Deader Still sc-2

by Anton Strout

  His initial fear from when we had first seen him tonight seemed to be gone, replaced with fascination. He turned away from us and looked down into the water.

  “Astounding,” he said. “Did you catch all that? The way my body broke down on a molecular level, and reconstituted itself by manifesting within those four statues?”

  “That doesn’t seem odd to you?” I said.

  “Odd, certainly,” Dr. Kolb said, his face a mask of excitement, “but think about the scientific implications of this. This is on par with King Midas or the myth of the philosopher’s stone …”

  Before I knew what was happening, Connor had reclaimed his bubble gun from the base of the tree and fired it at the jogger, blasting him with the spirit binding. The ghost’s face went slack.

  “What the hell?” I asked.

  “Sorry,” Connor said, not really looking like he was. “He was rambling. I need him a little more sedate than that—I’m certainly not going to argue with him whether he’s dead or not.”

  Connor had a point. Back when we had found the ghost of Irene Blatt in the coffee shop, she had been pretty adamant that she was still alive, too.

  “You were attacked yesterday,” Connor said to him. “You died.”

  The jogger, although much more sedate now, still shook his head. “I don’t see how that’s possible. I mean, you are talking to me.”

  Connor pulled out his cell phone. He flipped it open and called up one of the pictures he had taken at the scene of the crime yesterday.

  “Not to be harsh or anything,” Connor said, “but do you recognize that guy lying there half covered in a sheet?”

  The jogger squinted at the tiny screen. His eyes widened, and he nodded. His wet hair fell from its perch and hung off the side of his head again like damp seaweed.

  “Hate to break it to you like this,” Connor continued, “but the good doctor? He’s out … for good. Someone or something did this to you. Can you think of anyone who would want you dead?”

  Dr. Kolb laughed at that. “Want me dead? You’re kidding, right? I’m a scientist. My specialty is developing polycarbonate thermoplastic resins for communications and buildings. Who’s going to want me dead? Someone from a rival nerd consortium?”

  Connor looked agitated, but pointed at the camera phone. “Well, scientifically speaking, something made you dead, Doctor. Personally, I’d like to know who. I would think you’d like to know as well.”

  Dr. Kolb looked at the picture on Connor’s phone again. He screwed up his face, struggling to remember. If he could recall who had done this to him, or why, I was fairly certain it would be a huge step toward figuring out our case, not to mention helping Dr. Kolb pass on to the next life.

  “Anything you can give us,” Connor continued, his voice less harsh this time. “Anything at all, no matter how insignificant.”

  “I can almost see it in my mind,” the dead jogger said, still struggling.

  While Dr. Kolb gave it a good think, I watched the water for any signs of the crabs, even though the spirit that had been mechanizing them now stood before us. I shuddered at the thought of them crawling back up to shore.

  “It was like … like a dog,” he said with conviction.

  “A dog?” I repeated, then looked to Connor, raising an eyebrow. “Werewolf?”

  “Doubtful,” he said. “We’re not even close to having a full moon right now.”

  “I said like a dog,” Dr. Kolb said, clearly irritated that he was dealing with two people he felt were his mental inferiors. “Not an actual dog.”

  I tried to keep him focused. “Why don’t you describe it to us, then?”

  The dead jogger’s attitude morphed as he recalled the creature, his face full of fear.

  “Like I said, kinda like a dog, only hairless … with sunken red eyes …”

  Connor perked up at this. Dr. Kolb started to stutter, his fright overtaking him as if he were reliving the experience.

  “I couldn’t look away. I wanted to, God knows, but I was paralyzed with fear …”

  “This creature,” Connor said, “was its back kinda spiny?”

  Dr. Kolb nodded. His arms were held out in front of him, trying to push something invisible away.

  I moved closer to Connor.

  “You know what it is?” I whispered.

  He nodded and hit the speed dial on his phone. haunts-general popped up on the display.

  “Could it have been a vampire?” I asked. “Can’t vampires take canine form, do that whole shape-shifting thingie?”

