The campus was empty of all but a few landscapers and maintenance workers. The student body had left for summer break in May and wouldn’t return for a few weeks. The student Beth and Thorne were here to inquire about, however, had been gone much longer than that—almost eighty years, in fact.
Her name had been Brigid Casey, and she’d attended her last class at Venerable Bede in the fall of 1937. She was the only child of Brendan and Margaret Casey, Irish immigrants who’d settled in New Harbor two decades prior hoping for a better life. The Caseys had sacrificed much to make it possible for Brigid to attend college—something rare for a member of their social station at the time—never knowing that a little more than two months into her sophomore year, she’d disappear without a trace, leaving nothing behind but a single class photograph.
It was that very photograph that had led Beth and Thorne here, to what might be the last living link to Brigid Casey. The photo had run, alongside a story detailing her disappearance, in the December 4, 1937, edition of the New Harbor Register. The paper’s microfilm archive had been uploaded a few years ago and was readily accessible. It was just a matter of mining enough data before the Division computers found something. They pegged it at a match of 99.4 percent.
Beth had seen the photo and didn’t need a computer to tell her that the face staring at her across nearly a century was the same one she’d seen on the fun-house roof in Asbury Park. Either the anomoly had once been Brigid Casey, or it had copied her visage exactly. Either way, they needed to know more.
Thorne followed the serpentine drive as it looped through campus. Eventually, they reached a squat stucco house. Venerable Bede had once been staffed almost entirely by Benedictine sisters. Now this convent was the final refuge for the few who remained, including the one they were here to see.
They got out of the car and approached the worn oak door. Thorne pressed the buzzer. A moment later, they were greeted by a wizened old woman dressed in a smart blue pantsuit and a white blouse. A crude wooden cross hung from a knotted cord around her neck. She didn’t look much like how Beth pictured a nun was supposed to look. No long, flowing dress. No Sally Field winged headdress. No ruler clutched in her hand ready to bloody the knuckles of some daydreamer.
“Sister Wallace?” asked Thorne.
“Oh . . . please. Everyone around here calls me Charity. Only the mailman seems to remember my last name.” She hobbled back inside, waving for them to follow. “Come in. Come in.”
The inside of the convent was even more hobbit-like than its quaint exterior. The walls were textured plaster, the floors wide-beamed hardwood. The halls were lined with shelves of dusty leather-bound volumes, their spines cracked and faded. The storybook effect was enhanced by Sister Charity herself, a gnomish, almost androgynous woman with short white hair and an impish grin.
According to their research, she was in her mid-nineties, but those eyes of hers sparkled with the intelligence of a particularly precocious child. And if Venerable Bede’s course catalogue was to be believed, she still taught Latin 101 and Classical Mythology every other morning at eight o’clock.
Sister Charity led them into a kitchen that looked state-of-the-art for about 1932. “Let me make us some tea,” she offered, already reaching for a battered kettle.
Thorne hovered near the door. “We don’t want to be a bother. We really just need—”
“No bother. Sit down. Sit down.” Sister Charity shoved the kettle under the tap. Water sputtered out with a stuttering clang. “I must say I was rather surprised when you called, Agent Thorne. I admit was afraid you were with the IRS. Render unto Caesar, and, well, you know the drill.”
“Nothing like that. And please, call me Ashland.” Thorne nodded to Beth. “This is Beth Becker. She’s working with us in a support capacity.”
“And what agency is it again that you work for?” Sister Charity asked, setting the kettle on the stove.
“Homeland Security,” Beth said before Thorne could respond. She offered up a quick good an answer as any shrug while Sister Charity cranked up the gas.
“Oh, dear me,” Sister Charity said. “I must say that I’ve never supported these foolish wars. Part of the job, you see? And I do have the right to free expression in my classes.”
“Nothing like that, either, Sister,” Beth said. “This is strictly informal.” She nodded in Sister Charity’s direction as she took her seat at a battered table. Thorne followed.
