by A. J. Aalto
He shook his head, breathing hotly. “Fuck that shit.”
“Is there something to see?”
“Drop it, Marnie.”
“If you want me to drop it, I'll drop it,” I told him, feeling suddenly ill. Not for the first time, I mulled over the undeniable fact that Mark Batten would never trust me, certainly not with an injury that ran this deep. “But if there's something you need to show me, I'm more than willing to look. And listen.” I was angry enough to inventory what Iknew of his body without getting hot and bothered, but nothing jumped out at me; the only permanent features he hadn't been born with that came to mind were the hundred and five hash marks on his left pec, one for each revenant he'd killed.
He watched the street with far more focus than the straight stretch required. I wondered what wheels were turning behind that blank cop-face he'd screwed on in a hurry, the one that made my heart heavy. Ever in the psychic void with him, I felt no clues.
When he didn't respond, I crossed my arms in front of my belly, angled my knees away from him and said quietly, “If we actually are friends, or whatever, you should at least try to trust me.”
He barreled into the tunnel going just under a hundred, and I hoped he remembered the curve in the road that came next, because we'd flip if he tried to take it that fast in the SUV.
I said, “Harry says he can smell the color of your heart; it's pink like pansies.” And fluorescent spider webbing.
“This have anything to do with the case?”
“Nope. Just thought you'd like to be insecure for the rest of your life.”
My attempt to change the subject didn't go over so well, so Batten stepped-up. “Body of a young woman was brought in tonight, exotic dancer, stage name Dallas Sweetshock, found in an alleyway behind her apartment, DOA. Bad bite mark on her shoulder, through her clothes, no other sign of trauma or injury. Pathologist was doing the Y-incision when the cadaver opened its eyes and screamed at him.”
“Pathologist mess his pants?”
“Cardiac infarction.”
“Shit.” I said, hugging myself. “And the girl?”
“Dead for now.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Was hoping you'd tell me, doctor.” He glanced over at me pointedly. “I'm not spending three hours in a car with you just for kicks.”
“Is she in isolation?”
“Bet your ass,” he said. “Full lockdown. They're clearing the ICU for it as we speak.”
“The sooner the better.”
“Something you need to tell me?”
I shook my head. “I'm not going to worry until I see it with my own two eyes.”
“You'll be able to tell something just by looking at it?”
“Abso-fuckin’-lutely, my friend.” Or whatever.
CHAPTER 39
DR. MURAKAMI, THE HEAD OF ICU, was a slight Japanese man with a bald pate and solemn demeanor who talked as fast as he walked, without posturing or pretension, expecting us to keep up. I wished he would stroll; I was in no hurry to see this patient in the flesh.
“Dr. Laurentius had completed the arms of the Y-incision and had begun at the sternum when the patient awoke,” Dr. Murakami said, “screaming obscenities.”
Batten exhaled hard through his nose but left the talking to me while he texted Declan to see how far behind us he was.
I scanned the girl's chart. “Patient was then given a sedative?”
“Which had no discernible effect,” Dr. Murakami confirmed. “Not surprising, considering her circulatory system has shut down.”
“No pulse, but still breathing, correct?”
“Respiration is normal,” he nodded, bobbing his head, eyes shifting to show only slight anxiety behind oval titanium-rimmed glasses. “Vital signs are abnormal; BP nil, body temp indicates profound hypothermia, which cannot be explained by her so-called death, if that's what it was.”
“A normal dead body drops heat at one and a half degrees Fahrenheit until it reaches the temperature of its surroundings.”
He looked over the rims of his glasses at me. “Correct.”
“Was core temperature about sixty-three degrees when you last checked?” I asked.
“Exactly sixty-three degrees.”
“What tests have you run?”
“X-ray showed a mass growing just below her cardiac sphincter.”
Gastrosanguinem. I glanced at Batten to see if that clue registered, but if it did, he hid it well. I said, “Anything else I need to know before I go in?”
The doctor hesitated, then one of his shoulders fell in defeat; in an amazing show of strength, the other remained stiff. “The young lady was pregnant. Nearly sixteen weeks.”