  Connor rolled his eyes. “Don’t believe everything you see on the SCI FI Channel, okay? Believe me, kid, it ain’t vampires.”

  20

  I was freezing by the time Haunts-General showed up twenty minutes later. They started going about the business of releasing Dr. Kolb’s spirit. Whatever that entailed, I really didn’t know. My last encounter with them had been over Irene’s spirit, and the paperwork for dealing with a spirit like hers sans body had been enough of an excuse for them to leave her case in Other Division hands. Haunts-General had simply walked away from it. Tonight, thankfully, we already had the body and now the spirit of the late Dr. Kolb. Hopefully they’d be able to send the poor guy off to wherever it was that spirits were supposed to go after death, and Dr. Kolb would be one less apparition running through the park.

  As Haunts-General took over the scene, I described what had happened while Connor walked off for a bit. When I was done, I searched around for him, only to find him alone heading toward the nearest exit of the park.

  “So, if it’s not vampires, then what is it?” I asked when I was by his side. Connor really didn’t look like he wanted to talk, and when he finally spoke he sounded pissed.

  “Dammit, kid. You shouldn’t have reported it as vampires. You said it was vampires in the vision.”

  “I know,” I said.

  Connor stopped and turned to me. “Now the Enchancellors are probably going to come down on you for blowing the call. I’m sorry—come down on us. You were so quick to call it. Is that what they teach you F.O.G.gies? To make rash judgments? You know, for a secret society, you sure seem pretty keen on showboating.”

  I gave up. Connor started walking again, and I followed him.

  “So are you going to tell me what type of creature we’re dealing with or not?”

  Connor sighed. “Well, from what our dear dead doctor had to tell us—red, hypnotic eyes, a doglike creature with pronounced spinal ridge—I’m guessing we’re looking for a chupacabra.”

  I knew the name from the D.E.A.’s three-hour seminar entitled “Fee Fie Foes: A Refreshing Look at Cryptozoology from A to Z.” There had been handouts, but I was sure mine were lost somewhere in the paperwork scattered across my desk. What I did remember of the chupacabra was one key factor. It, too, was a bloodsucker.

  “They’re from New Mexico,” I said. We were at the edge of the park now. Connor walked though the gate, moved to the edge of Fifth Avenue, and hailed a cab. “Why would there be one of those in New York City?”

  A cab pulled over and Connor got in. He made no effort to move over, leaving me to stand, wet and freezing, on the curb.

  “Maybe you’d better read up on them, then,” he said, sullen. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you fill out the paperwork for reporting the missing crab statues? Maybe next time you’ll think before causing a stir in the Department.”

  He slammed the door shut and the cab sped off as the horror of more paperwork filled my head.

  I stood there, soaking wet, wondering if I’d ever again be able to go a whole day with dry pants. The odds weren’t looking good.

  By the time I got back to my apartment, I was shivering involuntarily, thanks to being soaked through. I barely had control of my hands as I went to unlock my door, but I finally managed to get it open on the third try.

  Thankfully, Mina was already passed out in my guest bedroom, so I wouldn’t have to deal with her. I considered that my luckiest
break in the whole of my night—well, morning. I hadn’t really thought about what I would have told her had she seen me coming in like this anyway. She never would have bought a made-up story about the old version of me getting mugged, but since she held the straight-and-narrow version of me in such low esteem, maybe she would have bought it. It was no matter—she was busy sleeping, something my body desperately wished it was doing.

  I counted myself lucky that I wasn’t scheduled to be on the floor at the Javits Center until noon the next day, but I still wanted to get up early to take care of a few things over at the Lovecraft, like seeing if my phone had come in yet or if Godfrey had anything on Cleopatra’s Needle. I peeled myself out of my cold second skin of clothing and took the most scalding shower I could stand in an effort to raise my core temperature back to normal. I hoped it was enough to kill whatever ick I had been exposed to just from jumping into the lake.

