Lisa had her own theories. Martinez, the neurologist, was probably in it for the money, though she was astounded that he believed he would live to collect it. Elder, the aging bacteriologist was fighting a severe alcohol dependency; it was either blackmail or lack of better opportunities in his case. Parkinson’s pinched face and tired eyes convinced Lisa that it must be threats that had drawn her into the web. She had once seen the other woman hiding a photograph of a young boy in her room. Hanick, the hematologist, watched the sports stations in their common room almost constantly and Lisa suspected he must have had gambling debts that had finally been called in.
In the case of Goodman, the team leader, the holds had not been strong enough. After three weeks, he’d escaped at the end of a rope wrapped around his neck. Lisa didn’t like speculating about that. Working with a leading immunologist like Goodman had been one of the few things that could have made this “project” endurable. And his death had left her, secondary expert, in reluctant charge.
And then there was her own motive. Was it any more or less believable than the tales she spun for the others? She tried not to think about it, but during the long hours of idleness, her mind would return and worry at it, as if it were a formula that would not make sense or a secret cell that repeated viewing would not reveal. But there was no mystery to it—only a terrible logic.
If Hanick had debts, then so did she. They were her father’s debts, true enough, incurred forty years ago in another land, but they were just as entangling. She had not known any of it until three months ago, when her father summoned her to her brother’s house where he now lived. She had gone expecting to hear another of his pleas for her to get married, or the increasingly rambling complaints of an old man against the perfidy of ungrateful sons and upstart wives.
Instead, her father was sitting in his upstairs room, dressed in a suit and tie, clinging to the frail dignity she had forgotten he possessed. Seated beside him was a middle-aged man with smooth, impassive features and cold eyes.
“This is Mr. Moro,” said her father. After pleasantries, she served the tea he had set out, and she waited, wondering what her father intended. Not an arranged marriage, surely not that. The cold black eyes that watched her were covetous but not, she decided, of her body. Finally, after rituals of tea and conversation were observed, her father spoke.
“In Japan, after the war, I was greatly assisted by Mr. Moro’s esteemed organization. Now I have an opportunity to repay that debt.”
“How?” Her father deferred to Mr. Moro.
“An organization with which we have done business has inquired after the services of a qualified and experienced immunologist for a confidential research project. Such are rare. If you were to consent to provide such services, we would be most obliged.”
“What sort of research?” He shrugged and spread his hands. His shirt sleeve slipped downward to reveal a tattoo around his wrist. As she was sure he had intended it to. “What if I am unable to participate?” she asked carefully.
“A debt unpaid is a great burden. It would no doubt weigh heavily on your father’s heart were he to die with such a favour still owing. It would bring great dishonour to his family. And perhaps great misfortune as well.”
She thought briefly of rebellion, of police, of flight. But only briefly.
“I could not allow that,” she said at last. There were more ritual pleasantries, then polite mentioning of the time, and Mr. Moro’s graceful offer to escort her to her car. She was careful not to look at her father, so that he could not see the anger in her eyes, or she the sorrow in his.
Mr. Moro’s car waited by the curb. She saw the shadowy shape of a driver behind the smoked glass. “Here is the number of the man you must contact. He will expect your call tonight.” He spoke in English, handing her a card that she put away without looking.
“You are yakuza,” she said and he did not reply, as if insulted by her stating of the obvious.
“The other number on the card is for one of our men. You will inform him of the progress of your work. If our associates have something of value, we want it.” There was no politeness in his voice now. “You do not work for them, Dr. Takara, you work for us. Your father’s debt is to us.” She stood at the end of the driveway, watching the dark sedan pull away from the curb and vanish down the street. When she looked back at the house, she thought she saw her father’s face in the window, watching her, but when she blinked, it was gone.
So here she was, bound by her father’s forty-year-old debt to the yakuza, forced to take an “emergency leave” from her research position at the university and trapped for two months in the sterile, windowless lab. She had not been able to call the second number. She did not know what she would say even if she could. If she told them the truth, they would most likely not believe her. And if they did, that might be even worse. The yakuza would have the same uses for the vampires—and the scientists—that Rooke did.
She heard a door slam, somewhere down one of the long white hallways. “It’s them,” Martinez said unnecessarily. Lisa put down her coffee cup and joined the others, gazes fixed on the doorway.
Now we see. Now we see if these bogeyman we’ve been brought here to study are real—or just a figment of some mad imagination. I hope they’re real, even if it breaks every rule of science and logic and reason. I don’t want to be the one to discover they aren’t. I don’t want to die for someone else’s fantasy.
The door opened.
The cold-eyes lab guards came in first, then the dark-haired, dark-clad woman, and then Rooke. She’s so young, Lisa thought involuntarily. Her face was pale beneath the dark hair and the odd, sharp angle of her shoulders was explained by the elbow-to-wrist metal leather restraints. There was an odd clatter as she moved and Lisa realized they had fastened steel fetters around her ankles. They looked shockingly shiny against the black stockings and shoes.
