Eyes to See

by Joseph Nassise

  I immediately recognized the P-like symbol that meant “joy,” as well as the R-shaped one that stood for “ride” or “journey.” A few of the others also looked familiar, though with minor differences, such as the crossbar on the rune meaning “need” being drawn straight instead of being slanted to the right.

  But it didn’t take me long to realize that the same problem I’d run into dealing with the Chaldean was present with the runes as well. The letters and pictographs themselves were correct, in the sense that they were actual parts of the language in question, but none of them were fitting together with any coherent meaning. As word after word and phrase after phrase turned out to be gibberish, I began to wonder if the whole thing might be some kind of code.

  Like most boys, I’d played around with secret codes a bit in my youth. The two most common and easily utilized ciphers are those that either transpose the letters in the message or substitute some other letter for those desired. In the former, a simple word like “help” might become “phle” while a substitution code might use the next letter in the alphabet after the one desired, causing it to read “ifmq.” Once you knew the particular cipher used to make the message, it was usually an easy matter to decode it back into its original form.

  My stand-in was starting to flicker and I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep him around much longer. Rather than try to break the code, I spent the next half hour copying all of the symbols on the various photographs into my journal, so I could view them again without assistance. It was a good thing I did, too, for no sooner had I finished than my ghostly companion faded away, the energy needed to sustain his corporeal form drained at last.

  I was tired, but determined to find an answer. I kept working, and I was still struggling with it when later that afternoon Stanton arrived to take me to Brenda Connolly’s autopsy.

  14

  NOW

  Boston’s City Hall has to be one of the ugliest buildings ever designed by man. It is a multistory concrete bunker that looms over an equally depressing plaza, the former created by three academics with minimal building experience who won the competition held to design the place and the latter by the equally overrated I. M. Pei, who thought a featureless plane with stick figure statues would be just the kind of place to attract “the masses.” The inside is no better, for it is filled with dank, concrete corridors that always seem clammy to the touch. The center houses an open-air atrium, which, given New England’s penchant for being cold and wet more often than being sunny and warm, is simply a waste of useful space. The building is dark and depressing, a monument to technocracy that seems to suck the life out of you the minute you walk through the doors. It is somehow poetic justice that it was here that the city planners placed both the registry of motor vehicles and the city morgue, as if spending too long in one might lead you to end up in the other.

  After parking the car, Stanton led me inside the building and off to the left of the lobby where a set of stairs took us down a level to the subbasement that housed the morgue. He stopped outside the entrance before we went in.

  “The M.E. doesn’t know who you are, and I want to keep it that way. If you leave your sunglasses on and don’t say anything, we should be fine. He’ll think you’re some punk agent the feds sent over to annoy me.”

  He paused, searching for the right words. “I know this isn’t your usual thing, but give it a shot anyway. Like you said last night, it doesn’t hurt to cover all the bases.”

  Fair enough, I thought, nodding to show I understood. I didn’t tell him that unless the ghost of the dead woman was sitting in there with us, I probably wasn’t going to learn a damn thing. I intended to milk Stanton’s misconception of me as psychic for as long as I could. After all, the truth was so much harder to swallow. Why ruin a good thing if I didn’t have to?

  The room was far too bright for me to see anything but a mass of solid white, so I was forced to rely on my other senses. The smell of antiseptic hit me like a wave as I passed through the doors. Beneath it I could pick up several other odors: the dusty tang of old blood, the burning stench of cut bone, the cloying spice of the medical examiner’s aftershave.

  The room was quiet except for the voice of the M.E. as he dictated the findings of his external exam into the microphone I knew to be hanging over the autopsy table. I followed Stanton’s footsteps over to the table, where he and the M.E. exchanged the usual banter. I pretended disinterest and in the process I thought I heard Stanton whisper something about “the fuckin’ feds.” I knew he was just establishing my cover and so I pretended not to hear it.

  I didn’t need to see the room around me to know what the place looked like. Institutional gray walls, probably with the paint discolored here and there with moisture stains. A bank of stainless-steel drawers that housed the recently deceased lining one wall. Stark luminescent lighting that left little to the imagination.

  In short, it was depressing as hell and I couldn’t even see it.

  There was a certain heaviness to the room’s atmosphere, a palpable sense of anxiety and anger, and from the pressure in my head I knew that the living weren’t the only ones present. The ghosts hung back and didn’t bother us though, so I left them alone as well. No need to get them stirred up over something that didn’t concern them, and I was too worn out to utilize their senses anyway.

  When the M.E. got down to the real business of the autopsy, meticulously taking apart Brenda Connolly’s body, piece by piece, I settled on distracting myself with trying to categorize the activity going on in front of me based on the sounds that were made. The hum and whine of the bone saw were obvious, as was the crack of the splitter used to separate the ribs from the sternum. I didn’t know what the gurgling sound underlying it all was, but something told me I really didn’t want to know anyway, so I left it alone.

  After a while my thoughts drifted back to the mysterious writing and the code I’d been trying to break at home. I knew that unless I stumbled on a key sequence and was able to decode that, I could very well be working on cracking it for months, if not years. I simply didn’t have that kind of time.

