"I don't think he'll need any more, Pet. You've already produced much more than I thought would be possible and His Holiness says the programs have been enormously successful. Especially the response to the freezing vaults." She sauntered to the serum cabinet and prepared three injections, each from a different bottle.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"It's time for a new series." She pointed to one filled with a dull yellow liquid. "This will be the last injection for that one and that one also," she said, tapping a green filled syringe. "The red one will . . . well, let's say it will do exactly what it's supposed to do."
"Why do you keep giving me this crap? It's not working. As you said—there's no miracle drug for MSM."
"Not yet there isn't, but I think we're getting closer. This series might be the one that will punch through, George. We have to keep trying."
He shook his head. "I pass on any more of your 'maybe this time' cures. Hell, I can't walk anymore and half the time I can't remember my own name."
Her head snapped up. "Can't walk? Not at all?"
"Not for three days now. Damn legs are useless. They'll barely support me long enough to get in and out of this chair."
She strode to his chair and ran her hands over his limbs. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You come in here, shove a needle in my arm, and you're gone. Why didn't you spend more time with your patient?"
She moved behind him and lifted his shirt. He could feel her fingers here and there along his back.
"I need to do a full torso exam. Let's get you into bed—it'll be easier if you're lying flat."
George could feel the dismay blush his face. "I don't need a damn torso exam. If you want to know something special, ask me."
"George, this isn't the time for you to be difficult. There is something happening here that may be the breakthrough we're looking for. Now, be a dear and get into bed."
Despite the thrill of hope that rushed through his veins, he hesitated. She didn't know about his genitals and he didn't want her to find out. Still, if there was progress toward wellness, what the hell.
Five minutes later, she pulled a silk coverlet over his naked body and with a brisk pat to the top of his head, strode back to the three syringes. "We won't need these after all," she said, throwing the green and yellow syringes into the waste emulsifier. Picking up the red filled injection tube, she returned to his side and with deft movements emptied its contents into his arm.
"Anything else you haven't told me?"
A thread of white heat raced up his arm, began to spread. Oh, jeezus, he thought. This one is going to be the granddaddy of granddaddies.
"No. That's it." He closed his eyes tight and tried to will the pain away.
"Oh, I don't think so, George." She chuckled. "Besides neglecting to mention that your genitals are retracting, you still haven't told me about the night vision or the salivary problem or the elimination irregularities. I was wondering why they were so late developing."
So late developing?
His eyes jerked open. He stared into her taunting face and read the truth gleaming in her eyes. Oh Dear God Christ Jesus! The room spun out of focus. A piteous creature with misshapen head and powerful black arms etched its image into his mind. He threw his arms across his face trying to blot the changeling from his thoughts, but it capered and cowed and screeched.
"You bitch! There was never a virility program and never any MSM." The words were a croaking whisper.
"No, no, no, my pet—there was a libido enhancing program, you just weren't a part of it. That research was strictly confined to the long-lifers. As for your Multiple Sclerothenia Myositis—you're right. No MSM." Her body shook with dry laughter. "Never any MSM."
For a moment, his rage overpowered the rising pain. "Damn you, Bianca. Damn you, damn you, damn you!" His hands flashed toward her throat. The fire in his veins exploded into his brain and his hands squeezed at empty space as his arms fell short of their mark.
"You're coming through this nicely, George. You will be my crowning glory, my new species, and there's nothing you can do to stop it."
Her mocking laughter sounded far away. You'll pay for this, Bianca Raborman. He tried to scream the message but no sound escaped his lips. She'll pay, he thought. If it takes me all eternity, she'll pay.
The words burned themselves into his soul as he gave his body to the fire.
Chapter 37
Sefura Raborman
With a book and a music cube tucked in the crook of her left arm, Sefura moseyed down the wide marble corridor. Every few feet, she stopped to rat-a-tat the fingers of her right hand on a tapestried wall panel. Reaching the ballroom, she set the cube on the polished floor and waltzed four whirling steps, holding out the book in front of her as if it were a dance partner.