Rooke pushed her forward, holding the ultrasound at her back. “Dr. Takara, she’s all yours.” His voice was mocking, implying an authority she did not have. He was watching her, waiting to see how she reacted, if she recalled the instructions they had been given. She looked at the other scientists, but they were all watching the still figure flanked by the guards.
“All right, get the subject into the chair. We have thirty minutes ’till dawn and I want full samples done by then.” There was a moment of silence, then Martinez and Hanick moved forward to take the woman’s arms. Rooke handed the ultrasound to one of the guards. Lisa met his gaze for a moment. I remembered it all, Mr. Rooke. Do not call the subject by name, do not speak to her, observe full security precautions. And always remember that you’re watching me. Always. She turned towards the examination chair, making every line of her back a cold dismissal.
She watched as Martinez and Hanick undid the arm restraints and, still holding on to her arms, eased the woman into the chair. It had been an ordinary dental chair until it had been fitted with metal wrist and ankle restraints. It had looked like some ludicrous torture device the first time she had seen it, and her mind and her heart rebelled at putting anyone in it. Not even the films Rooke had forced them to watch had changed that.
He had done that the day he finally revealed what the nature of their research was. Or rather, he had used the film to reveal that nature, taking her alone into the video control room and fast-forwarding through the entire first hour of the film before he let the final moments run at regular speed. Then he had shown the tape of the film studio a week later, watching her face as the camera lingered over the dead bodies sprawled about the cavernous space. He had hoped to shock her, to frighten, and he had. The films, if they were genuine, were testaments to the physical existence and violent power of the creatures she was to study. But the image that lingered with her was not that of the sharp-toothed monster or the broken bodies but of the man in the expensive business suit fast-forwarding through the sadistic prelude to the murder. The monster he had re
vealed, she thought later, was perhaps not the one he had meant her to see.
The young woman did not resist as they strapped her into the chair. Lisa pulled on the rubber gloves as Elder pushed up the sleeve of the woman’s jacket and wrapped the tourniquet above her elbow. Dark hazel eyes focused for a moment on the needle in Lisa’s hand then flickered away. Lisa felt the flinch the woman hid. She’s afraid of needles, she thought suddenly. Not the fear of a Frankenstein monster for fire or of tuxedoed celluloid vampires for crucifixes, but the common human fear of needles.
As she rubbed alcohol onto the delicate, trapped inner arm, Lisa almost said, “It’s all right, it’ll be over in a minute.” Remembering Rooke, she kept quiet as she slid the needle into the blue vein and snapped vial after vial into the cylinder. The blood looked human. Lisa stepped back to let Parkinson start to collect the skin samples.
They were moving smoothly, grateful for the chance to act, to sublimate their fears into the skill they knew so well. Hanick took the blood samples from her and began labeling them, separating them for the tests he wanted to run. Martinez was bringing around the specially designed EEG machines, beginning to attach the spidery wires and pads to the still figure in the chair. Elder went through the rituals of measuring pulse rate, blood pressure, and the contraction of the pupils, the twitch of reflexes in the black-sheathed legs.
Sometime during the initial examination, Rooke vanished, leaving the silent guards beside the door as a reminder of his presence. The team ignored them and Lisa felt the white-hot ache between her shoulder blades ease, freed from the weight of Rooke’s gaze.
They had completed the first set of samples by the time sunrise (according to the chart posted on the wall; they had no visual clues to follow) arrived. The EEG whirred on, needles scratching out the mysterious rhythm of the subject’s thoughts. The woman’s half-closed eyes slid shut, the scratching slowed and settled until Martinez reached out and switched off the machine. “She’s out,” he confirmed. “Should we keep going?”
“Let’s stick to the plan. We’ve enough baseline indicators to keep us busy today.” Lisa turned to the guards. “You can take her now.” They did, one hoisting her over his shoulder, the other holding the ultrasound as they carried her into the narrow steel-walled observation cell that made up one side of the laboratory.
As they moved, a streak of white slid from her pocket to coil limply on the floor. Lisa leaned over to pick up the scarf, the sheer silk running through her fingers in a fragile white stream.
She put it in her pocket, then turned back to the lab tables where the anonymous woman’s blood and skin and brain patterns waited to be sampled, sliced, and spread naked beneath the remorseless eye of science.
Chapter 30
Ardeth swam up from the warm, comfortable darkness of sleep and surfaced into painful, fluorescent-lit reality. She lay still, eyes closed against the almost palpable weight of the light, testing the world around her. Far off, at the edges of her awareness, she could feel Rozokov’s presence, drifting like a persistent memory along the edges of her mind.
Falling back into her body, she became aware that she lay under a blanket. Her shoes had been taken off. She could feel the faint pressure of the bandage they had put over her vein. At the memory of the needle sliding into her skin, the silent indignities of examination, she felt anger begin to well up inside her. She clamped down on it, but let it linger, knowing that it masked the paralyzing fear she had known in the asylum.
She stirred beneath the sheets, shifting one arm to cover her face as she slitted her eyes open and looked around. This cell was as white as the previous one had been dark; as modern as the previous had been old. But the taste of the place was the same, she thought—stale sweat, urine and the copper bite of fear.