  Still, there was something naggingly familiar about it, as if I had seen it before and all I needed to do was remember where in order to break it. But even that little fact eluded me.

  Something Stanton said caught my attention, and I tuned back in to the conversation going on before me.

  “Do you know what might have caused it?” Stanton was asking.

  “No. I’ve never seen discoloration like this before. It resembles postmortem lividity in some ways,” he said, referring to the phenomenon in which the blood will settle in the lowest part of a corpse and darken the flesh in that area as a result, “but it’s clearly not that. It’s almost as if the entire surface of her body was bruised at the exact same moment and with exactly the same amount of force, but the only condition I know of that can produce a result like that is being exposed to a vacuum. Somehow I doubt you found outer space in her living room.”

  Don’t be so sure, Doc, I wanted to say, but I resisted the urge and kept my mouth shut.

  “There’s no damage to the tissue itself however, so we can also rule out radiation or other high-frequency wavelengths.”

  I could feel Stanton’s impatience rolling off him in waves and wondered how long it would take for him to blow.

  Not long, as it turned out.

  “All right, let’s cut to the chase. How’d she die?”

  Harrington didn’t hesitate. “I don’t have the foggiest idea,” he said.

  Not the response Stanton was looking for, apparently.

  “C’mon, Doc, don’t give me that. You’ve got to know something.”

  I could almost hear the M.E. shake his head.

  “I’m not yanking your chain, Detective. I don’t have any idea what killed this woman.”

  I heard a clank and then the rustle of pages and figured Harrington had picked up the woman’s chart.

  He went on. “Aside from the
strange state of her dermal tissues, and of course her missing eyes, I can’t find any other sign of external injury. No gunshot or knife wounds, no evidence of strangulation or blunt trauma.”

  Stanton grunted. “So her heart gave out. Wouldn’t be the first time, right?”

  “I thought so, too, Detective, but the exam showed her heart to be in excellent shape, with no evidence of myocardial infarction. Nor have I found any evidence of a stroke.”

  “Poison? Toxic exposure to some chemical?”

  “Nothing that showed up on the primary toxicology screens.”

  Stanton grunted in annoyance. “So what you’re telling me is that whatever did this to her skin somehow also killed her, but in a way that you can’t detect?” Stanton’s tone told me he was well beyond mildly annoyed at the lack of answers and was moving rapidly into his “tell me what I want to know or I’m going to beat the living shit out of you” mode.

  It was time for me to cut in.

  “Tell me about the eyes, Doc.”

  I could feel Stanton shooting daggers at me with his gaze, but I ignored him and kept my attention on Harrington instead. He, at least, seemed thankful for the change in topic.

  “Hmm. The eyes. Nasty bit of work. Based on the nicks that can be seen around the edges of the sockets, I’d say the killer inserted a knife between the flesh of the socket and the edge of the eyeball itself, then simply applied pressure to pop the eyeball free. A quick cut through the ocular nerve is all it would take from there.”

  “But what’s the point? Why would anyone do that?” I pressed.

  “How the hell should I know? I’m not a psychiatrist. Maybe he wanted a souvenir. Or maybe the lack of sight meant something to him personally.”

  “Meant something?” asked Stanton. His tone said he’d gotten his anger under control, but I could practically hear the tightness of his clenched jaw and knew it wouldn’t take much to make him lose it.

  Harrington’s voice took on a professorial quality, one I recognized rather easily, for I had a tendency to slip into the same pedantic mode myself, and I wondered briefly where he did his teaching. Harvard? Maybe Boston University?

  “Meant something, yes, that’s right, Detective. Surely you remember your tenth-grade Shakespeare? The eyes are the window to the soul?”

  I recognized the famous line from The Taming of the Shrew right away, but when Stanton made no comment I decided now was not the time to share my love of literature.

  It didn’t matter. Harrington’s question had been rhetorical anyway. “Perhaps the killer took the eyes as a symbol of his complete mastery over his victim. From his view not only did he take her body, but he also took her soul, if you will. But like I said, I’m not an expert, so you’d best check with someone who …”

  Stanton cut him off. “Yeah, yeah, fine, Doc. We get it.” He paused, as if something new had just occurred to him, and then asked the question aloud. “Was she alive or dead?”

  The M.E. gave him a confused look in return. “I’m sorry?”

  “The vic. Brenda Connolly. Was she alive or dead when the killer took her eyes?”

  “Oh. Alive. Definitely alive.”

  I remembered the malevolent feeling I’d gotten staring at the symbols on the walls the night before and found myself wondering just what the hell was loose in our city.

  And how the hell we were going to stop it.

  15

  NOW

  By the time I left the M.E.’s office, afternoon had faded into evening. With my thoughts still churning, I hailed a cab, intending to go home, but we’d only covered half the distance before I asked the driver to pull over and let me out. I needed to think, and walking usually helped me do that, so after ascertaining from the cab driver just where I was, I headed off down the street on foot in the direction of home.