"Miss Sefura, is all that noise necessary?"
"Yes, Adrie, it is." Sefura waggled a finger at the diminutive housekeeper standing across the room. "What with robins singing, the sun shining, and all the fruit trees in bloom, it's a beautiful spring morning we have to enjoy." Swooping low, she gathered the cube into her hand. "Time to air out this old mausoleum again." She danced across the room.
Smiling, the maid shook her head. "If Miss Bianca was here, you'd keep it quiet, I dare say."
Sefura wrinkled her nose. "I daaaare say. But Bianca left for Rome early this morning." She straightened the lace cap on the woman's head and tweaked her thin nose. "Relax, Adrie. We have two whole weeks to sing, dance, and holler our heads off. Isn't life wonderful?"
"I reckon it is, Miss Sefura," the woman laughed. "With you around, life doesn't have much of a chance being anything else but!"
Sefura curtsied low. "Why, thank you, Ma'am," she drawled. Straightening, she asked, "Is Mr. Kayman awake yet?"
"He's been awake since six o'clock this morning." The housekeeper's voice lowered to a whisper. "He keeps hollering he wants his shot."
The girl sobered. "He's sick, Adrie. Did you go into his room?"
"I would have, but his door's locked. He sounds so pitiful over the intercom." Adrie's face showed her curiosity.
"I'll take care of him." Sefura patted the maid's shoulder. "It's good you didn't go in. My sister wouldn't like it."
"I know, I know, but he sounded like a lost soul with all that moaning and hollering."
"Tell you what. Bring breakfast—mine, too—to Mr. Kayman's quarters. Buzz me when you get there. Okay?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
Sefura strode back across the ballroom to the corridor. "Oh, Adrie? Bring two orange juices also, and a big glass of milk. I'm a growing girl, you know."
"Pshaw! You're as growed as you're going to get, Miss Sefura. Next thing we know, you'll be bringing home a husband for me to feed."
Sefura laughed and headed toward the rear wing of the white marble palace. As she neared George's secluded quarters her mouth tightened. She had clung to the hope that Bianca would find a cure for his disease, but each time she came home from school, it became more and more difficult to hide the shock and horror at what was happening, more and more difficult to pretend that he would soon be the old George Kayman again. This time was the grimmest of all.
Last night, George had forced her to really look at the scales forming and the hands reshaping, forced her to look at him, the man in a wheelchair who watched his body rearrange itself every day. "There will be no cure, Sefura," he'd said. "This is just the beginning of what you're going to witness. I've been thinking about where I went wrong in the past and where I'll go right in the future. I was no saint, you know. Hell, if I could live my life over, there are a lot of things I'd do differently, starting with your—" His mouth had jerked spasmodically and deep in his eyes a strange glow flashed, disappeared. "I want you to know that I would never do or say anything that would hurt you. Never. For once in my life, I want to say thank you while I still can. Sooo, thank you for being my friend." Her eyes misted as she remembered and her compassion for those who hurt w
elled just as it had then. I will always be your friend, she thought. Always.
She stopped at wide teak doors and pushed a button.
"It's me, George. I have a present for you. May I come in?" She tapped her toe for a few seconds then again reached for the button. She held it down. "I'm coming in. Open the inner door, please."
"Go away, Sefura." His voice, thick and husky, vibrated into the corridor. "And take your finger off the goddamn bell!"
"Not until you promise to open your door." She waited, finger on button, and watched for the small green light that would tell her the inner door had been unlocked.
No answer, no light.
Keeping the bell pressed, she glanced at the red button recessed into the base of the intercom grille. One touch and the hinges of the inner door would spring loose, the doors would fall inward. "I'll use the emergency, George. I swear I will."
"All right, all right. Just stop that infernal racket."