“Well, it’s not often we get visitors here, even informal ones, except for the odd student looking to ask for an extension on a term paper, of course.” Wistfulness overtook Sister Charity’s voice as she plinked tea bags into chipped bone china cups. She gazed through kitchen’s leaded-glass window as if she were peering into a past all but forgotten. “There are only four of us left now, four sisters. When I took my vows, it was at least fifty.”
The kettle started to whistle, and Sister Charity poured out the tea with practiced grace. Instantly, the kitchen was overtaken by the ripe scent of orange blossom. It was nearly narcotic, and Beth reached eagerly for the steaming cup.
“Now. How can I help you? I’d imagine that neither of you are here inquiring about joining the sisterhood yourselves.”
Beth did her best to suppress a laugh, and Sister Charity did her best to ignore it.
“Although,” she continued, “there is a special reward in dedicating one’s life to service. The motto of our order is Laborare est orare.”
“To labor is to pray,” said Thorne.
“You speak Latin.” Sister Charity was obviously taken aback.
“My father insisted that his children be well versed in the classics.”
“Rare man,” said Sister Charity.
Thorne declined further comment.
Sister Charity sipped her tea. “Of course, the sacrifice we endure is nothing compared with that of Our Savior.” She paused to make the sign of the cross. And although Beth wasn’t Catholic—wasn’t anything, really—she found herself struck by a strong desire to do the same. “But the fruits such sacrifice bears are manifest. And the grace we receive infinite.” Sister Charity turned those sparkling eyes on Beth. “But something tells me you already know that.”
“Me?”
“Yes. It’s something you radiate. You’ll just have to trust me that I know it when I see it. It is a special quality. A precious quality. One not to be taken, or thrown away, lightly.” Sister Charity took a long sip of her tea, eyes on Beth over the rim. Maybe there was a rap from a ruler in Beth’s future after all.
“You know, when the angel Gabriel told the Blessed Virgin that she’d been chosen to be the mother of Our Lord, her only response was ‘Let it be.’ ” Sister Charity chuckled, half to herself. “One of my students told me someone turned that into a rock-and-roll song. Can you believe it?”
“I think I know it.” Beth was at a loss for how to respond to the sister’s words. She’d never really thought of herself as anything other than a scrapper trying to make it through yet another shit pile of a day, not exactly saint material.
Thorne cleared her throat. “Sister Charity, we’ve come to ask you a few questions about an incident regarding a student here. It happened a long time ago.”
“Well, I remember all of my students. Almost seven decades’ worth.” Her voice rang with no small measure of pride. “And not just the special ones. Although I’ll have you know that we’ve had a few of those come out of here. One of my students went on to become a member of the House of Representatives and another a world-renowned pediatric surgeon. Not exactly common professions for women of that time.”
Sister Charity again flashed them her impish grin. “And I graduated from Venerable Bede, too, I’ll have you know. Although I wouldn’t exactly put myself in the same category. Now, which student of mine are we talking about, exactly?”
“She actually wasn’t one of your students,” Beth said. “It was a woman named Brigid Casey. Do you remember her?”
Sister
Charity set her cup down. Her focus went soft, almost inward. “Now, there’s a name I haven’t heard in quite some time.”
“She was a classmate of yours.” Thorne edged closer.
“More than a classmate. She was my roommate. More than that, she was my friend. So long ago now.” Sister Charity pressed one knuckle to the corner of her eye. “I pray for her often. For the repose of her soul.”
“Do you have any idea what happened to her?”
A fierceness overcame Sister Charity, washing away her gentle demeanor almost instantly. “I have my suspicions. And I told those to the police when they came asking that winter in thirty-seven. And again in the spring of thirty-eight. For all the good it did Brigid.”
“And what were those suspicions?”