“Did she miscarry?”
“We thought it best to find out what the patient's status was before we did anything regarding the fetus. She was dead, then she wasn't, then she was. The fetus is dead, but maybe it isn't, or won't be? Forgive me, but if there's a protocol for this, I don't know what it is. We left the fetus.”
“Dallas Sweetshock is a stage name, I'm assuming?” I asked.
Batten said, “She had no ID on her. Identified as an exotic dancer by a homeless guy from her neighborhood who was familiar with her, to EMTs at the scene.”
We pulled up short at the Intensive Care Unit, where the long plate glass window showed a disturbed anthill of activity within, mostly a flurry of professional scuttling; nurses in head-to-toe protective gear and full face shields over goggles evacuated the room at Dr. Murakami's buzzer.
The girl lying in the bed looked tiny, frail, and unconscious. Her EKG monitor showed a persistent flat line. Her chest slowly rose and fell with each breath. She was dwarfed by a series of tubes and wires — IV, chest tubes, catheters, oxygen meters, monitors, an A-line — all confirming what Dr. Murakami had told us.
“Did she come in with any personal effects?” I asked, removing my leather gloves and taking the face mask the doctor handed me. I snapped on latex gloves and put on protective eye gear. Murakami handed me a bag of items: watch, garnet pinky ring, necklace in the shape of an iguana with inlaid gemstones, all ornate costume jewelry in hand-wrought copper. “May I?”
“Her belongings haven't been cleaned,” the doctor advised, before turning away to answer a nurse's questions.
I laid the necklace in my palm; the latex did little to block the heady spark of psi as the Blue Sense opened to offer me insight.
Anne Bennett at her mother's second wedding in the Bahamas, marrying John Dixon, a nice man from Wyoming, a gambler and a heavy drinker, but a friendly, harmless drunk who always paid his bills on time and cared for his new family genuinely and deeply; back in time, summer 2004, a teenaged Anne lip-synching in pajamas and sock feet to Ashlee Simpson's Pieces of Me, laughing at her own goofiness in the mirror; Anne stoned and giggling at Jim Carey in Dumb & Dumber while eating chocolate fudge icing from a tub with a spoon; Anne doing her first lap dance as Dallas Sweetshock in Boulder for a grotesquely obese businessman from Phoenix whose breath smelled of kielbasa and beer, and who kept suggesting they hook up after her shift, who wouldn't take no for an answer, whose sweaty hands got grabby and who had to be escorted out by a bouncer named Alex; Anne calling home to check on her mom, and having mom hang up on her; a lonely Anne taking cash from Stuart the DaySitter and falling into the arms of Malas, count of Brisbois… and finding solace in death.
Sadness cramped my face and I turned away quickly so Batten wouldn't see. My vision blurred with unexpected tears, but in a voice cool and steady, I confirmed, “Dallas Sweetshock and Anne Bennett-Dixon are the same person. I'll see what I can find out. Excuse me.”
“Marnie?”
“Be back in a few.” I motioned with Anne's personal effects. He opened the bag for me to drop the necklace in.
“I'll come in with you.”
“Better if you stay here until I'm sure,” I ordered, and entered the cool, dim hush of Anne's room alone.
I could tell t
hat Anne had once been a gorgeous young woman before death really set in. Sickly pale was not a good look for her; her features had been naturally warm and better suited to a tan. Dark eyebrows arched above huge brown eyes, and walnut-brown hair was cut in an Asian-chic bob. There was a single healing fang mark on her throat where Malas had drained her nearly to the point of death. I got closer to the bed, with the intention of sliding a tongue depressor into her mouth to look for fang buds beginning behind her human canines and lateral incisors, but Anne's eyelids fluttered open; some early, hungry revenant magic had sensed a warm-blooded mortal approaching.
“Who are you?” she breathed, her voice weak, tired. “You're not a nurse.”
“Did the jeans give me away?” I kept my voice low; I knew the change brought strange fluctuations in the five senses. “Can I ask you a couple of questions about Malas Nazaire?”
“I don't know anyone like that,” she said carefully.
“Like what?”