A quick touch of her palm across the center panel and the teak door slid open. She entered a small anteroom. Another light touch and the outer door closed behind her just as the narrow inner door clicked open.
Inside, heavy draperies blocked out the light. Strange odors eddied in the stale air. Yanking open the drapes, she rolled the windows out, and turned to the oversized bed.
"Now, isn't that better?" The bed was empty. Behind her, she heard his breath rattle. She whirled. He sat on the floor with sloping shoulders, his overturned chair on the floor beside him. In his hand, he held the serum needle. His eyes pleaded.
"I tried to do it myself but I couldn't get it right." Hand shaking, he held out the syringe. "Please."
Taking the needle from his hand, she laid it on a marble-topped credenza against the wall and placed her gift beside it. With gentle care, she wrapped her arm around his waist to support his body as he struggled to seat himself in the wheel chair.
She reached for the lap robe folded neatly on the blanket bar at the foot of the bed.
"Forget the wrap, goddamn it!" His finger pointed at the table.
"Don't fuss, George," she said, tucking the blanket firmly around his legs. "There. Better?"
"I guess so," he mumbled.
Sefura threw the opened syringe into the emulsifier and tore cellophane from a new one. She looked at the row of serum bottles in a glass cabinet above the table. "Which one?"
"The last one in the row. The black one," he croaked.
She drew thick liquid into the syringe. It looks like a million years of death, she thought, shuddering at the image in her mind. Feeling his hungry stare, she turned. He had bared his arm; his eyes glowed with an unholy fire.
"Where? How do I get past those?" She pointed to his arm.
Slowly, he moved his other arm across his body. His clawed finger lifted a scale that was dark and hard, like a beetle's carapace. "Beneath. It has to be beneath." His eyes watched her every move.
Sefura swallowed. Holding her breath, she worked the needle point under the hard scale until she felt spongy flesh. She forced the needle in as far as it would go and pushed the plunger. With an explosive release of breath, she yanked the needle out and strode to the sterilizing vat. Behind her, his pain gargled against the silence. It was always this way: first the serum, then the serum's pain. Like a fire, he'd once told her, a hot, flesh-consuming fire.
Sefura clutched the edge of the table until the sounds settled into low, gasping moans, then she walked into the bathroom, grabbed a hand towel from the bar, and soaked it thoroughly with cold water. Ringing the towel almost dry, she returned to the man in the chair.
She patted the perspiration from his face and wiped his mouth. Wrapping a corner of the towel around two fingers, she smoothed it across his closed eyelids. "I am so sorry, George. So sorry. If Bianca knew how to cure the disease, she would. I know she would."
His eyes snapped open; in their depths lurked a rage so fierce that it took her breath away. He averted his face and heaved a deep gulp of air.
The bell clattered.
"That'll be breakfast," she said. From a small storage cabinet next to his bed, she dug out a blue tray and clipped it to the chair arms. She hurried to the anteroom and opened the exterior door. The waiting housekeeper tried to peek into the room, but Sefura moved to block her view. "Thank you, Adrie. This smells delicious. I’ll be here a while so don’t worry. If we need anything, I’ll ring. Okay?"
"Yes, Ma’am." The woman turned to go, but not before one last attempt to look inside.
Smiling, Sefura pulled the cart into the anteroom and closed the door. She stopped beside the marble table and gathered up her gift before pushing the breakfast cart to his side. "I hope you're hungry. I ordered enough for a small army." Her head tipped toward the elaborately detailed battlefield set up on the table next to his chair. "Speaking of armies, how's the strategy layout going?" She removed domed covers from plates and bowls and set them aside.
"Napoleon was a fool. I don't know why I'm taking the time to recreate this one." He pointed a shaky hand toward a wall-sized bookcase across the room. "Those manuals cover just about every major battle fought since the tenth century and I know 'em all by heart. In each of those wars, Sefura, if the head bastard had paid attention to what was happening he wouldn't have lost his battle. Instead, you know what he does? He starts thinking he's invincible, then he gets careless, and poof—no more victory. I suppose we all do that one way or another, though. Don't you?"