Sister Charity stood. All five feet of the tiny woman seemed to suddenly fill the room as she took her empty cup to the sink and began to rinse it out. “At the University, they had a nickname for this college back in my day. You still hear it from time to time, but the years have dulled its bite, I suppose. Are either of you aware of what it was?”
Beth nodded, and she noticed that Thorne did, too. Every New Harbor local knew the slur once hurled at Venerable Bede and, by extension, the women who’d attended the school. It stood to reason that a graduate of the University such as Thorne would have known it as well.
They called it Vulnerable Beds, a throwback to the days when the University was an all-male institution. Rakish undergraduates would come up here prowling for sex among the Irish and Italian girls—known back then as “white ethnics”—and sowing whatever wild oats they had before settling down with a respectable WASP match.
“We liked to pretend that we were the University’s sister school. We even took their colors as our own.”
Beth nodded, knowing how common it was for the abused to adopt the ways of their abusers.
“But it was all a lie. And the men, well, the men would do what men often do. When they saw something they desired, they would take it. They would take it, play with it, and when they were done, they would throw it away.” Beth noticed that Sister Charity’s gnarled hand had balled into a tree knot, and she sensed a growing unease coming from Thorne, too. Something the woman had said seemed to have hit a nerve.
“Brigid was a pure soul,” the sister continued. “A trusting soul. Far more trusting than I ever was. And, as is too often the case, her reward was pain.”
“Can you give us any more specifics?” Thorne pressed. “Do you remember the names of the men?”
“There was only one. And yes, I remember his name. Emile Lascarre. He was a scientist from the University, she’d told me. They’d met just one week before she disappeared. She’d planned on seeing him the afternoon she vanished. Just a social call before curfew. I remember that it was snowing. It doesn’t snow quite like it did back then.” Again, Sister Charity looked out the window, out into the past. “The police were polite, but Dr. Lascarre had many friends, many powerful friends.”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
“I’d tried to keep track of him the best I could. He was a bit of a University darling. Then he disappeared, too. It was during the war. Who knows after that?” Sister Charity cleared their teacups from the table. It looked as if their visit was at an end. “Our Lord’s capacity for forgiveness knows no limit. Unfortunately, mine does,” she said, dumping the cups and saucers into the sink. “I do not contemplate Hell often, but when I do, I always see Emile Lascarre there.”
Forty-Three
When Jack arrived at the lab, Kander was waiting for him. His usual dourness was gone, replaced by schoolgirl giddiness. He immediately ushered Jack through a door at the back of the lab. “I need to show you something,” the doctor said, clutching his tablet in one hand and Jack’s arm in the other. “Follow me.”
“Don’t we have more work to do on the snap-vial gas?”
“Not just yet.” Kander was practically hauling Jack after him. “I think you need to see this first. I’ve made some rather interesting discoveries since our last session. And I believe you will find them of particular interest.”
The doctor steered Jack toward a steel hatch with a riveted viewing porthole set high in the door. Before Jack could ask any more questions, Kander was wrenching the hatch’s wheel. It twisted open with a thick puckering sound. Inside was only darkness.
“What is this?”
“It’s the . . . well, everybody just calls it the ’Clave. I don’t mind anymore, not now. It’s an isolation and decontamination pod I designed to house the creatures for observation.”
Jack gave the hatch a wide berth. “Don’t tell me you caught another one.”
“No. No. This is far more fascinating.”
“Decontamination pod?”
“Yes,” Kander replied, hastily stepping inside. “If needed, we can scrub the interior with a concentrated neutron pulse wave. Reduces all organic matter to molecular ash.”
“Charming.” Jack shopped short of entering. “And you want me to go in there?”
“Well, you aren’t going to be in here alone.” Kander’s voice was as gleefully impatient as a child’s on Christmas morning. “And believe me, what I’ve got to show you will be worth it.”
