“A Ms. D’Arbonne is going to take me to see her this afternoon. You need to drink before your body pulls you back down into shock.”
“I have questions.”
She nodded. “I’ll talk while you drink.”
She anticipated nearly every question so I didn’t have to ask them. The bodies of Kyle, Lance, and Beau had been cremated in the backyard. Clay was currently laying brick to replace the scorched earth with a barbeque pit. The windows and the doors had been repaired or replaced. There was still some work to be done on the fireplace in my study and the wall separating the living room from the den. A new fish tank had been ordered—acrylic instead of glass—and Deirdre had picked up a new computer for me—a laptop. She had spent the better part of the last two days watching over me and reinstalling software and files from her bedside post.
Kurt was insisting on our immediate relocation to New York or he was coming down with a small army to fetch me.
And the dusty remnants of The Kid had been gathered and placed in an urn. They now waited on the fireplace mantel downstairs in the study. Billy Bob Montrose was coming by after dark to discuss funeral arrangements.
I felt an unaccustomed surge of emotion as I thought about The Kid. Was this what grief felt like? I couldn’t quite remember. Since I parted from Lupé a big hollow bubble had swelled inside my chest, numbing all feelings except for a slow pulse of anger. That pulse was quickening, now.
Anger was a fine emotion. Strong and sharp and pure. It motivated. It sought results and resolutions. Grief paralyzed. It muddled the mind. I couldn’t bring the little twerp back but I could avenge his death. This Dr. Pipt might be some sort of mad scientist but now he was dealing with one very pissed off lab rat!
“And the monster?” I asked as I finished off the second glass and dabbed at my mouth with a napkin.
“Gerald and I performed crude, sectional autopsies in the downstairs bathtub. You, um, might want to use the upstairs shower for another day or so.” She pulled back the covers and began to unfasten the splint around my leg. Apparently two days were sufficient for my accelerated healing factors. “I think it will be easier to show you, than tell you,” she said, extending her hand to help me up.
* * *
The damn thing was a cyborg—a creature that was half living organism, half machine. Well, not half and half, actually; more like seventy/thirty. But that thirty percent of hardware made all of the difference.
“I’ve sent tissue samples back to Seattle for more detailed workups,” Mooncloud said as I considered the sectional samples encased in Tupperware in the basement freezer. Other components of metal, plastic, and wire—grafted with bits of flesh and pieces of bone—were laid out on available surfaces. Deirdre wasn’t going to be using the weight bench or the tanning bed for the next couple of days.
“Organs, skin, limbs,” she catalogued as I closed the lid on the gruesome assemblage. “I also sent on some of the finer cybernetics and implants but I wanted you to see this.” She handed me a skull. Once upon a time it had been a human skull; large, but not large enough. Surgeries had been performed to enlarge and reinforce it with steel bands and plates. And the jaws had been outfitted with hydraulic fangs. Fangs that were actually extendable hypodermic needles.
“The plastic tubing ran from here,” Mooncloud used her pen to tap the nozzles at the back of the hollow spikes, “through twin pumps surgically implanted beneath the pectoral muscles. From there they would carry . . .”
“My blood,” I offered.
She nodded. “ . . . your blood down to collection reservoirs in the abdominal cavity. The actual containers were plastic but they were shielded with steel and Kevlar.”
I handed the rebuilt skull back to her. “So, this thing wasn’t really a vampire of any sort. It was just a giant syringe on legs.”
Mooncloud nodded. “Sent to collect, store, and safely transport your blood.”
“And I guess its vital organs were shielded with armored implants. No wonder it was so hard to kill. There must have been a half-inch steel plate in front of its heart!”
“Well, not exactly . . .” She handed me a metal ovoid the size of a cantaloupe with four nozzled openings. “This was its heart.”
I hefted the mechanical pump and turned it over in my hands. Something was stamped along a nearly invisible seam. “What’s this?”
“Do you have a magnifying glass?”