There was someone in the narrow room with her. A dark figure lay stretched along the other bed, one knee crooked up against the other raised leg, foot twitching rhythmically while the hands tapped a silent accompaniment on the sheets.
Ardeth closed her eyes for a moment. You knew this would come, she thought, angry at the sudden fear that suffused her relief. But grateful she’s safe, worry about what you’ll tell her later.
She forced her eyes open then sat up. On the other bed, Sara echoed the movement, coming up off the mattress in a spurt of pent-up energy. She stopped just as suddenly, halfway between their two cots, as if she had run into an invisible wall. “Well. You’re awake. I thought whatever they gave you would never wear off.”
“Whatever they gave me . . .” Ardeth echoed in momentary bewilderment.
“The drug that made you sleep like that. I saw the bandage over the needle mark. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. How about you? Did they hurt you?” Ardeth asked awkwardly, noticing suddenly the bruise on her sister’s left cheekbone and the ripped shoulder of her T-shirt. Though of course, she thought distantly, the rip might have been intentional.
“Not as much as I hurt them, I hope,” Sara replied with a brief smile. She seemed to notice that she was still standing and sat back down on the edge of her bed. “They sent a message that you were waiting for me in the alley. When I went out, they jumped me.”
“I was at the club. I must have just missed you.”
“How did you . . .” She stopped, ran her hand through her coppery hair, then started again, “What happened?”
“They called the club and talked to your friend Mickey. He told me what they wanted.”
“You.” Ardeth nodded slowly, aware that with each awkward word they were edging closer and closer to the questions she dreaded.
“I’m sorry, Sara. This never should have involved you.”
“I was right though. You weren’t dead.”
Ardeth took a breath and glanced around the room, to keep her eyes from Sara’s. She saw the camera mounted over the door, angled to encompass both of them in its dark lens and noticed the mirror on the wall over Sara’s bed, a window masquerading as a reflection. What will you tell her? they seemed to ask. What will you tell me?”
“I am dead.”
“Don’t give me that symbolic bullshit,” Sara said, the formal courtesy between them shattering with the abrupt obscenity.
“I died of loss of blood on April 8th. At least, I think it was the 8th. I lost track of the days. I was buried in the woods somewhere northeast of the city. There were four or five other women buried there too.” The words came out easily, as if they had been waiting to be said. I’ve wanted someone to know, she realized. All along, I’ve wanted to tell someone, just once.
“Ardeth.” There was mingled anger and pleading in her voice.
“I’d better tell it from the beginning, or you’ll never understand. It all started the night of Peter’s party, the night you were waiting for me to come home.” It was easy at first, a clear, concise storyline that led from Tony to Conrad to her own descent into the asylum dungeon. There, the story started to flounder on the rocks of words that belonged to the alien world of fiction and fantasy. “They had taken me there rather than kill me immediately because they needed me. There was another captive, someone they had to keep alive. The easiest way to do that was with my blood.”
“Your blood? You mean they took your blood and gave this person a transfusion?”
“No. I mean they made me put my arm into his cell and he drank it.” Ardeth was grateful for the sudden, shocked silence. It gave her time to think. She couldn’t tell the whole truth, not with the silent witness crouched over the doorway, but she needed Sara to know it. To know the essence of what had happened to her.
Sara opened her mouth, closed it again, and waited. Ardeth told her about the snuff film and the rape attempt by Peterson. She told her about her own fears, her fruitless plans to escape, the final realization of her inevitable death. She did not say Rozokov’s name or the word “vampire.” “I went too close to his cell. I may have done it on purpose, I don�
��t really know. He’d known all along that there was only one way to escape. I couldn’t stop him. I didn’t even want to. I let him make me drink his blood and then he drained away mine.” The lie was hard, remembering the true nature of the night, and the way her life had slid from her on a path made warm and slippery by pleasure.
“They buried me in the woods where they buried the other women. But the next night I woke up and went back to the asylum. We killed them all. We stole a car and came to the city. Then he left me.” That was the truth and for a moment the loneliness flared up in her heart, as sharp and desolate as it had been that night.
“Ardeth . . . I . . . What did you do then? Why didn’t you come home?”
“Come home? To what? I went to my apartment but it was no more than a hotel room to me. And I had to hide from Havendale. As long as they thought I was buried, I was safe.”
“You could have come to me.”
“And said what? ‘Hi, sis, I’ve come home. By the way, have any B positive blood in the fridge?’ I’m a vampire, Sara.”
“You really believe this, don’t you?” There was weary wonder in Sara’s voice. Anger sparked along Ardeth’s taut nerves, flamed to life.
“You’re right. I can’t be a vampire. I must be crazy. Poor, pathetic Ardeth runs off and thinks she’s a vampire. It’s the quiet types, you know, they always crack,” Ardeth said with sarcastic flamboyance. “Or maybe it was pre-thesis trauma. Maybe that made me give up everything, run off to live in abandoned buildings, and prowl around downtown looking for dinner.”
“Why did you, then?” Sara flung back. “Why come downtown, why make yourself look like that? If you really had to hide, why make yourself look like a B-movie vampire?”
The Night Inside Page 25