Jack shrugged and followed Kander into the dark confines of the ’Clave, ducking low to fit through the oval entrance. What did it matter? If Dr. Kander wanted him dead, all he’d have to do was wait a few more weeks; it wouldn’t take a concentrated neutron pulse to snuff him out.
Kander switched on the lights. The meager illumination revealed a stark cube. Three walls were enameled steel. Embedded in the fourth was a wide window that Jack noted was blocked by shutters on the other side. Other than that, there was nothing inside but a metal chair bolted to the floor and a pedestal covered by a sheet.
Kander closed the door. It sealed with a heavy magnetic clank. “This room is airtight and completely soundproof. Which is important. It’s the only place I believe we are out of reach of Agent Ross and his many busy bees.”
“Why is that important?” Jack asked, unable to take his eyes off the shrouded pedestal.
“Where to begin, where to begin . . .” Kander paced, barely able to contain his fevered elation. “Have a seat.” He gestured to the chair as if there were any other place to sit.
Jack shrugged and sat down.
“I’ve got some rather startling news for you, Jack. It concerns . . . No, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s begin with this.” Kander reached for the trailing edge of the cloth covering the pedestal, then whipped it off with a stage illusionist’s flourish.
Jack’s skin flushed hot at what was revealed: a long transparent cylinder and, inside, suspended in clear fluid, a very familiar-looking length of tentacle. “Where did you get that?”
“From the Asbury Park anomaly. It attacked the helicopter sent to retrieve the survivors of the Castle Amusements incident. This was severed in the door, I’m told. Ross didn’t mention any of this to you, did he?”
“No.” Jack peered at the tentacle and the ganglia hanging from the bottom of it. “What are those?”
“These protrusions?” Kander asked, pointing with his pen at the slowly twisting mass. “Still not sure. They grew later. It was a clean cut when I received the specimen. But watch.” The doctor clacked his pen against the cylinder’s base. The tentacle writhed. The ganglia twitched. “As you can see, it’s clearly awake.”
“How is that possible?”
“I’m still working out the details. But I’ve got a theory.” Kander turned his attention to his tablet screen. “Eyes front.”
Jack obeyed. Kander tapped his tablet. An image resolved on the shuttered window, transforming it into an enormous screen and the ’Clave into a cinema with just one seat.
“Liquid crystal film,” Kander offered by way of clarification. “Prototype from one of our corporate affiliates. Should be on every car windshield by decade’s end, I’ve been told.” Th
e doctor swiped a finger across his tablet. “This footage is from a few days ago.”
Jack watched as amorphous globules drifted aimlessly across the screen. “What are they?”
“What you are looking at are the only samples we were able to harvest from the specimen.” As if in agreement, the tentacle twitched from its perch. “Obtaining any material at all was nearly impossible. The specimen appears to possess the same protective abilities as the anomaly.”
“The armor scales, you mean.”
Kander nodded, his eyes fixed on the blobs drifting across the screen. “Now, this is a day later.”
A new image came up. The number of orbs had multiplied exponentially. And they were no longer simply drifting. Many had locked into a series of geometric patterns, almost like snowflakes. Some of those, in turn, were connected to others. The free-floating orbs scurried from lattice to lattice, dancing across the void in a determined spiral pattern. “Are those cells?”
“Not exactly,” Kander said. “Let’s refer to them as nano-structures for the time being.” The doctor paused, enraptured by the microscopic choreography unfolding before them. “Tell me, Jack, did you study viruses while you were in school?”
“A bit,” Jack admitted.
“Then you know that viruses aren’t exactly alive. While they exhibit many of the characteristics of living things, they lack crucial others, especially when it comes to reproduction.”
“Right,” Jack said. “They need a living cell, a host, to replicate inside of.”
“Correct. Some scientists believe that viruses, in fact, predate life on earth, but how could that be possible? How could they exist without a host? It would be like saying that computer viruses predate computers. It just doesn’t make sense. Unless, of course, they came from someplace else.”
As the Worm Turns Page 56