“Freaks.”
“How do you know he's a freak if you don't know him?”
She shot her eyes at the windows, where the cover of night was full and deep.
“It's okay.” I showed her what I hoped was my most disarming smile. “I know Malas. I've been to his mansion. I've actually been to a furpile. He's not that freaky.” Ohhhh, he's so very fucking freaky.
“We're not doing anything wrong,” she said.
There wasn't any point debating that, now. “I've estimated you're at least half way into your turn, Anne. Can I call you Anne?”
“I shouldn't have left. Malas told me not to. He said it was dangerous to leave the mansion, and I should stay downstairs while he rested. But there were things…” She clipped that off warily, shook her head. “I just wanted to have one more, just one …”
“One more?”
I was now directly beside the bed and could see the discoloration spreading across her upper chest at the hollow of her throat, where her hospital gown gaped: greenly terrible, the first rash of little bumps had advanced up her neck toward the apple of her cheek. I felt sweat break out on my upper lip but didn't dare touch my face.
“Anne? One more what?”
“Roger called. He said a bunch of them were getting a cottage at this camp up north of Ten Springs. He said Cosmo was coming. Cosmo's such a riot, a big kid really. Just such a hoot.” She smacked her lips as though she had a bad taste in her mouth. “When I stopped feeding from Malas, I could tell he was completely at rest.”
“He was cold? Still?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I dunno, I can just tell, now. Like we're sharing awareness.”
Two full days into the turn, I estimated.
“I got up to go,” she continued. “Something told me not to. But it was only going to be for a couple hours or so, and it was dark. I didn't see the big deal. I'd been drinking for so long. I felt… strong, restless, but tired, you know?”
I didn't. I couldn't imagine. I asked what I'd always wondered. “Did you feel the moment when you died?”
“I didn't die.” She shook her head madly. “I'm not dead yet.”
“Anne,” I started, but bit it off. “What happened at the fish camp?”
“Cosmo saw something in the lake. We went to check it out, him and me and Roger. At first, it was just this dark thing sliding around under the water. We couldn't seem to catch it with a flashlight. It kept going deep, then coming shallow, slow, but stealthy. Roger and I lost interest, and got in a fight. He's not the father,” she lied quickly, and the Blue Sense swelled under my summons. Shame. Anxiety. One of her arms rested atop her slightly swollen middle. I shrugged to say it didn't matter, and she continued. “Roger knew what I was doing with Malas, and he didn't approve. We'd been drinking beer, a lot, because it took me forever to get my buzz on, right? Brutal.”
“Anne, could I peek inside your mouth? I won't touch, I just need to look.”
She opened her colorless lips obligingly; they stuck together like they'd been glued with paste and finally popped apart. I bent down to squint inside.
The sight of her tongue almost set me reeling. but I got myself under control fast; the tongue was purple-black, necrotic, the source of her horrible smacking. She tilted her head back so I could get a better look. Behind her lateral incisors were two ruby nubs with the whiteness of pressure showing, new enamel under flesh.
Baby fangs. Baby fangs that would never reach maturity.
“May I see your wound?”
She lowered the left sleeve of her hospital gown, white with blue polka dots, to reveal a bandage. I lifted the corner carefully, trying not to touch her skin. A putrid odor wafted from underneath the gauze, and I did my best not to react.
“Lift your arm for me?” I requested, and looked into the armpit gap in the gown. Her axillary lymph nodes there were swollen with the beginnings of black buboes, like blisters, crusty blue around the edges. In a living human, these would have shown bloody fluid, but Anne no longer had human blood circulating through her body; it had mostly been replaced with the watery, pale blue blood of her maker, Malas Nazaire.
She folded her hands across her small breasts, waiting for me to say something. For a moment, a confused look crossed her face, then she prodded her left side curiously, a growing horror lighting her eyes.
“My heart,” she said, her pale fingers scrambling to prod the Frankenstein-sloppy stitches closing the left arm of her Y-incision.
“Anne …”
“Is my heart gone?” Her voice rose to a tremulous shout. “Did that freak doctor in the basement take it out?”