"Yes. Especially the careless part."
He nodded toward her hand. "You would think the queen’s jewels were stashed in that book the way you’re hanging onto it. Is that my present?"
"Yes. I found it in an old secondhand store," she said proudly, handing him the book. "It's the satellite battles of the twenty-first century." She watched his fingers shuffle awkwardly through the pages. "You don't have that in your collection, do you?" she said as she set his breakfast on the tray.
"No. There weren't many strategy manuals printed about that war and most of those are locked up in collector's cabinets. You were lucky to find this one." He picked back through the pages. "See this statuette?"
Sefura looked at the picture of a small golden stag.
"That's a Hittite Stag. The deadliest ground strategy ever devised took its code name from that little statue. That's what won the satellite wars. Not those phony air battles. No way to defend—unless you understand what's going on right in front of your eyes." He paused a moment, staring across the room at something she couldn't see. "But that's true in any battle, you know. Any battle."
He chuckled to himself, a low harsh sound. Sefura shivered from a sudden chill. With a shake of his head, he turned toward his Waterloo re-creation.
"Here. Let me show you how the Stag works."
"Later, George. Right now, we're going to eat before I faint from hunger."
His hand wavered clumsily as he reached for a spoon. "Hell of a hobby I have, isn't it, Sefura? It's getting harder and harder for me set up one of those things." He jabbed into the eggs, used a pointed claw to push a bite onto the spoon. "Nothing wrong with my mind, you understand. If anything, that seems to be getting sharper. It's my damn hands—and my eyes. I see better in the dark than I do in the light. Plays hell on my reading."
She patted his arm. "I'll read to you. Every night if you want. I can help you put your battlefields in place, too. I don't mind at all."
She kept up a running chatter as they ate. Afterwards, she described the play her sorority would soon present to the patients at Children's Hospital, acted out her own lines, and listened to his halting critique. She saw his hands begin to tremble and knew it was time for his next injection. Without a word, she rose and went to the glass fronted cabinet. Wrapped syringe in hand, she turned her head to him.
He answered her unvoiced question. "The one with a touch of Hell in it—the red one at the front."
He wheeled his chair to the side of his bed and dragged himself onto the soft blankets.
His eyes glistened with dread as he crawled beneath the satin comforter. "It won't let me not take it, you know."
"I know, George. Do you want me to stay with you?"
He shook his head. "Not with this one, Sefura. Not with this one."
She closed the windows, drew the heavy drapes tight, and pushed the breakfast cart into the anteroom. With a fresh towel prepared and placed on the table beside him, she positioned the music cube on the credenza below the cabinet filled with colored fluids.
The strains of Khachaturian's Masquerade Suite filled the room as she pushed the plunger. Pulling the door closed behind her, she heard his agony begin.
Chapter 38
Ellery
Ellery filled her son's cup with hot, strong coffee, poured a tall glass of orange juice for herself, and said, "Now, tell me about the Pittman Scrolls while I clear the table." She carried plates and saucers to the sink then returned for the breadbaskets.
"I'm sure eventually you'll tell me why." He grinned at his mother.
"Eventually," Ellery said.
"The Pittman Scrolls is the official name for Pope Munoz's translation of those documents he was given on his first Papal tour."
"The ones found in that old temple on the Triune lands?"
"The same. According to one news broadcast, Pope Munoz was so shocked by what he read, he submitted his findings to the Board of Religious Writings for verification. He was quoted as saying, ‘The people have a right to know the truth, and the Church has an obligation to honor that right.’ After months of deliberation and, from what I've heard, a few fist-throwing debates, the translation was finally authenticated as 'the definitive answer to man's creation.' Shock waves rumbled for months when the translation was incorporated into the Universal Doctrine."
Shadows in the House With Twelve Rooms Page 27