“Up in my study.”
“Let’s go.”
We went.
Pulling a small magnifying glass from my desk drawer, I placed the artificial heart under a lamp and moved the lens until I had the best resolution. The stamped letters read Ozymandias Indust.
“Ozymandias Industries?” Mooncloud said when I showed it to her.
“Like the poem?” Deirdre asked. She had shadowed us all the way but hadn’t spoken until now.
“Poem?” Mooncloud repeated.
“By Percy Bysshe Shelley,” I explained. “It tells the story of a traveler in a distant land who comes across a giant statue, shattered and half obscured by the desert sands. The face on the statue is cold and haughty; the inscription on the pedestal is haughtier still.”
“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair,” Deirdre murmured.
“It is quite an accomplishment,” Mooncloud said, picking up the mechanical marvel.
“The point of the poem,” Deirdre elaborated, “is that this great king’s mighty works were already forgotten, disappeared into time’s oblivion.”
I had nearly forgotten that Damien had first met Deirdre in a library.
“So,” mused the good doctor, “does this Pipt fancy himself the great king? Is he supposed to be Ozymandias?”
“If you’d seen the email he sent me, you’d be thinking more along the lines of Ozzy Osbourne.” I felt my lips twitch toward a smile in spite of my mood.
“Or maybe Oz, the great and powerful?” offered Deirdre. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”
“’Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man,’” I muttered, “’that he didn’t, didn’t already—’” My blood suddenly ran cold. Given my unique biochemistry, that phrase was probably more than a euphemism. I set the magnifying glass down very carefully.
“What?” Deirdre wanted to know. “What is it?”
I fumbled for the chair behind me so I wouldn’t end up on the floor. Again. “I think I just cracked the code.”
* * *
“You see, the problem is that most people’s familiarity with the works of Lyman Frank Baum is relegated to an MGM musical motion picture released back in 1939.” I spread a series of colorful booklets across the dining room table and picked up the first one. “That movie was loosely based on the first Oz book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”
“When I was a little girl,” Deirdre said, picking out a volume from the latter third of the series, “I always wanted a pair of ruby slippers.”
“Hollywood revisionism.” I laid the book back down. “They were silver slippers in the book but Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer wanted to make the most of the new Technicolor process. That change was just one of many.” I began sorting the books into distinct groups. “There are forty official Oz books, dating from 1900 to 1963. Baum wrote the first fourteen. Confining ourselves to the official oeuvre alone presents us with hundreds of characters. The Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion seem pretty normal once you get deeper into the series.”
Dr. Mooncloud picked up a copy of The Magical Mimics in Oz by Jack Snow, published back in 1946. “I didn’t realize you collected children’s books.”
“Professor Cséjthe teaches American Lit,” Deirdre said without raising her eyes from her 1937 copy of Ruth Plumly Thompson’s Handy Mandy in Oz. She turned another page.
“I’m on sabbatical this semester. Hope it’s not permanent. Anyway, I kept thinking this name Pipt was familiar but I just couldn’t place it. The first association that always came to mind was Pip in Charles Dickens’ Great Exp
ectations.”
“And then there’s Gladys Knight,” the redhead said absently.
Taj smiled. I just ignored her. “But it just occurred to me that there is a ‘Pipt’—a Dr. Pipt—and he’s a character from Baum’s Oz stories.”
Dr. Mooncloud cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “Coincidence? What does he do?”
“Well, he’s more of a sorcerer than an actual doctor. His main claim to fame is the Powder of Life, a magical residue that bestows living status on any inanimate object it is sprinkled on.”
“Any inanimate object?”
“Well, it worked on his phonograph. Made it dance around the room. More notably, it was responsible for animating some significant citizens of Oz: Jack Pumpkinhead, the Sawhorse, the Gump, the Glass Cat, and—” I held up the seventh book, “—the titular character of this adventure.”
