“Clever,” I told him, twisting my hands. “But you’ve forgotten one important thing.”
“Oh?”
“It’s going to be obvious that the fire was intentionally set. How can I have done it if my body is found here in the cage?”
He tut-tutted again. “But it won’t be,” he said. “In a minute I’m going to give you another shot of tranquilizer. From your own gun, too. Not too much—just enough to render you harmless. Then I’ll take the handcuffs off and leave you. You’ll come around in a few minutes and it’ll only take you a minute more to figure out how to get out of the cage. You’ll be in a dreadful hurry, you see, because the lab will be in flames by then. You’ll rush to the door,” he said, clearly enjoying all this, “seize the handle and pull, only to discover that I’ve locked you in.” He placed a hand over his heart. “How tragic.” He looked at me levelly. “And whether you perish of smoke inhalation or die in the flames is really of no matter to me. I’ll be rid of Ninth Life once and for all. Don’t worry, my dear, I’ve thought of everything.”
“Not quite,” I said, as one hand came free. I bunched up the lab coat and drew my .357, aiming it with two hands squarely at his chest.
He blinked once, then, quick as a cat, he jumped behind the lab counter.
“Shit!” I screamed, banging on the locked door of the cage with my feet. The lock held.
I heard him chuckle at the same time I smelled the smoke. “Maleck, no!” I yelled. “No one will believe I set the fire!”
I guessed he didn’t care anymore because from the other side of the lab counter came a dull whoomp and a ball of smoky orange flame. “Try hard,” he said. “You can get out of that cage if you really want to.” Through the smoke, I saw the lab door open, then close. The creep had gotten away. And he’d left me here to die. Just like the other animals who’d served their purposes.
“You bastard!” I screamed, kicking at the cage door. No good, Caitlin, no good, a little voice of calm told me. Maleck might be right, but kicking the door off will take too long. Then you really will die of smoke inhalation. Shoot the bloody thing off.
Of course. I put the muzzle of the .357 against the lock, put my forearm over my eyes and pulled the trigger. There was an ear-splitting boom, then, with a clatter, the cage door swung open.
I scrambled out, mindful of the fire which was just now spreading from the counter, finding the errant trails of gasoline, touching them with greedy orange fingers. The thought of my combustible lab coat didn’t exactly cheer me, so I pulled it off and tossed it away. I figured I had only moments. I was right.
With another whoomp, the floor caught fire. The flames were now between me and the door, and I knew better than to hesitate. Shielding my eyes, I jumped into the fire. I was at the lab door in an instant, turning the handle, trying to push it open. But Maleck was right. He had locked it.
I coughed, choked, and figured I had about ten seconds to do something. Putting the muzzle of my .357 against the door just above the handle, I pulled the trigger twice. Through the thickening smoke, I saw that I had blown a hole the size of a tangerine in the door. Kicking the door, I noted it swung obligingly open. I was in mid-stride when I remembered them. The rabbits.
This time I didn’t think. I didn’t want to. Because if I did, I knew I’d never have the nerve to do it. Instead, I jammed my gun into its holster and ran back into the inferno. The flames had only just reached the animal cages, and finding nothing to burn, had started to blacken the metal on the wheeled cart. The rabbits were hopping around in the cages, trying to get away from this terrible, hot smoky thing. That’s when it hit me.
The dream I’d had. The alien consciousness I’d inhabited for those few dream moments, when I watched in helpless terror as a great, red, glowing thing loomed toward me out of the gloom. I felt a moment of disorientation as something in my brain slipped a cog; then, with a spurt of horror I realized I was seeing the fire from the point of view of the caged animals, too. I was in their heads as well as my own. And their terror was paralyzing me.
“No!” I yelled, and something—the sound of my own voice, the heat of the fire, the shot of adrenaline I got from the terror of it all—canceled my mental double vision. I was now only Caitlin again. And I was about to be burned alive.