  The next morning I was up and out the door without having to interact with Mina, though I remembered to slip my lock picks in my coat pocket. The less I interacted with her, the quicker she would be gone when she got what she wanted out of me. When I hit East Eleventh, the front of the Lovecraft Café buzzed with activity, which was no surprise. At this time of day there was always a heavy mix of agents among the locals, which made what I was about to do slightly easier.

  I hurried back through the theater, which, for once, wasn’t running a horror movie, paradoxically giving it an eerie feeling. The general bull pen area of the offices was mostly empty, to my relief. I looked up at the dry-erase board high on the wall. It currently read “It has been 2 days since our last vampire incursion.”

  My feet felt heavy as I climbed the ladder. When I reached the top I wiped away the 2, recalculated the number, and wrote in 738. I slid back down the ladder before anyone could notice and headed for my desk, but there was the sound of someone clearing his throat nearby and I turned to look.

  Godfrey Candella had just come in through the movie theater into the offices, a notebook in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. His suit, as always, was impeccable, his tie knot perfect.

  “Good morning,” I said. “Anything about Cleopatra’s Needle yet? Translate the hieroglyphics?”

  Godfrey shook his head, then cocked it to the side, looking up at the dry-erase board.

  Damn. I had hoped to distract him from what I had just done.

  “Sorry, not yet. Too soon,” he said. “I wasn’t aware that there were any changes in the alert.” His voice was more curious than accusatory. Had there been any accusation in it, I might have just turned and walked away as fast as I could, but instead I stepped closer.

  “Yeah,” I said with a whisper and a sheepish grin. “My bad. There’s probably going to be a lot of paperwork involved in retracting that, but I just thought I’d get it off the board first.”

  “A lot of paperwork?” Godfrey said, his eyes bulging. “Please. That’s the least of it. I already have the Gauntlet updating all the archives in preparation for documenting the antivampire operation. I even had overtime approved by the Enchancellors, and that never happens.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and I truly was. I didn’t want to create more work for anyone. I sat down heavily on the edge of a nearby desk and rubbed my eyes. “I just thought it would impress the Order if I had something big like that under my wing, you know? And when I saw all those dead people on the boat, I was almost chomping at the bit to call ‘vampires’ on it all.”

  Godfrey seemed to process that for a minute before speaking up. “So, if it’s not vampires, what is it, then? Do you have any other guesses?”

  “Connor said it’s probably a chupacabra. I hoped to get a little research in before I have to head up to the convention center. I need to grab some reference materials on them.”

  “You don’t need books,” Godfrey said. “Chupacabra, eh?” Behind his glasses, his eyes rolled up and to the right as his brain accessed some little referential nook or cranny. He smiled. “What would you like to know?”

  I pulled out my still-wet notebook. I read through the few notes I had made.

  “So they’re bloodsuckers, yes? Piercing fangs and red eyes?”

  Godfrey nodded. “They can hypnotize with those eyes as well.”

  I flipped through my notes to where I had written down the description that the booze cruise employee Maggie had given me of the strange creature she had encountered on Pier 84.

  “Could this thing be mistaken for a dog?”

  Godfrey thought a moment, then nodded. “I could see that,” he said. “Yes. Some have been noted to have these spiny ridges or thick fur all over them. I’ve only seen a few National Enquirer-level photos of them. A dead one was supposedly found in Nicaragua. But from some of what I’ve seen, they could probably pass for, or at least be mistaken for, a dog.”

  “Good,” I said, making a few new notes.

  “Does that help?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. It confirms a lot of what Connor was thinking.”

  Godfrey smiled, pleased. It made my own shame over calling “vampires” on the case by mistake easier to bear.

  After Godfrey left, I was a lot more knowledgeable than I had been several minutes earlier, but still wondering why a chupacabra was now in New York City.