Deirdre glanced up, did a double-take, and grabbed the book for a closer study of the cover. “It’s her!” She jabbed a finger at the young woman frolicking on the tattered book jacket. It’s a caricature, of course, but it’s her!”
Dr. Mooncloud moved to where she could read the title: “The Patchwork Girl of Oz?”
I nodded. “She was created to be a servant for Pipt’s wife, Margolotte. Her name was supposed to be Angeline . . .”
“Angeline?” Deirdre asked.
“Yeah. But the Glass Cat called her Scraps.”
* * *
I was lying on my bed, waiting for sunset.
Even though I had slept for two days, a healing trance was not the same as a restful repose.
And, according to Dr. Mooncloud, I was clinically depressed, as well.
She said it wasn’t unusual for those who found themselves living the vastly altered life of the nosferatu. The fact that I was stuck between the worlds of the living and the undead made my depression all the more inevitable. She gave me a bottle of pills she called “mood elevators” and urged me to come back to Seattle for some head sessions with a Dr. Melder.
I guess vampires need shrinks since the confessional was clearly out of bounds . . .
Maybe I was having difficulty coping. And maybe the biochemical changes in my cerebral cortex were coloring my point of view. But the emotional lassitude that had settled over me like a heavy dark shroud wasn’t mysterious at all.
The Kid was dead. Well, by most definitions, he had been dead for approximately eight decades. But now he was gone, as well. Suddenly. Savagely.
Because of me.
Others had died. Because of me.
My wife and daughter were dead because of me.
My unborn child might die because of me.
Lupé had almost died—was keeping her distance now—because of me.
I had spent the past year worrying that the necrophagic virus in my system was going to turn me into a monster someday. If the rules of cause and effect were to be believed, I was already there.
I had promised myself oblivion before it came to that, a sacrifice rather than a suicide, for the good of the world. What further purpose could my existence serve other than to bring more pain and death to others around me?
Kurt seemed to think I had a higher destiny. That my occupation of that twilight realm between the darkness and the light was a pivotal point for bringing change. But change to whom? And what kind of change?
Could I marshal the forces of darkness and lead them, like an army, into the light? How could I lead, much less entice, them when I seemed incapable of finding my own way?
Come to New York, he insisted. Confront the power-hungry traditionalists in the East Coast enclave, face them down. Show them that the Children of the Night can peacefully coexist with their Siblings of the Day.
But there was no peace in my own heart now.
And the “opposition” was bigger than that. The opposition was widespread. Most of the true opposition didn’t know my name or that I even existed. The struggle wasn’t really a personal one: by its very nature, my existence was a gauntlet thrown down to both realms, the light and the darkness. And since I couldn’t take refuge with one side to resist the other, I was merely fighting a holding action. And that, not for long, given the size of my battered little faction.
How could I make a moral stand when defeat was inevitable and everyone around me was certain to die? How could I ask—how could I allow them to discard themselves for a hopeless cause? What point would be served other than to prove my values wrong and needlessly fatal while cementing the position of the darker status quo?
I had two choices.
I could run and hide. In a sense, that’s all that I had been doing since the accident that had killed my wife and daughter. Gee, look at how well that strategy had worked out.
Or I could switch from defense to offense. No hope of winning there, either. And more of the people around me would die before it was over.
More of the people around me would die whichever way I went.
So, the first order of business was to divest myself of my human—and not-so-human—shields.
“’It is only as a man puts off from himself all external means of support and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail.’” Deirdre was standing in the doorway. “’He is weakened by every recruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town?’”
“Now,” I said, “you get out of my head.”
“I’m not psychic. It’s Emerson, not telepathy.”
“And you quote Ralph Waldo because . . . ?”
She came into the bedroom, partially closing the door behind her. “You’ve been reading his essay ‘Self Reliance’ a lot lately.”
“So?”
“I think you’re prepping for New York.”
“Prepping?” I decided to sit up. Discovered that I lacked the will to do so.