“No, Anne, the coroner didn't remove anything, it's still there.”
“Then where is my fucking heartbeat?”
“That probably stopped sometime last night. This is the beginning of your third day. All of your remaining systems will fail. That's how turning works. Except …”
“I didn't stay.”
“For the third full day of feeding. No,” I said quietly, “you didn't. What happened with the dark spot at the lake?”
There was a full minute or so while she fought to mentally digest this, or fought against acceptance, I couldn't tell. Her voice was faint with surrender. “Some psycho came out of the water and jumped me. He bit me, bit me, can you believe that? And then Roger ran. He left me.” Her lips pinched. “This is his baby, and he left me. Left us. Asshole.”
“And Cosmo?”
“Cosmo pulled the guy off me, and they went under together. Am I gonna die? Like, for real, I mean?”
“Did you see him? Was it a man that dragged Cosmo into the lake?”
“I don't know. I splashed in the shallow end looking for Cosmo, and then … I dunno, I got confused. Dizzy. Something wasn't right. I started hearing things, weird noises in the trees. I got scared and took off, just drove, but I got confused again, and I thought I should go home and rest, because I was so tired, and my head was hurting so bad. It was a long drive, and I felt so sick and out of it I guess I didn't make it upstairs. I remember the alleyway. Do you think I should have gone back to Malas?”
Another pointless debate. “You don't know what happened to Cosmo? Or Roger?”
“Are they okay?”
I smiled reassuringly. “Absolutely.” Liar, liar pants on fire. “Everyone's just fine. Can you describe the man in the lake?”
“I think he was a forest ranger or something, but it was so dark out. No stars that night, no street lights out there, it's so… empty. Idon't know how anyone lives out there, how they stand it. So fucking dark.”
“This man in the lake, you said he was a forest ranger? Was he wearing a uniform? A tan uniform?”
“I dunno, maybe. Yeah.” She clenched her fists. “I should have gone back to Malas. I need to see Malas.”
“I'll call him,” I reassured her, though it was far too late for that, “and then I'll be back to speak to you some more, okay?”
“Thank you,” she said, closing her eyes. I stripped off my latex
gloves at the door, threw them in the hazardous waste bin, along with my surgical mask, and stepped into the hall.
When I came out, Batten looked seriously battle-ready, big arms crossed over his chest, legs spread in his authoritative stance, glower pulled down. “Declan's parking, he'll be right up.”
I pooched out my cheeks and exhaled slowly. “Problem.”
“Tell me.”
“Black tongue from a failed turning. She's been feeding on a revenant for two full days, but it hasn't been effective.”
“Who did the turning? Some local vamp, right? Why isn't it working?”
“Malas promised to turn her.”
Batten scowled, unconvinced that anyone would want to become a revenant, apparently, but just as obviously harboring unwholesome feelings about someone, undead or otherwise, reneging on an obligation. “Was he bullshitting her?”
“I doubt it. He's turned others; Gregori for instance.”
“Yeah, but that was like a thousand years ago.” Batten looked uncharacteristically pensive. “So why did this one fail?”
“If he'd been given the full three days, he might have succeeded, but she left after two, to go to one last party.”
“Might have succeeded?”
“Harry says it's harder to turn a woman, because of the whole womb-and-babies, bringing life forth thing. Even if she's not pregnant, a woman is tough to turn. It's her potential for connecting with souls that causes the problem. The fact that Anne is –or maybe was, or might still be — pregnant would have made it that much harder; he's not just turning her, he's turning the fetus, too, because it shares her blood.”
“Explain.”
“The man's part in making a baby, that's pure biology, planting a seed. The woman does a lot more. She's got her biological contribution, but she also invites a soul to fill that clump of cells, and that type of life-creating magic resists UnDeath. You're going to ask me about inviting souls, so I'll shut you up ahead of time: I have no fucking idea how that works. I am so not mother material, as I'm sure you'll agree.”
“You're saying women are less corruptible than men?”
“By UnDeath, yes.” I shrugged, palms-up. “Hey, buddy, what can I tell ya? I don't make the rules; I just enjoy the smug superiority the rules afford.”