  I pulled out the photo blowups of the Dr. Kolb crime scene. I had been sure that Cleopatra’s Needle figured in to this. Maybe I had watched Nosferatu one too many times, but I had already imagined a lone vampiric figure skulking around the base of the monolith, finding secret meaning in the ancient hieroglyphs chiseled there. I found it hard to believe there was nothing arcane about it, except now I imagined this doglike creature piddling on the base of it before moving along. If there was any significance to the needle, it was beyond me. I gave the pictures another look, this time checking out everything the camera had captured, ignoring the monument.

  In the photos, there were trees, lots of them. Then there were shots of the crime scene itself. It wasn’t terribly gruesome as far as crime scenes went, except for the bloody bite marks on the victim’s neck. Other than that, there was very little blood left, which was what foolishly led me to think vampires in the first place. Several photos showed the police officers who were blocking off the crime scene, many of whom I recognized. And then I saw one more face that I recognized as well, off in the distance and just barely visible through the trees. I leapt from my desk, folded the picture, and stuffed it into my jacket pocket as I headed for the streets. I needed to get over to the Javits Center right away.

  I needed to know why Illinois gypsies had also been in that area of Central Park that day.

  21

  I stopped by our booth long enough to throw the picture in front of Connor. He was still trying to figure out what was so important in it when I took off at a run through the crowds and toward the stall where the Brothers Heron were set up. I heard him cry out behind me, “Kid, wait,” but I didn’t turn back. I was too pissed off.

  When I spied the quaint old gypsy wagon, all three of the brothers were busy rearranging their wares on the tables in front of it. The older, balding one, Marten, looked up and smiled at me at first, but it faded in an instant when he saw that I was running toward the three of them. I was cruising now and people were getting out of my way. Before Marten could warn his brothers, I leapt up over their table, tackling the weakest-looking one, Lanford. He had been the one I’d spied in the photos. There had been no mistaking his gawky features in the background of Connor’s pictures.

  “What the hell did you release out there?” I shouted. I scrabbled onto my knees and sat on his chest, pinning him down. I pulled off one of my gloves. “You tell me, or so help me God, I’ll rip it out of your mind.”

  I could feel the electricity swirling in me. The more emotional I got, the harder it was to control my power, but right now I didn’t care. I had only dragged information out of one other person before—Faisal Bane, the leader of the now-defunct Sectarians—and
it had left me a gibbering idiot afterward. I was willing to take that chance here if I had to.

  If I’d had a chance, that was. Two hands grabbed the sides of my shoulders and lifted me like I weighed nothing. Julius had me completely under his control, like I was a prize in one of those claw vending-machine games. He set me on my feet. Then, before I could move, he wrapped one of his meat hooks around each of my arms to restrain me.

  “I don’t think you want to be attacking my brother,” he said.

  Marten reached up and patted Julius on the shoulder.

  Lanford slowly got back on his feet, but he was visibly shaken. Despite the odds turning totally in his favor, he was still afraid.

  “Do you know what the penalty is for bringing cryptozoological contraband into the tristate area?” I shouted at him.

  Lanford shook his head. I didn’t know what the penalty was either, specifically, but at least I knew it was illegal.

  “Did you bring a chupaca—” I started to say, but Marten stepped around behind me and shoved his hand over my mouth.

  “That will be quite enough of that on the show floor,” he whispered, leaning in. “We don’t need you screaming that out.” His face softened and he gave me his best huckster smile. “We’re not bad people, Simon, but it’s true we sometimes do bad things. Or bad things happen to us. It’s the curse of being born Romnichal, sadly. Still, we can’t have you drawing attention to us.”

  I wanted to shout into his hand or at least bite it, but I decided to conserve my energy for now. I could feel my power coursing wild through my body, and I needed to calm myself down. My fingers were starting to glow with power.

  Marten grabbed my left arm by the sleeve of my coat, careful not to touch my hand as he pulled my other glove off.

  “Very interesting,” he said. Lanford stepped closer.

  Marten flipped my hand over, palm up, and looked over at his skinny brother.

  “Lanny? Will you do the honors?”