  For some reason that I can’t quite pin down, no one ever bothered me when I was out on my walks. The hustlers and the homeless, the gangbangers and the drug dealers, they all left me alone. It was almost as if they sensed something wrong with me, as if what I had been through had left some kind of taint on me that those operating on the level of their baser instincts could recognize, making them steer clear of me. The same seemed to hold true for the unnatural denizens of the city streets, though in their case it always felt more like they were granting passage to one of their own.

  At any rate, I was able to walk the streets at just about any time of day or night without being afraid of getting mugged or run over by some punks joyriding in a car that wasn’t their own.

  Tonight, like most nights, come rain or shine, there was a group of streetwalkers congregated on the corner of Sullivan and Tremont. I could hear them calling out to the passing cars as I approached, asking the drivers if they wanted a “date” for the night. Even though all I could see at this point was their vague outlines, I knew that despite the cooler fall temperatures they were still clad in the usual assortment of hip-hugging shorts, high heels, and low-cut blouses. Conflicting perfumes warred with each other for dominance; I was convinced that standing amidst them for any length of time was sure to permanently damage your sense of smell.

  They fell quiet as I reached their little group, stepping back and out of the way to let me pass. I could hear a whisper here and there at the periphery, the experienced ones telling the newcomers to stay clear of the “freak with the creepy eyes.” I was used to it and didn’t let it bother me.

  After I’d passed, one woman shouted after me from out of the crowd.

  “Hey, Ray!” she called, apparently in the belief that all blind men were named after the famous piano player or something equally stupid. “Tell me somethin’. Do ya like what you see?”

  Her wisecrack was greeted with gales of laughter from the other ladies of the night, as if it was the funniest thing they’d heard in the last week. But the joke, which wasn’t that funny to begin with, was now so old and stale that it had about the same effect on me as the breasts I knew from prior experience were being bared behind my back. I raised a hand and waved without looking, which only sent more laughter in my direction.

  Any other night, their antics would have been forgotten long before I’d even reached the end of the block. But tonight they lingered, mixing with the unease that had accompanied me ever since leaving the medical examiner’s office. Before long I was in a completely foul mood, cursing the memories the women’s teasing had conjured up—memories of time spent with Anne, of her laugh, her smile, the simple pleasure of holding her hand in mine or the feeling of her warm back pressed against my chest as she slept soundly beside me.

  I realized with a start that the bitter taste in my mouth was envy. It had been so long since I’d felt the soft touch of a woman’s flesh on my own, inhaled the scent of clean skin mixed with perfume, wrapped my arms around my partner. Hell, it wasn’t even the absence of sex that had me so riled up. It was the idea that they took the human companionship that came with it for granted.

  For one long piercing moment I missed Anne almost as much as I missed Elizabeth. My stomach cramped and I found myself on my knees, my mouth open as if I were about to vomit all over the place. I gagged, once, twice, but nothing came up and after a few seconds my stomach muscles eased off and I could breathe again.

  I fought my way back to my feet, pointed myself in the direction of home, and tried not to think of all I had missed during the search for my missing daughter.

  16

  NOW

  On the other side of town, the creature discarded the face of Officer Williams. In its place the creature put on the face, form, and clothing of the twenty-eight-year-old woman who ran the art gallery across the street from where the creature now sat, watching the front door from the safety of its car. It had parked on the opposite side and several yards up the street from the gallery itself, giving it a decent look at the entrance without making its presence obvious to the casual passerby.

  An open magazine sat on the passenger seat, and from behind the w
heel the creature glanced at the photograph displayed there, double-checking the individual in the picture with the one who was currently approaching the gallery from the south.

  “James Marshall,” the caption said, “Back Bay’s Own Master Carver.” A tall, thin, unassuming man, Marshall was the type the average person could pass on the street and never even notice, but the creature wearing the face of Marshall’s part-time manager and occasional bedmate knew the reality was far different. No matter how hard Marshall tried to mask it, the glow of power leaked through his shields, the shimmer of arcane energy looking like a cloud of fireflies surrounding his form.

  It checked the list it held in one hand; Marshall’s name was the fourth from the top. After it took care of him, there would only be another eight more to go, four of them right here in Boston.

  Time was running out.

  If it was going to finally free itself from the Master’s clutches, it needed to accelerate the process. Tonight, it would take the next step.

  It watched as Marshall unlocked the door to the gallery and disappeared inside. After a few moments, lights went on in the loft above; Marshall was settling in for the night.

  Time to go.

  It stepped out of the car, casually glancing up and down the street as it did so, checking to be certain it was unobserved. Satisfied, it crossed the street and walked over to the gallery entrance.

  It held the car keys up to the lock, pretending, and then reached out and calmly turned the doorknob, snapping the entire locking mechanism in the process.

  Opening the door, it slipped inside.

  Marshall had left the lights off, and the creature that had been sent to confront him did the same. It didn’t need the lights anyway; it could see perfectly well in all but complete darkness, and there was enough light filtering in from the street outside that it might as well have been moving in broad daylight.