The smoke was choking me. Throat raspy with the need to cough, I made a grab for the cages and as my hands touched the metal, I screamed aloud. The smooth side of the wheeled cart was so hot I felt as though I had put both hands on the burners of an electric stove. I let go immediately, put my hands under my armpits and, eyes tearing with pain, booted the cart across the room with my feet. As I shoved it through the open doorway, I kicked the door closed behind me and collapsed against the wall.
Gasping, coughing, I allowed myself the luxury of looking at my burned palms and howling with pain. Then I shoved my hands back up under my armpits and nudged the cart down the hall with my feet. But it wouldn’t move in a straight line. That bloody squeaky wheel had become locked in the heat, and now refused to roll at all. There was no help for it. I would have to push the cart. I wiped my tears on the arm of my turtleneck, put my pain somewhere else, and grabbed the cart.
“Let me help,” someone said from behind me.
I felt I must be hallucinating, because when I looked back Judith Hadley stood there. Face pale and grim, dark shirt, dark clothes, dark gloves: she looked like a commando.
“Why . . . what—” I croaked.
“Never mind now,” she said tersely. “All you need to know is that I’m here to help you. Alison told me what you were up to. And I knew I had to do this to . . . atone.”
None of this made any sense, so I decided that I was hallucinating. Still, if the apparition wanted to atone . . .
“Help me push this thing,” I rasped.
“Oh, God,” Judith said, noticing my hands. “I’ll push. You go open the door.”
I took her at her word and ran ahead to the door with the magnetic lock. Suddenly I remembered—Mary’s card was in the pocket of my lab coat. Then two things happened at once—the window blew out of the testing lab door sending fire spilling in both directions down the hall, and the lights went out.
“No power,” Judith yelled. “We’ll never get that door open now.”
“Oh yes we will,” I said grimly. Biting my lip to keep from crying out, I drew my .357. What the hell—it had worked once. Why not again? The fire behind us was the only light I had but it was enough. Blowing the lock off took two shots, but finally the door swung open, and we ran through. As I reholstered my gun, I thought: only one left. I remember feeling grateful to Judith that she hadn’t tried to argue me out of bringing the rabbits with us, because I wouldn’t have left them. They had become very important to me.
Finally, the loading bay door loomed just ahead. Evidently Maleck had tried to close it and the bloody thing jammed because it stood open about four feet, a gray rectangle of night sky showing beneath it. But even though it meant freedom, it was about as inviting as the maw of a beast. I remembered how it had come crashing down the other day. Come on, come on, I told myself. It’s locked open now. No power, remember. It can’t get you.
“We’re almost there,” I said to Judith. “I’ll go through first. Shove the cart after me when I’m out. Then you come on through and we’ll push the rabbits up the ramp.”
“Okay,” she panted.
I rolled underneath the door, hitting my shoulder a painful thwack, and stood up. Breathing one lungful of cool night air, I looked up gratefully at the moon. By its light, I saw the cart come rolling out toward me. I grabbed it, and some superstitious dread made me pull it a couple feet clear of the door. Then I saw Judith’s head and shoulders appear as she scuttled through the door on hands and knees.
“Be care—” I started to say.
The unthinkable happened then. With a rattle of chains and gears, the door fell. Judith looked up at me, and in the preternatural slowness that exists only in accident
s or dreams, I saw realization in her eyes. And I saw something else, too. A kind of welcome.
Then real time kicked in, and I staggered forward to help, to pull her through, but it was too late. With one last hellish rattle, the door hit the concrete floor. There was one horrible scream from Judith, and then there was nothing else.
Chapter 17
“Judith!” I yelled, hauling at her shoulders. It was no use. The door had caught her just above the knees. All my pulling and tugging wasn’t budging her an inch. She was trapped. I sat down heavily on the cold concrete, looked at the rabbits in their cages, at the pale oval of Judith’s face, and closed my eyes tightly, hoping desperately that this was a nightmare.
“Caitlin,” she said thickly.
I opened my eyes. It was no nightmare. Or, if it was, it was one in which I, too, was trapped. I rose to my knees.