“Psyching up.” She walked over and pushed my legs over so she could sit on the side of the bed. “I think you’re getting ready to make a run for it.”
I put my hands behind my head. “That would be the smart thing to do.”
She shook her head. “I mean from us. You’ve always worried about putting other people in danger and this latest attack has just underscored all of your fears.”
“The Kid is dead. If you or Suki were human, both of you would be just as dead as her badass trio. Lupé thought the wedding was going to be problematical but just getting engaged damn near killed her!”
“And when you look around, do you see her?”
“No.”
“Do you see me?”
Yes, I saw her. She wore a turquoise shirt, unbuttoned to show the curve of her throat, descending to the swell of her bosom. My eyes were not held by the shadowy hillock of cleavage but by the faint ticking of her carotid as it slipped along the side of her neck. I forced my gaze back up to her face. I was still in trouble there. “Yes.”
“Tell me to go away.”
“Okay. Go away.”
She smiled. Her lips were slow and lazy: “No.” She leaned over me. “Did you tell Lupé to stay away?”
“No. But I might have. Should have.”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. She’s an adult. She chose not to come. I’m an adult. I’ve chosen not to go.”
“She was seriously injured, Deirdre. She couldn’t be moved.”
“Maybe that same day. But she’s a lycanthrope, Chris. She’s been up and around since. She chooses not to be here.”
“That’s her business.”
“Yes,” she said, “yes it is. So don’t be playing head games over how everything that happens is your fault. We’re all grownups. We all make our own choices. You’re not some complicit puppeteer.”
“Okay . . .”
Her smile changed. I thought it grew wistful though it was hard to see as her proximity was now blocking the light. “Don’t run . . .” she murmured.
I said nothing.
“Don’t run,” she whispered, “from me . . .” Her face came down and her lips brushed mine.
“Deirdre,” I said quietly, “I’m not feeling very well right now and neither are you. We’ve lost friends and colleagues. We’re battered and bruised on the inside as well as the out.”
“We could help each other feel better . . .”
“I love Lupé.”
“But does she love you?” She read the hesitation in my eyes. “Can she love you the way you need to be loved? Can she do this?” Her lips crushed mine. Her mouth was hungry and I felt the suggestion of her tongue against my teeth. “She can’t even bear to have you touch her!” she gasped against my mouth. “What could she offer you even if she was here? Could she give you this?” She grasped my hand and guided it to her left breast. Belatedly I realized her shirt had come unbuttoned. When did that happen? There was no bra—neither now, nor, apparently, during the times she went sunbathing. And, aesthetically speaking, her bosom was about as perfect as any you might find outside of what we euphemistically call a men’s magazine.
But it wasn’t Lupé’s breast.
“Kiss it,” she murmured.
“No. Deirdre, I—”
“Then bite it!” Her hand was suddenly before my eyes, my fanged dental appliance resting in the cup of her left palm. Even though I didn’t possess the half of the recombinant virus that grew the preternatural incisors, modern dentistry had found ways to compensate. “Put your teeth in your mouth,” she whispered, breathing heavily, “and then put them in me!”
“No.”
“You’ve done it before.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“You’re lying!”
I was lying. I was thirsty. I was more than thirsty, I was hungry. I was hungry a lot these past few days and never so aware of how everyone’s pulse seemed to throb against the sweet, sloped sides of their necks. Deirdre’s sudden shift from sex to food had caught me off balance and it took me longer than I intended to just say: “No.”
She swore softly as she took the razor-sharp fangs between the fingers of her right hand. “They should take your picture and put it in the psychology texts under ‘passive-aggressive’ . . .” She brushed her hand across her breast and suddenly there were two red lines tracing the inside curve of her cleavage. Blood, red and warm and ripe with promises began to well up along the cuts and drool towards her midriff. “Dinner’s on me,” she said, pulling back the sides of her shirt and leaning toward my mouth.
Habeas Corpses - The Halflife Trilogy Book III Page 14
