neil. You have already claimed not to know. So, too, has your friend, Mr Geary. I believe you, but you are faced with a problem, because my beliefs are irrelevant. You must convince everyone who would ever conceivably wish to know.’ He paused and gave another pointed look to the camera. ‘That task can be difficult. Achieving it requires some considerable skill, if I say so myself. In recent times, another route to certainty has opened up, given – ironically – the services of a reviver. When it has been deemed important that the subject remains alive, of course, that option is unavailable. And if the questioning – shall we call it pre-mortem questioning – fails to be conclusive, a revival is a useful thing to fall back on.’

  At this, Hopkins began to put latex gloves on his hands. ‘Now, you’re not to worry,’ he said. ‘I pride myself, I really do. I promise you, today there will be no need to fall back on anything. It is down to me to help you be as . . . convincing as possible.’

  Reaching out with a gloved hand, Hopkins wiped away the tears that were falling freely from Jonah’s eyes. ‘There, now,’ he said, that horribly genuine smile back on his face. ‘We have work to do.’

  33

  Hopkins turned to the table just out of Jonah’s sight. Jonah closed his eyes, hearing the clink and rattle as Hopkins examined the tools of his trade.

  The room was warm but Jonah started to shiver; whatever had torn in his back in the collision was becoming more and more painful as a result, but he couldn’t stop shaking. The pain relief he’d woken to was entirely gone, now.

  ‘Jonah,’ said Hopkins. ‘Open your eyes.’

  He did as he was told.

  ‘When I started my career,’ said Hopkins, ‘I had a fondness for brutality. Getting the truth was the goal and brutality certainly seemed to achieve it. People like to think that such terrible pain makes the subject lose consciousness. Sometimes, yes, but rarely in the face of an active threat. After all, pain focuses the mind. That’s why it exists.’ As he spoke he lifted a scalpel from the table and held it in front of Jonah, turning it over in his hand. ‘But listen to this: “It has always been recognized that this method of interrogation, by putting men to the torture, is useless. The wretches say whatever comes into their heads and whatever they think one wants to believe.” You know who said that? Napoleon. And the problems were known even before his time. But each generation thinks they know better. I was young. I thought a skilled practitioner had the experience to know what to trust, what to discard . . .’ He returned the scalpel and picked up a small bone saw. ‘My revelation was this: the greatest skill is to extract the truth without any physical harm. With no outward sign that anything has happened at all. I’m a hopeless idealist, I know, but there are practical benefits. It allows a subject to be questioned repeatedly, and lets you keep them as a healthy prisoner for as long as they’re useful. The difficulty is speed. With things like sleep deprivation and waterboarding it can take so much time to break a subject down. The longer it takes, the greater the risk that the subject becomes so traumatized that they cease to know what is truth and what is desperate invention. And if they don’t even know, how can we?’ He returned the saw. This time, he chose a long thin metal spike. ‘So with time pressing, brutality is often the best option. I came to realize that it was my destiny to refine the art. I wasn’t alone in the thought. We have a common acquaintance, you and I, beyond Michael Andreas. You knew Kendrick, yes? Kendrick thought torture outdated, that revival was cleaner and faster. I despised the idea. Perfection is to get the truth without any physical harm, yet Kendrick would have us kill a subject as the very first step? That is defeat; he thought it was progress. Nowadays, if a subject is considered expendable – and believe me, that is most of them – they kill them at once and hand them to the revivers for interrogation. Barbarians . . .’ He caressed the metal spike, then shook his head and looked away from Jonah, his eyes unfocused. ‘People like me are looked down on now,’ he said
, sounding melancholic. ‘Artists, spoken of in the same breath as basement electrocutioners, as if we’re scab-faced thugs caring little for the quality of information extracted.’ He reached to his table of equipment once more, setting down the spike and returning with what looked like a small wire cutter. ‘I used to be the most important employee they had, before the revivers came. I could take all the time I wanted. An artist needs to practise their art, and we used to have so many to practise on. Just a trickle now, Jonah. It’s enough to make a grown man cry.’

  Hopkins fell silent for a moment, then seemed to shake off his distraction. ‘These are mostly for show,’ he said, using the wire cutter to gesture to his table. ‘For a particularly special subject we might occasionally peel the flesh, either from them or from a loved one – the sight of your child’s blood is such an incentive, as you can imagine. Such brutality is typically used to make a point, though. To set an example, say. Nothing to do with information retrieval.’ He set the wire cutter down, and returned with a glass vial in one hand and a hypodermic syringe in the other. ‘So you see, I’m not going to mutilate you. Isn’t that good news?’ He up-ended the vial and half filled the syringe, bringing it close to Jonah’s face for a moment, smiling at the terror visible there. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not injecting this into you. This is much more interesting.’ Hopkins waggled the syringe and nodded. ‘I’ve used it all, you know. Jellyfish, bee, scorpion. All the tricks the animal kingdom has for us. My favourite used to be a little known tropical jellyfish, a tiny thing. A human would hardly notice being stung by it and it escaped our attention for many years. Yet for its size, the sting is particularly effective because it also injects something that amplifies the neural response to pain. Wonderful efficiency. Ten times more painful without having to generate all that extra venom. Then our good folk in the lab came up with something better. You ever hear of the bullet ant, Jonah? They say its sting feels like being shot, hence the name. Trying to figure out its secret, they wondered if the jellyfish’s trick couldn’t be made to work alongside it. They came up with this. You know what you get? A thousand-fold increase. Don’t even have to inject the stuff.’ Hopkins reached back to the table. A moment later, he returned holding a long cotton swab stick in one hand and a small glass beaker in the other. In the base of the beaker was some liquid. ‘When it soaks into the skin, any sensation at all makes your nerve endings scream. I’ve diluted this, don’t worry. It’s not full strength.’