“Go away,” she said. “Go on. Get help.”
“I—”
“You’re no good to me here,” she said, panting. “Go. Please.”
“Why did you come here?” I asked angrily. “Why didn’t you stay the hell away?”
“Like I said,” she told me, biting her lip, “to atone. To help you. To make things right.”
“To atone for what?”
She looked at me blankly. “For turning Mary in to Living World.”
The words made no sense. “For—”
She shook her head at my impatience. “I did it. I told Living World that Mary was a Ninth Lifer.” She smiled crookedly. “I didn’t think they’d do anything to her—just boot her out. I wanted her great brave mission to fail. I wanted her to be . . . humbled in Alison’s eyes.” She began to cry then. “It backfired. It all turned to shit. Alison’s been blaming herself, thinking that Mary’s death was her fault. It wasn’t. It was mine. I did it because I was jealous.”
I felt like weeping. The always anonymous beast again. Jealousy.
“Go on,” she said roughly. “And get these damned rabbits out of here, too. I’ll be all right. Just hurry.”
I decided I’d wheel the rabbits up the ramp, across the parking lot, and leave them over by the fence. Then I’d see if I could get back in the bathroom window. Judith needed help now. I’d come around to the loading bay and find some way to release the door from the inside. Feeling dizzy from the pain in my hands, the effects of Maleck’s tranquilizer, and plain old fear, it took me much longer than I believed possible to get the rabbits to safety. At the fence, when I turned to run back, I saw with dismay that the fire had burned through the roof of the south end of the building, and was now visible through every window. Mouth dry, I ran up the steps to the dumpster, leaped on top of it, and brought my head up to the level of the bathroom window. It was no good. The fire had already spread to the hall outside the bathroom. As I watched, the wooden bathroom door burst into flame, and the fire came roaring in like a live thing. I ducked, and flames shot over my head out the window.
I jumped down from the dumpster and raced back to Judith. “It’s no good,” I panted. “I can’t get back in. I won’t leave you here. The Saanich Fire Department ought to be here any minute.”
“Caitlin,” she said, panic in her voice. “The fire. I can feel it. My feet are hot.”
“Oh, no,” I whispered, and put my forearm on the loading bay door. I could feel it, too.
“Your gun,” she said, beginning to weep. “Let me have it.”
“My gun?” I inquired stupidly.
She clutched my arm. “Your gun! Give it to me, for God’s sake. Or shoot me yourself. No one deserves to die like this.”
Numbly, I handed her the gun.
The little door beside the loading bay burst open, and Maleck staggered through, clothes smoking. Either the power outage, or last-minute activities of his own, had trapped him inside the building. He choked, coughed, then vomited onto the concrete. When he straightened up, he saw us.
Then I did one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I begged. “She’s trapped,” I pleaded. “Come back with me. Help me pry the door up.”
Eyes red-rimmed, clothes singed, he looked at us without a trace of compassion. “Why?” he asked. “One dead activist is as good as another.” Then he turned his back on us.
Something snapped inside me then, and with a howl of rage, I took a dozen running steps and tackled him. We sprawled together on the asphalt of the parking lot, he struggling to escape, me relentlessly hanging on. He hit me on the side of the head with a roundhouse punch, and all the strength went out of my arms. He rose to hands and knees, looked at me, and stood up, a feral smile on his face. “Well, now,” he said, reaching inside his jacket. “Why settle for one dead activist when you can have two?”
My .357 boomed then, and for one crazy moment, I thought Judith had shot Maleck. He turned, seemed to realize what had happened, then focused his attention on me again. I’m not certain what he was planning, because the world exploded then. I thought I saw an immense fiery shape—a creature with the body of an animal, eyes like the fires of Hell, and wings of terrible hot flame—erupt from one of the windows like a firedrake and swoop across the parking lot, picking Maleck up in its talons, immolating him instantly. But of course, I must have been mistaken. The exploded world began to fall on me then—hot, sharp, hurtful pieces of it—and I rolled myself up in a ball, waiting as dumb as any beast for the end.
Chapter 18
“You’re lucky you were on the ground,” Lester said, handing me a glass of water and putting two painkillers on my tongue. “Maleck was fried when the windows blew out.” He shuddered. “I saw it as I was driving into the parking lot. It was just like a flame thrower.” I folded my gauze-mittened hands around the glass, bringing it to my lips and washing the painkiller down my gullet.
“Lucky is my middle name,” I quipped, handing him back the glass. But somehow, my patter had deserted me. I had nary a wisecrack left in me. I felt empty. Hell, I’d done a terrific job—I hadn’t gotten the videotape to Lester on time, the news had aired without us, CLAW was now holding a Day of Shame vigil in front of the burned shell of Living World—getting loads of good publicity out of that obscene act—and Judith would be buried Monday. Mary, Judith, and Maleck—all dead. Alison and Ian were back in Ottawa, conferring with their Ninth Life colleagues about how to proceed. Alison had paid my bill, including replacement by Ninth Life of the video equipment lost in the wreck of Lester’s car. And I was flat on my back, with third-degree burns on my hands.
Well, not exactly flat. As the result of Lester’s visit, I had emerged from my bedroom. I had even changed my sweats-cum-pajamas in honor of his arrival. After all, I reasoned, one couldn’t entertain a gentleman caller in sweats which hadn’t been off one’s body for two days, now could one?
“You sound so . . . down,” Lester said.
“I feel down,” I said bleakly. “I wish I didn’t. What did the Bard say: ‘I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth’? Well, I know ‘wherefore.’ I botched things up, kiddo. I bungled. I dropped the ball.”
“No you didn’t,” he said loyally. “No one could blame you for anything.”
I put my head back and waited for the painkiller to work. “I do,” I told him. “I do.”
And this wasn’t just self-indulgent whining, either. I really did blame myself. If I’d only been able to shoot Maleck before he set the fire, that horrible conflagration could have been avoided. I wouldn’t be burned, Ninth Life’s “evidence” wouldn’t have gone up in smoke, and Judith wouldn’t be dead. Dammit, I couldn’t be sure if I had taken that split second to correct my aim, or if I’d choked. Maybe I was getting too old for all this rough stuff. True, Val had the videotape, which the station intended to air legally on Sunday along with footage of the fire and a retrospective of Living World, but somehow I didn’t much care. I shook my head. In the end I had done what Alison wanted. Living World was certainly out of business and Metro was re-opening the Mary Shepard case. But those facts were cold comfo
rt. I still blamed myself.
“Want some supper?” Lester asked. “Yvonne left a casserole thingy in the fridge.”
I considered with epicurean dread what might be lurking in the depths of Yvonne’s casserole thingy, and decided against it. But I was getting a little hungry. “There’s a microwave dinner in the freezer,” I told him. “Shrimp something-or-other. But there’s only one.” Just in time, I remembered that I had been saving it for someone special. “What the heck,” I said, throwing caution to the wind. “Let’s do something really decadent. Let’s order a pizza.”
Lester beamed, and hurried over to the phone. “How about a medium with everything?” he called as he was looking up the phone number.
“Fine with me. Just hold the anchovies,” I told him.
As Lester was dialing, a discreet tapping sounded on the door. Now what, I wondered. Getting up dispiritedly, I padded into the front hall, lifted the little curtain and peered out into the night. The caller was Gray.
“Well, hi,” I said, opening the door. “What brings you into civilization?”
She smiled, then pointed behind her. Repo and Jeoffrey came strolling up my walk, Jeoffrey pressed close to Repo’s side. As I watched, Repo climbed the steps very deliberately, Jeoffrey following him.
“Nyap,” Repo said, rubbing his head once on my ankle before leading Jeoffrey into the house. I swallowed, a lump in my throat.
“Can he see anything?” I asked Gray.
“Some,” she said. “He can distinguish shapes, I think, and day from night. Oh, while he’s finding his way around, don’t move the furniture.”
Ninth Life Page 17